Virginia Tech Football: Hokies Tabbed 25th in ESPN's 2020 FPI Rankings
We are still a shade over six months away from the new college football season, but ESPN has already released its 2020 Football Power Index (FPI) to forecast the upcoming season.
Per ESPN, the FPI is "a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team's performance going forward for the rest of the season. FPI represents how many points above or below average a team is."
Virginia Tech comes in at number 25 in the FPI for the upcoming season, which is a 23-spot jump from where they finished 2019. Following back-to-back losses to UVA and Kentucky in the bowl game to close out the season, the Hokies slid down to 48 in the final 2019 rankings.
While these rankings are almost entirely meaningless in the month of February, the early projections indicate that Virginia Tech should be a much better team in 2020 than the versions we've seen over the last two seasons.
The Hokies' 6-7 record in the 2018-19 season was the program's worst since 1992, but this past season showed signs of progress once Hendon Hooker took over at quarterback. Despite this improvement, Tech finished with an 8-5 record, one that is hardly the standard in Blacksburg.
Tech rounded out the ACC representatives in the Top 25 of the initial FPI, while Florida State came in at 23, UNC at 18, and the conference's powerhouse, Clemson, topped the rankings at number one.
The full ESPN FPI rankings can be found here.
