When the Virginia Tech football team takes the field on Saturday night at Lane Stadium, it'll be the long-awaited first game for James Franklin with the Hokies. How fitting is it that it's a night game against VMI.
However, over a 50-point favorite, let's be honest, this should be a victory that Virginia Tech coasts to. In fact, let's be honest again, they should win their first two games at home, with Old Dominion visiting the following weekend. If the Hokies are not 2-0 going to College Park on Sept. 19 for their third and final non-conference game against Maryland, then it's going to be a long fall in Blacksburg.
However, the first true road test against the Terrapins is going to be a big one for both teams, but for two different reasons. John Talty of CBS Sports add some spice to a matchup that already had some for different reasons.
Virginia Tech Week 3 game at Maryland gets some added spice
This is a familiar matchup for Franklin from his time at Penn State in the Big Ten. It's also a familiar matchup against Maryland head coach Mike Locksley, whose seat is very, very warm entering the season. Talty listed some games that could be make-or-break for coaches on the hot seat, and for Locksley, one of the games was against Franklin and the Hokies. The other two games are the Terrapins' Week 2 matchup at UConn and a Week 9 tilt at home against Illinois.
There is no love lost between Locksley and Franklin, so you can bet that Locksley will have his team more than ready for the Hokies. What could be working against Tech is that it is not only their first true road game, but the Terrapins could be coming in off a loss to the Huskies.
This is also a sneaky-good recruiting battle matchup where the winner will have bragging rights when it comes to recruiting. Franklin has dominated the DMV when it comes to recruiting, and this would be another feather in his cap: a win on the field against Locksley and Maryland. This was always going to be a sneaky-tough game for Virginia Tech, but Talty added more spice to the matchup by marking this game down as a make-or-break one for Locksley in terms of his future in College Park. First things first, we have two weeks before we get to the matchup under the lights in Maryland.
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