Last season at this time, Virginia Tech was a darling to crash the new 12-team College Football Playoff. Then, once the season began, the dream crashed with a season-opening loss in overtime at Vanderbilt that led to a 6-7 season.
Now with more questions than answers entering the upcoming season, the Hokies are a team that could very well surprise in what is a crucial season for Brent Pry in his fourth year at the helm. The CFP seems like a major reach for Virginia Tech in 2025, but one college football writer has a promising outlook for Tech this fall.
ESPN has promising take on Virginia Tech football's 2025 season
David Hale of ESPN ranked all 136 FBS teams into tiers for the upcoming season, and he had Virginia Tech in Tier 9 (no, it's not as bad as you think) with two other ACC schools, Florida State, North Carolina State, and Auburn out of the SEC.
He had those four schools in the "Regression to the mean (the good kind)" tier. He has them regressing to the mean from the opposite way and trending upwards this season. It wouldn't be surprising at all if that happened.
If that is going to happen, then the Hokies will need to turn around their dismal record in one-score games. Five of their six regular-season losses last season were by one score, with their lone double-digit loss coming at the hands of ACC champion Clemson, in a game Virginia Tech hung around in for nearly the entire game.
Sometimes, when a roster goes through an overhaul as the Hokies did with players heading to the NFL and the Transfer Portal, then things might look bleak. However, along with hiring three new coaches, Pry and his staff did work through the Transfer Portal, bringing in some players who could be major x-factors this season.
This is the regression to the mean that Hokies fans hope will happen, and go in the right direction, and it can if the chip on the players' shoulders is as big as it sounds. Then their opponents should be put on notice.