Bruce Arians to be in attendance for Virginia Tech’s game against Middle Tennessee

When the No. 19 Virginia Tech Hokies host Middle Tennessee on Saturday at Lane Stadium, there will be a major guest in town for the home team. Former Virginia Tech quarterback and the current head coach of the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Bruce Arians, will be in Blacksburg.

This is big news for the Hokies.

Arians and the Bucs kicked off the 2021 season on Thursday night with a 31-29 win over the Dallas Cowboys.

Arians played for Virginia Tech in the 1970s as the quarterback in a wishbone offense. He appeared in 33 games, completing 45% of his passes for 1,270 yards and six touchdowns. Arians did rush for 14 touchdowns during his time with the Hokies.

After his playing career ended, Arians quickly got into coaching. He spent time with the Hokies, Mississippi State and Alabama before taking over as the head coach of Temple in 1983.

From there, Arians went to the NFL where he has spent most of the past 33 years. He took off two years from coaching and also had short stints as offensive coordinator at Alabama and Mississippi State — two of his earlier stops — before returning to the NFL.

During his time in the NFL, he has coached some legendary quarterbacks such as Peyton Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, Andrew Luck and Tom Brady.

He received his first NFL head coaching job with the Arizona Cardinals where he coaches from 2013-17. He took one year off before returning to the sideline with Tampa Bay in 2019.

Arians won his first Super Bowl last season as the Buccaneers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs.

Arians will Hokie Nation in Lane Stadium’s “stadium yell” out of halftime.

It’s always good to see former Hokies back in Blacksburg. There was a large turnout of former Hokies in last week’s win over North Carolina and let’s hope for more of the same this week.

Welcome back to Blacksburg, Coach Arians.