Updated SP+ Rankings: Virginia Tech Falls After Loss To Vanderbilt

How far did Virginia Tech fall?

Aug 31, 2024; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Virginia Tech Hokies quarterback Kyron Drones (1) gets tackled from behind by Vanderbilt Commodores linebacker Langston Patterson (10) during the second half at FirstBank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-Imagn Images / Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

Virginia Tech took a dive in Bill Connelly's SP+ rankings, falling all the way to 51st place from 36th place. Vanderbilt did not pass Virginia Tech in these rankings, but they took a jump too. Moving up from 95th to 88th place.

Virginia tech simply under-performed against Vanderbilt and found themselves falling in countless power rankings.

Virginia Tech's next game is against Marshall, a team similarly ranked to Vanderbilt. Marshall is actually ranked higher than Vanderbilt, and brings a significant offensive--and defensive attack.

Virginia Tech has areas to improve on all sides of the ball. Virginia Tech cannot take these lesser opponents lightly and should come into these out-of-conference games with a true gameplan. Brent Pry has had to deal with the absence of Nick Gallo, and now the absence of Jalen Stroman and Will Johnson.

Virginia Tech needs to keep themselves from a free-fall in the early season, a plague that has affected Hokie teams of the past.

To see themselves shoot up higher in the rankings, they need to take care of Marshall and Old Dominion and avoid an upset against Rutgers. SP+ probably will not see Virginia Tech very highly if they lose to the Thundering Herd.

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."