A Sea Of Red

Cougars’ doing their part in week 2 for a ranked team to visit LU. One small step towards last chance at Gameday visit for 50 years....

Honestly looking at the slate of games that week, if by some miracle both us and BYU are undefeated heading into that game we probably would be College GameDay. BYU would be a top 10 team with a good shot to break into the CFP. We would probably be somewhere in the top 20 assuming we win our easier games convincingly but it's very unlikely. Wake Forest will be a very tough game plus our game at ODU has a good shot of being an upset. It's even more unlikely BYU will be undefeated. They still have to play at oregon and Notre Dame plus a home game against Arkansas. None of those teams are as tough as the team they just beat but that's still a tall order. It would be huge for the university if that happened though.

Regardless of whether we are both undefeated, this will easily be the biggest game in stadium history. No one outside of the Mid-Atlantic gives the VT game anywhere near the attention of the Holy War. I know you Virginians will object. But you will be wrong.

Sly Fox wrote: ↑September 11th, 2022, 9:59 am Regardless of whether we are both undefeated, this will easily be the biggest game in stadium history. No one outside of the Mid-Atlantic gives the VT game anywhere near the attention of the Holy War. I know you Virginians will object. But you will be wrong.

I understand your position, and partially agree. However: Playing and beating VT in Lynchburg would go a long way to help recruit the state and build a fan base. BYU doesnt nearly do the same.

I would say we have less than a 10% chance of beating WF. ODU is a pretty good team and will be a difficult win. BYU will fittingly, take a miracle to win. They are absolutely stout.
Our DL won the game for us last night against UAB, our OL played much better. I will personally be very happy becoming bowl eligible and win another bowl game. We are on the right track, some critical players need some more maturity and experience, for us to reach the next level.
Did I say, our DL was incredible last night?

How important is it for us to build a fanbase within Virginia and recruit the state? Not a single HS recruit over the last 2 years have been from Virginia and they are our top 2 classes of all time. You have to go back to the 2020 class to find more than 1 HS recruit from Virginia. The Virginia fanbase is what it's going to be for the most part. It's one of the most crowded states in the FBS per capita, especially now that JMU moved up. The student section being almost full with the weather as bad as it was gives me hope that the alumni attendance will improve over time though. BYU seems like the bigger win to me.

Ill flame wrote: ↑September 11th, 2022, 3:18 pm The student section being almost full with the weather as bad as it was...

I was surprised by that, too, and wondered if those were mostly freshmen attending their first college football game.

Also noted were how small the Jokers were in number last night. I didn't think to count them, but they looked like they were in single digits.

Cider Jim wrote: ↑September 11th, 2022, 4:45 pm

Ill flame wrote: ↑September 11th, 2022, 3:18 pm The student section being almost full with the weather as bad as it was...

I was surprised by that, too, and wondered if those were mostly freshmen attending their first college football game.

Also noted were how small the Jokers were in number last night. I didn't think to count them, but they looked like they were in single digits.

Congrats on the Big ND win.

BYU will be a big game, but the VT game will be the biggest game in history of Williams Stadium.

Based on what metric? Fans living in Central Virginia? Come on, man. No one is that impressed by a victory over the once vaunted Hokies. It seems everybody in the state does it regularly now.

Now beating the Mormons who are on the national stage (where VT used to be years ago) is a different matter altogether. My "Baptist" buddies from Baylor down here are smarting from what happened on Saturday.

I think the Tech game is significant because it is the most likely to sell out, but it is because of our standing in the Commonwealth and especially in the region with fans and future recruiting.

However, I agree that the BYU game could be more significant because they are the better team and because of our future scheduling philosophy, the likelihood of us playing them again is not real high. So we need to beat them now while we have the opportunity.

I honestly believe both games will be easy sellouts. I don't think some on the board understand the sheer number of Mormons and BYU grads who live on the East Coast who will gladly pony up to see their Cougs play in person. There is a reason why BYU tries to schedule these games every year.

Is VT fanbase still relevant if they return half of their allotted tickets for an instate game?

SumItUp wrote: ↑September 12th, 2022, 9:45 am Is VT fanbase still relevant if they return half of their allotted tickets for an instate game?

Have they really done this? I know a preacher friend of mine, said several of his Tech fan Church friends told him that they may not attend after they lost to ODU.

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑September 11th, 2022, 11:07 pm BYU will be a big game, but the VT game will be the biggest game in history of Williams Stadium.

Virginia tech hasn't been relevant since Michael Vick and Corey Moore. The BYU game is much more relevant and it's where liberty wants to ascend to. BYU is the biggest game

Sly Fox wrote: ↑September 12th, 2022, 9:33 am Based on what metric? Fans living in Central Virginia? Come on, man. No one is that impressed by a victory over the once vaunted Hokies. It seems everybody in the state does it regularly now.

Now beating the Mormons who are on the national stage (where VT used to be years ago) is a different matter altogether. My "Baptist" buddies from Baylor down here are smarting from what happened on Saturday.

Your "baptist" buddies in Texas will do exactly SQUAT to get another seat sold in Lynchburg. Again, if the question is "Who is the best team (at the time) to ever come to Lynchburg to play football," the answer is clearly BYU this year. If the question is "Who is the most important team to come to Lynchburg to play football and help build the program locally and regionally" the answer is unequivocally VT.

Unequivocally? Why is building program locally and regionally a top priority at this stage? We aren't JMU. We are looking to play on a national stage ... not pining away for folks in the Mid-Atlantic to recognize our existence. Even with our rocky and poor recent history in leadership, we are better than that small mindset.

I get that we have a fair share of native Virginians on campus and just having the Hokies playing in our crib is a big deal to them. Cool. But the vast majority of students are not Virginians and our alumni base is even more widespread.

alabama24 wrote: ↑September 12th, 2022, 10:57 am

Sly Fox wrote: ↑September 12th, 2022, 9:33 am Based on what metric? Fans living in Central Virginia? Come on, man. No one is that impressed by a victory over the once vaunted Hokies. It seems everybody in the state does it regularly now.

Now beating the Mormons who are on the national stage (where VT used to be years ago) is a different matter altogether. My "Baptist" buddies from Baylor down here are smarting from what happened on Saturday.

Your "baptist" buddies in Texas will do exactly SQUAT to get another seat sold in Lynchburg. Again, if the question is "Who is the best team (at the time) to ever come to Lynchburg to play football," the answer is clearly BYU this year. If the question is "Who is the most important team to come to Lynchburg to play football and help build the program locally and regionally" the answer is unequivocally VT.

Which my point has always been, LU isn’t a regional school, locals can’t stand us and we shouldn’t emulate building like a regional school. If “ butts in the seats” is your metric, schedule P5 That fans will fly in for OR triple enrollment...

Those who think the VT game is a bigger game than BYU are living in a fantasy world. Would beating VT be great? Sure but ODU did that this year already so it isn't exactly an amazing accomplishment. From a national perspective, beating BYU will get us mentioned all over the place. Beating VT will barely move the needle after they laid an egg at ODU. It isn't even debatable in my mind.

thepostman wrote: ↑September 12th, 2022, 1:10 pm Those who think the VT game is a bigger game than BYU are living in a fantasy world. Would beating VT be great? Sure but ODU did that this year already so it isn't exactly an amazing accomplishment. From a national perspective, beating BYU will get us mentioned all over the place. Beating VT will barely move the needle after they laid an egg at ODU. It isn't even debatable in my mind.

I would sell my VT tickets before my tickets to BYU. One of those teams has a National Championship

At this moment we are actually favored to win against VT. I'm not banking on a win but it would be disappointing if we lost. We will be heavy underdogs against BYU and this is our first opportunity to get a top 25 win at home since we moved up to fbs. Hopefully it'll be a shot at a top 10 win.

These are the types of wins that gets the media talking about Liberty, VT won't do that. We could really use a marquee win this year to give us some preseason hype going into 2023 where we will likely be favored in every game against a very weak schedule.

It all depends on the outcome of the games. Seems like this year we have a much better shot of beating VT, which will matter a whole lot more than getting blown out by BYU at home.

Both are equally important, especially since they both should be sell outs, and we're not hosting another P5 until 2025. Then it'll be Wake, who could very well be back to their usual ACC door mat ways. But who knows when it'll be again when we host 2 P5 schools again.

Sly Fox wrote: ↑September 12th, 2022, 11:11 am Unequivocally?

Yep. I know some of yall are rich and fly around on private planes, but we aint getting "butts in seats" from your Baptist friends in Waco.

thepostman wrote: ↑September 12th, 2022, 1:10 pm Those who think the VT game is a bigger game than BYU are living in a fantasy world.

Again, it depends upon what you mean by "bigger." See above.