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Hokies Finish Better Than They Start
by Chris Coleman, TechSideline.com

The preseason USA Today Coaches' Poll was released this morning, and the Hokies found themselves ranked #15 in the country. That's very respectable, considering they finished #9 last year and lost eight players in the NFL Draft. That's a lot of player turnover, yet the coaches still expect the Hokies to be a Top 15 team.

That's a lot more respect than the Hokies used to get, when it seemed like every season they would finish higher in the postseason polls than they began.

The following table shows Virginia Tech's preseason and postseason rankings in the Coaches' Poll dating back to 1993. The column on the far right shows the differential between the start of the season and the end. If the Hokies aren't in the Top 25, their ranking is automatically a 26. For example, in 1993, they began the season unranked but ended at #20. That's a differential of 6.

That's not a perfect system. In 1993 the Hokies were a lot lower than #26 to start the year, so that differential of 6 would actually be higher. However, in 2003 the Hokies were a lot worse than #26 to end the year, so the differential of -16 would be worse. Not to say that it all evens out in the end, but it's the best we could do.

For the most part, the Hokies have made a habit of finishing higher in the rankings than they began. In eight seasons from 1993 through 2007, they finished higher. In two seasons they finished exactly the same. In five seasons they finished lower than they started, though I'd hardly call 2006 an unsuccessful season simply because the Hokies finished #18 rather than #16.

There has been an interesting trend developing in the last three seasons. In two of the last three years, the Hokies have finished exactly where they began in the rankings. In the other year, they finished two spots lower than they started. So in the last three years, the coaches have been almost 100% accurate with their preseason ranking of Virginia Tech.

That says a couple of things. First of all, the Hokies are getting a lot more respect now. The fact that they lost so many great players off the 2007 team, yet are still picked in the Top 15 in 2008, says that opposing coaches have a great amount of respect for Tech's stability.

Secondly, it shows that the toughest part of the climb to the top comes as you get close to the summit. When you are hiking a mountain, the first couple of thousand feet are easy. It's the last few hundred that are the toughest. You are near the top, and you know you are near the top, but it seems like it's taking forever.

That's what's happening to Tech's football program right now. In the 1990's, Tech passed programs like Rutgers, Pitt, UVA, Maryland, etc. in football prominence. It's a lot tougher to reach the level of schools like Georgia, USC and Texas. Those years of rapid advancement are gone, and we're going to be seeing a lot more of the status quo in the rankings. Pretty much the same teams will make up the Top 15 or so teams each year. They'll just be in a different order each year, depending on the personnel they have returning. The Hokies will be one of those 15 teams each year, you can count on that.

This year Virginia Tech begins the season right at #15. With a challenging September schedule that includes ECU, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Nebraska, it would be a good sign if they are still ranked there, or higher, as October begins. With late season games against teams such as Florida State, Miami and Boston College, and with such a young roster, nobody is likely to complain if the Hokies finish where they started this year.

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