Virginia Tech hiring James Franklin as their next football coach is a dream for Hokies' fans and a nightmare for the rest of the ACC and college football. A college football giant that has been down for a decade is about to be woken up by Franklin.
Gone in recent years were primetime games and marquee matchups involving Virginia Tech. It was about dropping them in a time slot that was going up against other games where the Hokies were secondary viewing. Again, that's about to change.
Going into the 2026 season, the schedule is a mixture of a difficult one with daunting road games and home games. However, Franklin and Virginia Tech fans wouldn't want it any other way. This season, they have nine ACC games and three non-conference games. Bill Connelly of ESPN did an ACC preview and listed the top 5 games for the 2026 season. The Hokeis have one game on the list.
ESPN lists one Virginia Tech 2026 game as one of the five best games of the upcoming season
Connelly didn't just pick five games. He had a formula, and it is explained below with the Hokies game that made the list.
Here are the five conference games that feature (a) the highest combined SP+ ratings for both teams and (b) a projected scoring margin under eight points.
"Oct. 24: Virginia Tech at Clemson. Franklin's first Tech team gets this far into the season before playing a projected top-30 team. That offers the Hokies quite a bit of runway to figure things out, and it could make this game awfully important,'' Connelly wrote.
Just because the Hokies don't play a top 30 until late October doesn't mean that they will have a cakewalk into that game. There are some tough home and road contests on the schedule that they could very easily lose. However, it is surprising that there isn't one more game on this list. That would be the Thanksgiving Weekend home game against Virginia.
This season's matchup is expected to be one of the more hyped ones yet. Of course, when one team completely dominates its little brother for years, it becomes a game where you know how the result is going to go before the game is played. However, Virginia won last year's game against the Hokies in Charlottesville, 27-7, against one of the worst Tech teams in decades. Of course, Virginia celebrated like it was their Super Bowl, and they lost the ACC Championship game to Duke in overtime. Ouch.
Now with Franklin in charge in Blacksburg, Virginia Tech will continue its dominance of UVA, and that game this year should be in the top 5 if we're being honest. Regardless, the narrative is changing with the Hokies, and expect more and more games in prime slots for TV.
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