Back before the ACC expansion, VT had two rivalries of any significance: UVA and West Virginia.  VT happily tried to sit between the two extremes of UVA snobbishness and WVU hillbilly-ness.  Both rivalries were competitive to varying degrees throughout the years but both were “big” games every year.

For better or worse, this is no longer the case.  West Virginia remained in the Big East and there are no planned inter-conference games between West Virginia and VT for the foreseeable future.  I think most VT fans will miss the rivalry in principle but not West Virginia in particular; Besides, you could argue we now have Maryland, the ACCs interpretation of West Virginia.

On the other hand, the UVA rivalry should have been even bigger with them competing in the same conference but instead, UVA has trailed off to become one of the worst football teams in Div I-A.  While rivalries are by their very nature competitive, the UVA rivalry has become too lopsided in recent years in favor of VT for it to register much interest.

VT doesn’t have to be too concerned with losing those rivalries as two new rivalries are starting to evolve from a surprising pair of teams: Fellow Big East -> ACC expansion teams Boston College and Miami.  Boston College has remained a solid, not great, program for many years now, and more noticeably, has been the pest that manages to knock off VT at most inopportune times.   The NFL Atlanta Falcons used to hold a warm place in many Hokie fans hearts with all the VT alumni that play(-ed) there but I wonder how many remain so now that evil wunderkind Matt Ryan of BC and VT-heartbreaking fame is running the show down there.

Possibly a bit more related to national relevance is the Miami/VT rivalry.  Going into the game last week, the VT/Miami was as even as possible: 9-9 wins, with the 18 games also matched at 391-391 points scored… that’s just crazy.  It’s impossible to be even more evenly matched.  In addition, VT & Miami have essentially run over the conferences they’ve been a part of since their Big East days.  Since 1994, VT has won 6 conference champions and Miami has won 5.  As you might expect, this dominance has usually lead to the Miami vs VT games being one of the more important games of the season.

Miami has traditionally been one of those schools you love to hate.  I don’t know any other schools that take pride in being arrogant but somehow Miami fans and athletes did.  For as long as I can remember, Miami has seemed to revel in trying to rub people the wrong way.  With questionable academic standards and over-priced tuition designed to provide a safe haven for undeserving trust fund kids, the whole idea that Miami is the “U” and somehow better than anyone, much less everyone, is preposterous.  Yet, somehow that’s exactly how Miami rolls.

That arrogance made the beautiful 31-7 beatdown VT graciously handed Miami this past weekend all that much sweeter so I won’t complain too much.

All of that said, a new wrinkle has been added to the mix.  I must give props to what appears to be a changing culture at Miami, on the football team at least.  I really like what I hear about Randy Shannon.  He sounds like a class guy that I would be happy to have coaching my own football team.  But I still want to beat his team every year.  That’s what rivalries are all about.