SP+ Predicts Final Score For Virginia Tech vs Miami Matchup on Friday Night
It has been a rocky start for Virginia Tech and that is probably being nice. The Hokies are 2-2 after an offseason full of hype and now they have to go on the road and face No. 7 Miami. You can say the Hurricanes have had a light schedule to start the season, but they have crushed everyone they have faced so far. What is worse is that their run defense has been among the best in the country and that is the one thing Virginia Tech has been decent at this year. If Miami shuts down the run game, can Kyron Drones do anything to attactk Miami's secondary? There is no evidence to suggest that so far this season, but that might be the key to the game.
The Hokies opened up as massive underdogs in the betting market and Bill Connelly's SP+ projects Virginia Tech to lose the game vs the Hurricanes by a score of 38-19 and Miami has an 88% chance to win the game.
🤗😇 WEEK 5 SP+ PICKS 🥳🤩
— Bill Connelly (@ESPN_BillC) September 23, 2024
Bama 29, UGA 26
PSU 33, Illini 15
ND 28, Louisville 22
Oregon 39, UCLA 17
Utah 33, Zona 20
Miami 38, VT 19
K-State 30, Okla St 27
Trojans 32, Badgers 22
A&M 30, Arkansas 26
Auburn 25, Oklahoma 24
Horns 47, Cowbells 11https://t.co/w7ALlZmjBl pic.twitter.com/dY4RXTt5tR
Virginia Tech has opened as a 17.5-point underdog vs the Hurricanes and the total is set at 54.5.
What exactly is SP+? Here is how Connelly himself describes it:
"As always, these are based on three primary factors: returning production (final rankings for which you can find at the bottom of this piece), recent recruiting and recent history. How good have you been recently? Whom do you have coming back? How good are the players replacing those you don't have coming back? That's loosely what we ask when we're setting expectations for a team; it's also what these projections attempt to do objectively.
As always: 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, and, 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 year. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date."
In terms of where they go from here and the mindset of the team, this is what head coach Brent Pry said last night after the loss to Rutgers:
"Yeah, obviously there are signs out there in each of these four games, the wins and the losses, of the team that we can be. We just haven't put it all together. You know, another slow start today, you can't dig yourself in a hole. As proud as I am of the way we battled back, you can't dig in the hole. We got to coach better and play better, you know, early in the game. But it's a four-quarter game. Games like today prove that. You got a chance to win it at the end, and they made two good plays, and we didn't make enough of them.
Yeah, you know, again, we didn't listen to the expectations. I mean, we're happy to have them here at Virginia Tech. We know the team we have. We know the potential we have. But, you know, you can't just be about potential, you got to meet it, and we're not doing that right now. We are a better team than what we showed today. You make a few more plays on offense, you make a few more plays on defense, just a couple of plays on teams. You can't lose the takeaway battle and explosive play battle and win the game. Very difficult, and we almost did it."
Virginia Tech at Miami kicks off at 7:30 on Friday night and will be televised on ESPN.
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
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Jackson Caudell has been covering Georgia Tech Athletics For On SI since March 2022 and the Atlanta Hawks for On SI since October 2023. Jackson is also the co-host of the Bleav in Georgia Tech podcast and he loves to bring thoughtful analysis and comprehensive coverage to everything that he does. Find him on X @jacksoncaudell