Virginia Tech fans are tired of beating UVA to get into a cold weather bowl game

Virginia Tech, since 2014, has entered the season finale with UVA with five wins and needing a win to get to a bowl a total of five times.

Tech’s record in those games: 5-0.

For the sixth time in 10 games, that’s the situation facing Virginia Tech heading into Saturday’s game with a similarly 5-6 Virginia squad that also needs a win to get into a bowl game.

On the Virginia side, which hasn’t been in a bowl since the 2019 Orange Bowl, six wins and a cold weather bowl would be a welcome and healthy surprise, after the media tabbed the Cavaliers to finish 16th in the 17-team ACC back in the summer.

For Virginia Tech, just getting to six with another win over the, ahem, rival, would be a comedown, after that same media had Tech as a sleeper pick to play its way into the ACC Championship Game.

“As a former player, I am so tired of us being happy to beat UVA! Beating UVA isn’t exciting to me or anyone else anymore! Any season that we don’t make it to the ACC is a busted season. Sick of UVA being the Super Bowl of the season!! We have to beat UVA go to a toilet bowl!!!”

That was Sergio Render, a former Tech offensive lineman, on social media, following the Hokies’ 31-28 loss at Duke on Saturday night, which made Saturday’s Commonwealth Clash game a do-or-die for the Hokies.

Virginia fans have voiced their own issues with their third-year coach, Tony Elliott, who has a 11-22 record since taking the job after the shock resignation of Bronco Mendenhall in December 2021.

Brent Pry, who replaced Justin Fuente a couple of weeks before Elliott was named the coach at UVA, did get the Hokies into a bowl last season, but he’s just 15-20 in his three seasons at the helm.

That includes this season’s 5-6 and counting mark, with losses to Vanderbilt and Rutgers in September, ahead of the ongoing three-game losing streak.

Tech is a seven-point favorite heading into Saturday night, but it might take some creativity to get the W, with the status of starting QB Kyron Drones and his backup, Collin Schlee, uncertain at this point in game week – Drones missed the Duke game with a foot injury, and Schee was knocked out of the Duke game with a head injury.

Third-stringer Pop Watson was 12-of-25 for 146 yards and an INT in relief in the Duke game, leading the Hokies back from a two-TD deficit to get the margin down to a field goal in the fourth quarter.

Virginia Tech always wins this game – it hasn’t lost to Virginia in Blacksburg since 1998 – so it’s fair to expect the Hokies to come out on top, no matter the circumstance.

But as Sergio Render voiced for the Hokie Nation, beating UVA to get into a minor bowl is getting old.