Virginia Tech Football: SP+ Rankings Shake Up After Hokies’ Bye Week
After Virginia Tech had a week off in preparation for their away matchup against the Duke Blue Devils, the college football carousel kept spinning. The ACC faced some turmoil at the top of the league, seven ranked teams faced defeat, and the Big Ten continued to beat up on each other.
Last week, Virginia Tech was ranked as the 29th team by Bill Connelly’s SP+ rankings system, and even though there was plenty of turmoil with the surrounding teams, Virginia Tech remained as the 29th teams in Connelly’s new iteration of his SP+ rankings.
Now, the Hokies will face off against the Duke Blue Devils, the 43rd ranked team by SP+. Duke holds a 7-3 record and Virginia Tech could become bowl eligible with a win against Manny Diaz’s squad.
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."
Additional Links:
Virginia Tech Football: Hokies Open As Small Road Favorites vs Duke
Virginia Tech Recruiting: Hokies Receive Prediction To Land 2025 Cornerback Target
Virginia Tech Women's Basketball: 5 Takeaways From Hokies win vs UNC Asheville
RJ Schafer joined the On SI team in 2024, contributing to the coverage of Major League Baseball, Collegiate Basketball, and Collegiate Football at https://www.si.com/college/virginiatech/. Prior to this, RJ built a strong portfolio covering Georgia Tech and the Tigers for the Bleav Network. With a solid background in sports journalism, RJ has conducted interviews with both collegiate and professional athletes, enhancing the depth and authenticity of his reporting. RJ's extensive experience in the sports industry has equipped him with a keen understanding of the dynamics and intricacies of both collegiate and professional sports. His work is focused on providing insightful analysis and comprehensive coverage, making him a trusted voice in the sports community.