After a 13-point loss to South Carolina on Sunday afternoon at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Virginia Tech football team is facing a very early must-win game in 2025 this weekend, in its home opener against Vanderbilt.
Why is this a must-win? Well, truth be told, there are several reasons as to why this is a must-win game for Brent Pry's team when they take the field at Lane Stadium. The biggest might be because Pry's hot seat gets warmer with each passing day, and now, according to Vegas oddsmakers, he has the top odds to be the first Power 4 coach fired. Not ideal.
Another reason is that starting 0-2 is less than ideal, even with two winnable non-conference games following against Old Dominion and Wofford. ACC play hasn't even started, and sitting at 0-2 despite both losses against SEC schools is not good. To compound matters heading into this weekend against the Commodores, ESPN has a scary outlook for the Hokies.
ESPN SP+ has Virginia Tech losing to Vanderbilt at home
According to ESPN's SP+, Vanderbilt is expected to come to Blacksburg and leave with a 28-24 victory. What is ESPN's SP+? It is explained by ESPN's Bill Connolly.
"SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date."
Coming off a short week, six days after the South Carolina game, and the Commodores having had full rest and a blowout win over Charleston Southern, it doesn't bode well for the Hokies. Playing at home, under the lights at Lane Stadium, will have Virginia Tech ready to go, and we'll see if the physical contest against the 10th-ranked Gamecocks is something that will come into play or not for Pry's club. Again, a 0-2 start, and things could get really dicey for Virginia Tech.