#241 ASA PLAY ON 8* Virginia Tech -10.5 over Tulane, Wednesday at 2 PM ET - One team in this game has a ton of distractions leading up to this game (Tulane) and the other has almost none (Va Tech). Tulane’s head coach Willie Fritz has already taken the head job at Houston and won’t be on the sidelines for this game. He is taking his OC, DC, WR coach, and DL coach with him to Houston. Those assistants will coach in this game but we can’t imagine this staff is fully invested at this point. On top of that, the Green Wave will be without their starting QB Pratt, their top 3 WR’s, starting TE, along with 5 or 6 defensive starters. This team was trending down the last month and a half or so even when they were at full strength. 3 of their final 5 wins were by 3 points or less with 2 of those wins coming vs non bowl teams Tulsa and ECU. In their regular season finale they were outgained by UTSA but benefitted from 5 turnovers to pick up a win. In the AAC Championship game, a home game for Tulane, they were dominated by SMU who finished the game with a -2 turnover margin AND was without their starting QB yet still won by double digits. Va Tech has very few opt outs, a young coach in his 2nd year with the program, and they are on the rise. This is a very important game for the Hokies who were 3-8 last year in HC Pry’s first year (didn’t make a bowl game) and they’ve improved to 6-6 this year and are shooting for a winning record. The Hokies have almost every one of their key players playing in this bowl game. Virginia Tech played the tougher schedule compared to Tulane but the key numbers (YPG & YPP differential) were almost dead even. And that was with the Green Wave at full strength which we’ve stated they won’t be for this bowl game. The Hokies played 8 bowl teams this year and outgained those teams by an average of +40 YPG. Their offense was really clicking down the stretch with the exception of their game vs Louisville who has a top 15 defense. In their final 5 games (minus the Louisville game) the Hokies averaged 40 PPG. This one is in Annapolis, Maryland which is a 4 hour & 30 minute drive from Blacksburg so Virginia Tech so we look for a Hokie home crowd here. Lay it.