If you have observed the 2011 Virginia Tech Football Schedule and really analyzed the games at length, you will see that there’s a bit of a shift in scheduling philosophy within Blacksburg this season.
The 2011 Virginia Tech College Football Schedule has been released and for whoever has checked out it carefully, principally concerning the way it compares to recent years, it obviously includes a different appearance. This is mainly when it comes to the out-of-conference element of the schedule the spot that the athletic director as well as head coach have more control (as opposed to the ACC conference schedule that’s far more pre-determined).
In recent years, Virginia Tech has included a huge name adversary in an out of conference match up. This kind of game has usually been at the start of the season, the first game of the year. This had been true this year when the Hokies took on Boise State at FedEx Field in Washington DC. In 2009, Virginia Tech did something similar by playing Alabama, the eventual BCS National Champ in the Chik-fil-a Classic in Atlanta. The Hokies have had comparable games in recent times with LSU and USC.
This season, the Hokies open up the season with Appalachian State, at East Carolina, Arkansas State, and Marshall. While ECU is a decent program in Conference USA and really should worry Hokie fans some, not one of those competitors tend to be ‘featured match ups’ similar to the types talked about from prior years and give the Virginia Tech 2011 Football Schedule a very different feel. Virginia Tech vs Appalachian State tickets will be easier to find compared to Boise State or even Alabama tickets were in previous year.
While the out-of-conference games with giant featured opponents have given fantastic pre-season build-up along with drama for both fan bases, the Hokies came out on the losing end of just about each of them. This has position the Hokies behind when it comes to team goals for the year immediately (generally banging them from the National Championship picture) really ahead of season can even begin.
Now that doesn’t imply they were nevertheless poor ideas. The teams as well as coaching staffs will probably tell you just how those early premier match-ups supply many benefits in terms of pre-season as well as off-season determination. They also provide the college amazing publicity in that the games are generally designed for TV events that can only assist the program. As a leading program, Virginia Tech likely really wants to perform in these kinds of games to be on that stage.
However being beaten in a number of these games in consecutive years, 2011 will change regardless of whether deliberate or not. The beginning of this year, with Four out-of-conference games against non-BCS conference schools will allow the Hokies to build in to the season more progressively. In a year where they are breaking in brand new quarterback Logan Thomas, that may be not necessarily a bad thing. It will have a part in terms of strength of schedule if the Hokies wind up watching the BCS standings at some point.
Whether this can be a permanent switch to scheduling philosophy or not remains to be seen. The fact that Virginia Tech recently announced that they plan to play in another Chik-fil-a Classic against Alabama in 2013 clearly means they are not really leaving these games altogether. But the 2011 schedule definitely will have a different feel to it compared to prior years.
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