When I was at last week's game in Blacksburg, I had someone complain to me about the $48 price tag on their ticket to see the Hokies take on Georgia Tech. Their eyes bugged out when I told them face value for good tickets to the Oklahoma State-Nebraska game a couple of weeks prior was $190. That pretty much ended the complaints about the VTAD's prices.

Pro sports fans have been used to price gouging for a while and that trend is quickly making its way to college football, where fans are having to shell out more than $100 for face value tickets to a rising number of games. It makes me thankful for the way Virginia Tech handles its tickets. And thankful for an HD TV.

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No other sport intersects as dramatically with technology than college football, where a group of computer rankings helps decide national championship game participants. Here to discuss those computer rankings and their impact on the sport and its fans is Kenneth Massey, whose Massey Ratings are a part of the BCS. Massey earned his master's from Virginia Tech and his system has been a part of the BCS since 1999, the year the Hokies made it to the title game. For more technical answers about his ratings, check out the extensive FAQ over at his site.

How do you think computer rankings in general help improve the BCS system?

Computer rankings provide an objective component that isn't swayed by media attention or public opinion. It's sole focus is to reward teams for winning games against tough competition. Computer algorithms can analyze and synthesize all the connections between teams that never played each other on the field.

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We'll be talking about the intersection of sports and technology here over the next few weeks, specifically how technology has helped enhance our sports experience. It's a perfect topic for me because without advances in technology, it would be next to impossible for me to follow the Hokies.

I was raised a Hokie, but I've always been far away from Blacksburg. I grew up in the early days of the Internet when the best case scenario meant waiting for the painfully slow dial up modem to pull up the box score and the worst case meant giving up on it and waiting for the newspaper the next morning.

Then there were the one or two glorious Saturdays a year when ESPN or CBS showed the Hokies. That all changed when my family got satellite TV.

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