What Does FPI Project For Virginia Tech Against VMI On Sept. 5?

BLACKSBURG, Va. — Three days now separate Virginia Tech from its season opener against VMI on Sept. 5. Ahead of the clash, ESPN's Football Power Index has offered a predictive metric as to how it projects the Hokies to do in Week 1 against the Keydets.

First, off here's a quick explainer on how the Football Power Index actually works.

"FPI is a predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward. The ultimate goal of FPI is not to rank teams 1 through [136]; rather, it is to correctly predict games and season outcomes. If Vegas ever published the power rankings it uses to set its lines, they would likely look quite a lot like FPI. Correctly predicting game outcomes can’t be done by evaluating teams’ records because some teams are stronger than their records indicate (lots of close losses), and others have favorable schedules. Both of these situations are reflected in the game- and season-level projections...

Each team’s FPI rating is composed of a predicted offensive, defensive and special teams component. These ratings represent the number of points each unit is expected to contribute to the team's net scoring margin on a neutral field against an average FBS opponent...

Once the season is underway, the main piece of information powering these offensive, defensive and special teams predictions is past performance from that season’s games, in terms of expected points added per game. Expected points added, or EPA, is a measure of success/failure that takes into account yards, turnovers, red zone efficiency and more to determine how many points each unit is contributing to the team's scoring margin. For example, if a team wins by an average of 10 points per game, it could be that plus-seven of that is offense, plus-four is defense and minus-one is special teams. Because expected points added is built on play-by-play data, it’s fair to say that FPI looks at every play of every game in the season."

The FPI gives Virginia Tech 99.0% odds of claiming a victory in the season opener. The Hokies have won their last 13 games against FCS opponents, last dropping one in 2010 to James Madison, which has since moved up to the FBS' Sun Belt Conference. SP+ projects Virginia Tech to win 68-0.

Virginia Tech went 3-9 (2-6 ACC) last season, losing six of its last seven games and stumbling to its worst campaign by winning percentage since 1992 (2-8-1). Three games into the season, the then-0-3 Hokies fired Brent Pry a day after a 45-26 loss to Old Dominion Sept. 13. Virginia Tech then hired former Penn State head coach James Franklin just over two months later on Nov. 17. Franklin went 104-45 over 11-plus seasons at Penn State, including a berth to the College Football Playoff semifinal in the 2024 season.

Ethan Grunkemeyer has been confirmed as the starter under center for the Hokies; Saturday will mark his first start with Franklin as his head coach. Grunkemeyer started seven games for Penn State in 2025, throwing for 1,339 yards, eight touchdowns and four interceptions across the entire season.

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