We are just days from the kickoff of the 2022 season. The Hokies will travel to (checks schedule)…Norfolk to take on Old Dominion. Wait, Norfolk?
Not Tennessee at a NASCAR track. Not USC or West Virginia in an NFL stadium. Not Alabama in Atlanta.
Old Dominion. In Norfolk.
And so kicks off the first year of life outside the P2. Sure, the Hokies are still in the ACC, and so are Clemson and Florida St., but if and when VT is left out of the next round of conference realignment, the fanbase will look back on this season as its preview of coming attractions.
This season brings with it a rather bland road slate, but all the games are pretty close to Blacksburg.
The question I keep coming back to - is it really that bad? Yes and no. Let’s examine.
The Baseline
From 2012-2019 (I’m omitting the Covid-19 years for obvious reason), the Hokies average game outside of Lane Stadium was played in front of nearly 56,000 fans. That included the mammoth Battle at Bristol in 2016, where the 156,990 fans in attendance set the record for a single football game (college or pro), and the 2017 opener against West Virginia, which drew only 67,489 fans to FedEx Field.
During this period, the minimum average attendance for a season was 49,000, and the maximum was 62,000. That will not be the case in 2022.
Predicting Average Attendance at 2022 Road Games
At first blush, the potential attendance figures look bad, but not heinous.
Pitt and NC State look good. North Carolina is solid. Duke is Duke, and the laggards are what they are, two games that Virginia Tech should never play on the road in the same season (some would argue ever). But remember that photo above of the Pitt fans drowning their sorrows in empty seats and light beer. How many of them are really going to show up when ole VPI (&SU) strolls in to town?
The answer - probably not many. Ditto Carolina and Duke fans.
Here are the average attendance figures for Virginia Tech games at Pitt, UNC, and Duke dating back to 2002:
The NC State game is on a Thursday night and the Wolfpack are a preseason Top 25 team, so I expect that game to be sold out. The Old Dominion and Liberty fanbases will likely consider their respective games against Virginia Tech as the most exciting home games in program history, so I do not think there will be any empty seats in Norfolk or Lynchburg.
Overall, expect to see 40% less fans in attendance at Virginia Tech road games in 2022 than was the norm prior to Covid.
Hitting the Road
The away game crowds will be small in 2022, but on the plus side, the games will be pretty close to Blacksburg. Tech plays one game in Pennsylvania (Pitt), two on the road in Virginia (Liberty and ODU), and three in North Carolina (Duke, UNC, and NC State).
With seats always available at Pitt, UNC, and Duke, 2022 could be the year of the traveling Tech fan. As the crow flies, no one away game is more than 250 miles from Blacksburg.
Is this the new normal?
Let’s hope not. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for regional games. But Tech played big games against USC and West Virginia (both in Landover, MD) as well as Tennessee (Bristol, VA) in recent years that were well within a 250 mile radius of Blacksburg.
The ACC, as currently constituted, is too spread out geographically. It also has too many small private schools. I would deal with the the former if the conference could rid itself of the latter. Problem is, the SEC and B1G don’t want those schools either. If the ACC loses Clemson, FSU, UNC, and Miami to realignment, I hope they also jettison Syracuse, Boston College, and Wake Forest. Do I want to Tech to being playing road games every other year in Lynchburg. No, but a solid out Williams Stadium just up the road beats a half empty Alumni Stadium in Boston. Those noon games at BC are the absolute worst.
Think about it - 2022 might really be a preview of coming attractions.
Source: All game attendance and venue data were sourced from the College Football Database (CFDB), accessed via API