Could Virginia Tech be Ranked In The AP Top 25 After The Win vs. Maryland?
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Tight end Luke Reynolds needed one yard. On fourth-and-1, he caught the ball, backed his way into a first down, and got out of bounds. The replay upheld it; Maryland had no timeouts left, and the game was over.
Virginia Tech beat Maryland 35-26 on Saturday night at SECU Stadium, ending the Terrapins' 20-game nonconference winning streak and moving to 3-0 for the first time since 2017.
The next question arrives Sunday with the new AP poll: Is 3-0 enough to get Virginia Tech ranked? Probably not, and the reason has less to do with how the Hokies have played this season.
The 171-point problem
Virginia Tech entered Week 3 with 11 points, ninth among teams receiving votes. No. 25 Virginia had 182. Eight teams sat between them: Washington, Florida, Boise State, Oklahoma State, Western Michigan, Tulsa, Mississippi State, and South Carolina.
Voters handed out 68 first-place votes last week, which points to a 68-member panel. A first-place vote is worth 25 points, and a 25th-place vote is worth one. Just to match Virginia's 182 points, the Hokies would need to land on every ballot and average roughly No. 23.
Jumps like that usually come with a signature win. Maryland was 2-0 coming in, but it wasn't ranked and didn't get a single AP vote.
How the teams above Virginia Tech did on Saturday
Twenty of the 25 ranked teams won. Three of the five losses came in ranked matchups: No. 8 Ole Miss pulled away from No. 7 LSU 32-24, No. 23 Louisville outlasted No. 16 SMU 41-31 and No. 13 Texas Tech survived No. 22 Houston 28-26. The other two came against unranked teams. Kentucky walked into Kyle Field and stunned No. 9 Texas A&M 31-21, and West Virginia knocked off No. 25 Virginia 38-27.
Only one of those clearly clears a spot. LSU, Texas A&M, and SMU each carried at least 636 points into the week, enough cushion to absorb a loss. Houston lost by two on the road to a top-15 team, the kind of loss voters tend to forgive. Virginia lost at a neutral site to an unranked team while sitting at No. 25. That's the spot in play.
The eight teams receiving more votes than Virginia Tech were even steadier. Seven of them won. Washington beat Eastern Washington 48-16, Florida won 44-39 at Auburn and Oklahoma State blanked Murray State 59-0. Western Michigan won 28-21 at Rice, Tulsa shut out East Texas A&M 42-0, and Boise State took care of South Dakota 38-24.
The lone loss belonged to South Carolina, and even that didn't open anything up. The Gamecocks blew a 16-point lead and fell 41-34 at home to Mississippi State, another team already ahead of the Hokies. No matter how that game ended, somebody in front of Virginia Tech was going to win.
The line keeps getting longer
The bigger problem is who's coming from below. Kentucky now owns a road win over a top-10 team. West Virginia is 3-0 with a ranked win. Vanderbilt beat NC State on a fumble recovered in the end zone with six seconds left and is 3-0 for the second straight year.
Kentucky and West Virginia each have something Virginia Tech doesn't: a win over a team voters already had ranked. Expect at least one of them to pass the Hokies on ballots Sunday.
The case for the Hokies anyway
None of that makes Saturday a small win. Virginia Tech scored touchdowns on five of its first six possessions and took a 35-14 lead into the fourth quarter. Quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer threw for 314 yards and three touchdowns and ran for another. The Hokies converted 8 of 9 third downs in the first half.
Reynolds caught all 12 passes thrown his way and has 25 catches for 265 yards and four touchdowns through three games. It was also the program's first win over a nonconference Power Four opponent since the 2017 opener against West Virginia. Through three games, Virginia Tech has outscored VMI, Old Dominion, and Maryland 152-50.
Voters will see the other side, too. A defense that entered the night leading FBS in quarterback hits gave up 359 passing yards and three touchdowns to Maryland quarterback Malik Washington, and two missed 2-point tries in the fourth kept the Terps from getting within one score.
The verdict
Expect Virginia Tech to climb in the "others receiving votes" section on Sunday. Don't expect a number next to its name yet.
That can change fast. The Hokies head to Boston College next on Sept. 26, and teams ahead of them will keep losing to each other. Keep winning and the gap starts closing on its own.
Virginia Tech did everything it could control in College Park. The rest belongs to the voters.
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James Duncan serves as a staff writer for Virginia Tech On SI, covering football, men’s and women’s basketball and recruiting. He is a 2026 Virginia Tech graduate, having majored in Sports Media and Analytics with a minor in Professional and Technical Writing. Duncan previously covered the Washington Commanders as a reporter for The Lead, where he reported on the team throughout an offseason.