Three Reasons Virginia Tech Can Reach the ACC Championship Game and Three Reasons it Won't

Virginia Tech was picked eighth in the ACC preseason media poll, trailing Virginia at No. 6 and NC State at No. 7. In a 17-team conference where only the top two teams advance to Charlotte, the Hokies will have to significantly outperform those preseason expectations to make a run at the ACC Championship.

Tech hasn't reached the ACC Championship Game since 2016 or won the conference since 2010. Everything else has changed: a new head coach in James Franklin, a new quarterback, and a schedule that ships the Hokies to Clemson, SMU, and Miami.

Here's three reasons it could happen and three reasons it won't.

Why it could happen:

1. Franklin didn't have to start over.

Most coaching changes gut a roster. This one didn't. Virginia Tech returns roughly 69 percent of its 2025 production, fourth nationally and second in the ACC. New coaches almost never inherit that. They inherit an empty locker room and a year of teaching.

What Franklin added on top of it was substantial. He signed 27 transfers in a two-week portal window, a class 247Sports ranked No. 27 nationally and fourth in the ACC. The high school class was unranked the day he was hired in November and finished 21st in ESPN's rankings. Coordinators Ty Howle and Brent Pry both worked for him at Penn State, so nothing is being installed from scratch.

2. The offense has nowhere to go but up.

The Hokies averaged 21.4 points per game last season, 114th nationally, and threw for 166.3 yards per game. They cleared 24 points in a conference game once, and that took two overtimes against Cal.

Ethan Grunkemeyer doesn't have to be a star to fix that. He threw for 1,339 yards with eight touchdowns and four interceptions in seven starts at Penn State, and he'll throw to Duke transfer Que'Sean Brown (64 catches, 846 yards), Ayden Greene, who led Tech with 516 yards, and tight end Luke Reynolds, rated the second-best tight end in the portal.

The real tell is Marcellous Hawkins. He ran 118 times for 749 yards, 6.3 a carry, and scored once. A back that efficient, finishing that few drives, says everything about what was around him.

3. The league is one team and a scrum.

Miami took 165 of the 188 first-place votes. Below that, the poll turns to mush: Virginia at 1,981, NC State at 1,964, Virginia Tech at 1,962. Nobody in that group has separated from anybody, and the Hokies never see Louisville, picked third.

The top two finishers meet in Charlotte on Dec. 5. That's the whole bar, and this league has shown how strange the path there can get. Miami played for the national championship last season without ever reaching the ACC title game.

Why it won't happen:

1. The best teams Virginia Tech plays are all on the road.

Tech plays three of the four teams picked behind only Miami, all on the road: at Clemson on Oct. 24, at SMU on Nov. 6 or 7, at Miami on Nov. 20. Five of the nine conference games are away from Lane Stadium.

Franklin's résumé makes that stretch hard to sell. He went 4-21 against AP top-10 opponents at Penn State. Against top-six teams, he was 2-21.

The caveat matters, though. Franklin isn't likely to see many top-10 teams in this league. Miami, at No. 7, is the ACC's only representative in that range of the preseason AP poll, with SMU 19th and Louisville 24th, and Clemson is outside the rankings for the first time since 2011. The Hokies could go the whole regular season facing just the one top-10 opponent.

But the number was never really about the poll. It was about what happened when Penn State ran into a team on its level or better, and that's the exact situation Tech walks into three times in five weeks. Charlotte means winning in the one category Franklin hasn't.

2. The offensive line is still a question.

Logan Howland arrives from Oklahoma off a season-ending injury. Johnny Garrett, who started 10 games at left tackle a year ago and can slide inside, went down early in camp with what Franklin called a long-term injury. Ohio State transfer Justin Terry adds another Power 4 body, but not a certainty.

Kyle Altuner started every game at center as a redshirt freshman, which is both experience and inexperience at once. Franklin kept offensive line coach Matt Moore from the old staff, betting he could get more out of a group that was the weakest part of a 3-9 team. Grunkemeyer's floor drops fast if he's throwing off his back foot.

3. The defense doesn't take the ball away.

Virginia Tech forced six turnovers all of last season, tied for last in the country, and didn't recover a fumble after Week 2. It gave up 30.2 points per game, third-worst in the ACC, let opponents convert 46.3 percent of third downs, and finished 83rd nationally in passing yards allowed.

Kemari Copeland is Tech’s top returning defensive playmaker, coming off a season with 48 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, and 4.5 sacks as the team’s lone returning All-ACC selection. Around him: questions at edge, at linebacker, and across a secondary rebuilt through the portal. Pry knows how to build a defense, but he never won more than seven games in a season as Tech's head coach.

The bottom line

FanDuel set Virginia Tech’s win total at 6.5 games and its conference win total at 4.5. Four and a half conference wins won’t get the Hokies to Charlotte. If Virginia Tech wants to take the next step under Franklin, the Hokies will have to outperform those expectations and make a serious push toward the top of the conference.

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