Virginia Tech Football: 3 trap games on the Hokies 2024 schedule

The Virginia Tech football team will enter the 2024 season as a team that could contend for a spot in the ACC Championship game in December. For that to happen, they will have to navigate their way through a loaded ACC and have some things break their way.

On paper, their conference schedule is doable in terms of being in the race in the ACC with no Florida State, Louisville or North Carolina State, the three teams who beat them last season when they finished 5-3. With a lot of retainment on both sides of the ball, expectations are high in Blacksburg.

However, their schedule does offer some very interesting potential road blocks with trap games this fall. Here are three of the biggest trap games on Virginia Tech’s schedule.

Sept. 21 vs. Rutgers

This has the makings of a very good non-conference game in Blacksburg. It will be the fourth and final non-conference game for Virginia Tech after opening the season at Vanderbilt, home against Marshall, and a road game at Old Dominion.

The Hokies will be looking to avenge a 35-16 loss last season in New Jersey and the Scarlet Knights will be entering Lane Stadium with a new quarterback after Gavin Wimsatt entered the transfer portal. Minnesota transfer Athan Kaliamanis was named QB1 by head coach Greg Schiano. This will be a good Rutgers team that comes to Blacksburg, but the Hokies can’t get caught looking past them with their ACC opener six nights later at Miami on Sept. 27 before a cross-country flight the following weekend to new ACC member Stanford.

Nov. 2 at Syracuse

The Orange fired coach Dino Babers and hired Georgia assistant Fran Brown to lead Syracuse. During his first few months on the job with the Orange, he got Ohio State transfer quarterback Kyle McCord to commit to the Orange and landed former Virginia Tech commit Marcellus Barnes, a four-star cornerback in the Class of 2024. 

This game will be a tough one for Virginia Tech who will be hosting Clemson the following weekend. Syracuse is going to be a tough team to play in 2024 and even tougher at home in the dome. This is a game that could very easily crush the Hokies ACC hopes if they drop it on the road with the Tigers a week later.

Nov. 23 at Duke

You might be saying, wait, Duke, a trap game for Virginia Tech? Well, yes. The Hokies will be coming off their second bye of the season after playing Clemson at home in what will be a very emotional game. The result of that game very likely will go a very long way toward determining their ACC Championship Game hopes.

It will be a Homecoming for transfer Aeneas Peebles who joined the Hokies in December from the portal and this is the game before Thanksgiving Weekend before Virginia visits for the annual in-state battle.

Virginia Tech certainly has some games on their schedule that will be games that they should take care of business in and then there are these three games that are trap games that they must take care of business in.