Virginia Tech Football: Hokies make giant leap in CBS power rankings

Following a win over Wake Forest last weekend, the Virginia Tech football team enters their bye week at 3-4 and trending in the right direction. Just how good are they trending? In the latest ESPN power rankings, they moved up nine spots. In the latest CBS Sports rankings, they made an even bigger jump.

Virginia Tech vaults up CBS Sports rankings

After spending a majority of the season in the bottom-third of the CBS Sports rankings, following a dominating over the Demon Deacons, Virginia Tech vaulted up 23 spots to No. 64 in their latest rankings.

It’s not surprising to see them make a jump following strong wins over Pittsburgh and Wake Forest, with a loss at Florida State, sandwiched in between, but to see them make as big of a leap as they did is a little surprising.

In their two ACC wins, there was a lot to like from the Hokies. Committing to the running game is huge and it’s something that they should have committed to earlier. Quarterback Kyron Drones has been getting better each week and had his best week against Wake Forest throwing for 321 yards and racking up 380 all-purpose yards.

Defensively, Virginia Tech was good against the Panthers and Demon Deacons, allowing just 14 and six points respectively. Antwaun Powell-Ryland is making a big impact as an edge rusher, they are creating turnovers and in both ACC wins, turnovers were turned into points, something that wasn’t happening earlier in the season. Heck, turnovers were not happening earlier in the season.

The bye week comes at the right time with injuries piling up and it gives them an extra week to rest up, however, it’s not a traditional two-week bye week as they have a short week next week when Syracuse comes to town for a Thursday night tilt at Lane Stadium. Keeping the momentum from before the break is going to be huge with three of their final four games after Syracuse is on the road.