SP+ Projects Final Score For Virginia Tech's Week One Matchup vs VMI

BLACKSBURG, Va. — After an eventful winter, spring and summer, we have now finally reached game week for Virginia Tech football ahead of the 2026 season — James Franklin's first as the head whistle.

Franklin went 104-45 in 11-plus years at Penn State and is 128-60 overall as a head coach. His presumptive starting quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer started seven games at Penn State last year, throwing for 1,339 yards, eight touchdowns and four interceptions.

Virginia Tech clocked in at No. 36 in the final preseason college football SP+ rankings, jumping up 18.7 points from its 2025 output. That made it the second-most projected improved team from tis 2025 output, only behind Oklahoma State (+22.0 points, No. 39 overall).

What is SP+? Here's a brief explainer from Connelly:

"SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking. Along those same lines, these projections aren't intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season."

Connelly bases his preseason projections on four primary factors: returning production, recent history, recent recruiting and coaching change effects.

VMI went 1-11 last year, with their lone win coming against Division II Ferrum (42-7). The Keydets lost their 2026 season opener to Idaho State 38-10. The base SP+ rankings include only the 138 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), but Connelly's Google spreadshet includes schools from FBS, FCS, NAIA, Division II and Division III. of those schools, VMI ranks No. 376.

Connelly's metrics project a 68-0 final margin and give the Hokies a 100% win probability. His against-the-spread pick is Virginia Tech with a whopping 17.5 difference from the spread. His over/under pick is set at 57.5.

Virginia Tech has scored 67 or more points in eight games all-time per the HokieSports statistical database. The last time it did so was in 1995, where it defeated Akron 77-27. VMI was actually the last team before that that the Hokies scored that many points against — a 70-12 victory all the way back in 1966.

As for a margin of 68 points, Virginia Tech hasn't beaten a team by 68 or more since the 1922 season when it shut out Catholic 73-0. The Hokies were on the receiving end of a 68-point-plus beatdown back in 1973 when they were thrashed 77-6 by then-No. 2 Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Virginia Tech has won by 68 or more points six times in program history, doing so in the 1905, 1911, 1917, 1919, 1920 and 1922 seasons.

Virginia Tech's season-opening clash with the Keydets is set for Saturday, Sept. 5, at 7:30 p.m. ET. The contest will be aired live on the ACC Network, and it's the first matchup between the two schools since 1984.

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