Mapping Out Virginia Tech's Road to The ACC Championship Game Ahead of Matchup Against Miami

How can the Hokies make the ACC Championship?

Oct 26, 2023; Blacksburg, Virginia, USA; Virginia Tech Hokies safety Keonta Jenkins (7) tackles Syracuse Orange quarterback Garrett Shrader (6) during the second quarter at Lane Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter Casey-Imagn Images / Peter Casey-Imagn Images

With the division system being demolished in the ACC, Virginia Tech no longer has to battle all of the Coastal teams for a shot at the Championship game, all that the Hokies would need to do is finish top two in the conference based on their conference record, which basically means that Virginia Tech should consider how they played in their first four games, but throw that out of the window for now because a new season will start on Friday for the Hokies.

The woes for the Virginia Tech team have been apparent and unchanged, but they'd only need to sneak an upset win or two and take all of the toss-up games on the schedule.

Now, I'm not saying that Virginia Tech needs to or will upset Miami, but I will consider paths to the Championship Game, with and without a loss to Miami.

Starting with the most realistic scenario, which would be Virginia Tech losing to Miami. In that situation, Miami would likely be a lock to be the highest ranked team in the conference, but it would be between SMU, Clemson, Louisville, and Virginia Tech to all vie for the last spot. With that, Virginia Tech would simply have to win out, with the number of teams now in the ACC a two-loss team just wont make the Championship Game, that's why programs like Georgia Tech are essentially out of the race.

That schedule looks daunting, but outside of Clemson most of those games are toss-ups. They play Stanford, Boston College, Syracuse, and Georgia Tech after the Miami game, all of which could go either way. Against Clemson they could be double-digit underdogs, but still a game they need to win, so anything can happen. Then, the Hokies will end the season against Duke and Virginia, two teams I think they will be favored against.

Now the other path for Virginia Tech depends entirely on a win against Miami this Friday. The Hokies would have to pull off likely one of the bigger upsets in the history of the ACC. If they can do that though, the path gets much easier. Because the Hokies knocked off Miami, there's no undebatable number one team in the conference, so the Hokies could lose one or even two games considering that they would have a tie-breaker over Miami.

This is the lesser likely of the two scenarios, but who knows? It's Friday Night Football, and we've seen that be a problem for favorites this season.