Hokies 2015 Football Schedule

Thursday morning the ACC released the Hokies 2015 football schedule, which includes a Labor Day night matchup against Ohio State, a Friday night tilt against renewed rival NC State and a Thursday night showdown at Georgia Tech, all of which will be nationally televised games.

ACC releases 2015 football schedules: Five home games against 2014 bowl teams highlight Hokies' slate http://t.co/UtedzDT9Zp

— VT Football (@VT_Football) January 29, 2015

Analysis:

Opening against the defending National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes is by far the marquee matchup on this schedule. Both teams will have something to prove and the national will be watching. For me this is a tough game to open with because Urban Meyer has just as much time as Frank Beamer does to prepare his team and believe me when I say Ohio State wants to make this thing a blow out. If the Hokies can be in the game in the 4th quarter it could get interesting.

The rest of the non-conference schedule is rather vanilla with a home game against FCS Furman and a road trip to Purdue, but then the Hokies travel to East Carolina to end the non-conference stand. That game will be the real measuring stick (go ahead and lash out at me) because East Carolina has the speed and athleticism to compete with VT. Now, I think the Hokies will take care of business since East Carolina has lost record setting QB Shane Carden and their offensive coordinator.

Once ACC play gets going the Hokies will need to strap up and get to work because the goal for next season, as I see it, is to get back to Charlotte for the ACC Championship.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>2015 Virginia Tech Football <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ItsGood2Be?src=hash">#ItsGood2Be</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hokies?src=hash">#Hokies</a> <a href="http://t.co/FEF1MGByFC">pic.twitter.com/FEF1MGByFC</a></p>&mdash; Beamer Ball (@Beamer_Ball) <a href="https://twitter.com/Beamer_Ball/status/560815892121280512">January 29, 2015</a></blockquote>

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The month of October features three home games against Pitt, NC State and Duke, while the Hokies will also travel to Miami and Boston College. Those are five key games that VT will have to win to put themselves in good position in the Coastal Division. None of these games will be easy either as VT has only beaten 2 of 5 in the last head-to-head match-ups. I am encouraged by the fact that Duke and Pitt are at home since the Hokies seem to play better against these foes in Lane Stadium. The game I think the Hokies will struggle the most with is the road trip to Miami, but the Hokies have seemed to play well at Miami. The game I am looking most forward to is the Friday night tilt against NC State in Lane Stadium because I think it favors VT the most because the Wolfpack have a coaching staff and young team that have never played in Lane Stadium, which might make the Hokies too much to handle.

The season finishes up in November with a road trip to hated-rival Georgia Tech for a Thursday night tilt, following a bye week. Then a home game against UNC, which I am really excited about because UNC has upgraded their staff (considerably for ACC teams) and I would like nothing more than to beat the hell out of the Tar Heels. Then, finally, the Hokies make the trek to Hooville for a post-Thanksgiving showdown against Mike London's Cavaliers. Hopefully, this will be the last meeting between VT and Mike London, but you never know what that University will do.

Wrap-Up:

For the second time in three seasons Virginia Tech will not play a Thursday night game in Lane Stadium. Surely, many fans will be upset since the Hokies have become accustomed to hosting these games, but GobblerCountry doesn't see this as necessarily a bad thing. Last season there was a lot of hype around the Thursday night game against Miami and frankly the Hokies froze in a packed house on national television.

There is a sense of urgency around this program and I think that with VT's young roster a little under the radar mentality is needed. This team will have to fight to win all of the games on their schedule and that is okay because that was when VT football is at its best, when Hokies football teams played with a chip on their shoulders.

Go Hokies