SP+ Predicts Virginia Tech vs South Carolina Final Score
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It is officially game week for the Virginia Tech Hokies.
Virginia Tech is one week away from opening their season against South Carolina in Atlanta and the Hokies are hoping that it results in a huge upset for the program against one of the SEC's top teams.
Entering year four in Blacksburg, head coach Brent Pry is trying to play his way off the hot seat. After coming into the 2024 season with high expectations, the Hokies finished with a 6-7 record, including more abysmal one-score game performances. Virginia Tech saw five players drafted and a number of high-profile players elected to enter the transfer portal. With 30-plus new transfers on the team and two new coordinators, can Pry find a way to work his way off the hot seat this season? Is a bowl game going to be good enough, or will Virginia Tech need to find itself in ACC contention?
Who wins on Sunday?
While Virginia Tech is an underdog on Sunday, it is not impossible to envision a win from the Hokies. South Carolina is rightly favored and Bill Connelly's SP+ projection system has South Carolina winning 30-21 and SP+ gives the Gamecocks a 72% chance to win this game.
What is SP+? Here is how ESPN analyst Bill Connelly describes it:
"In a single sentence, it's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. I created the system at Football Outsiders in 2008, and as my experience with both college football and its stats has grown, I have made quite a few tweaks to the system.
SP+ is indeed intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a résumé ranking that gives credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling -- no good predictive system is. It is simply a measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. If you're lucky or unimpressive in a win, your rating will probably fall. If you're strong and unlucky in a loss, it will probably rise."
Season Opener Could Be Telling
Is Virginia Tech closer to the top of the ACC or the bottom? We may find out on Sunday when they face South Carolina in Atlanta.
Of course the obvious headline in this game is going to be South Carolina head coach Shane Beamer coaching against his fathers team. Frank Beamer is the greatest coach in the history of Virginia Tech and there is certain to be a lot of talk in the lead up to this game about his son coaching against the Hokies.
While Virginia Tech is not going to have the same amount of hype that it received ahead of the 2024 season, South Carolina is going to enjoy plenty. The Gamecocks were one of the hottest teams in the country down the stretch of last season and made a case to be in the College Football Playoff at the end. They are going to return quarterback LaNorris Sellers and standout defensive end Dylan Stewart, and may just start the year in the top 10. The Hokies, on the other hand, have been one of the hardest-hit teams when it comes to transfer portal entries, and their roster is going to look a lot different when the two teams kick off the season at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. To Brent Pry's credit, he did a solid job of landing talent in the portal after an early mass exodus, but they are going to be the underdog in week one vs South Carolina.
South Carolina leads the all-time series 11-7 between the two teams, but they have not met since 1991. Virginia Tech has not beaten South Carolina since 1974.
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Jackson Caudell has been covering Georgia Tech Athletics For On SI since March 2022 and the Atlanta Hawks for On SI since October 2023. Jackson is also the co-host of the Bleav in Georgia Tech podcast and he loves to bring thoughtful analysis and comprehensive coverage to everything that he does. Find him on X @jacksoncaudell
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