Friday night in Dallas comes with a simple but brutal math problem for Virginia Tech and SMU: the loser is stuck with three ACC losses, and that’s a mountain that gets a lot steeper when Miami has none and Wake Forest has one.
That’s the backdrop for Virginia Tech (6-2, 3-2 ACC) at SMU (6-2, 4-2), set for 7 p.m. ET on ESPN at Gerald J.
Ford Stadium. It’s the first meeting between the programs since 1974, when SMU won 28-25 at the Cotton Bowl, and the Mustangs hold a 2-1 edge in the series.
The ACC’s title-game setup leaves little room for error. The two teams with the best conference winning percentage go to Charlotte for the Dec. 5 championship, with head-to-head results used first to break ties and a SportSource Analytics team ranking used when that isn’t enough.
Right now, Miami sits at 6-0 in league play and No. 1 in the AP poll. Wake Forest is 5-1 and ranked No.
- Louisville and SMU are both 4-2, and Louisville already beat SMU 41-31 in September.
Virginia Tech is 3-2, tied with Duke and with a Clemson team the Hokies already beat.
Because both Virginia Tech and SMU play nine conference games, Friday’s loser can finish no better than 6-3. For Virginia Tech to reach Charlotte at that mark, Wake Forest would need to drop two of its final three league games, while Louisville, Duke, Clemson and SMU would each have to lose again. Even then, the Hokies would still need the tiebreaker to fall their way.
A win doesn’t lock anything up, either. If Virginia Tech gets out of Dallas with a victory, it moves to 4-2 in the league with Stanford, a Nov. 21 trip to Miami and Virginia still on the schedule.
Even running the table from there might not be enough if Wake Forest keeps winning. SMU’s path is cleaner, since Wake Forest still has to visit Dallas on Nov.
So the stakes are clear: the winner leaves with two conference losses and a shot. The loser leaves with three and a spreadsheet.
Virginia Tech hasn’t played since Oct. 24, when Ethan Grunkemeyer hit tight end Luke Reynolds on a 5-yard touchdown pass with 1:44 left in a 20-16 win at Clemson. It was Virginia Tech’s first win over the Tigers since 2007. A Halloween bye followed, and by kickoff James Franklin’s team will have had 13 days between games.
SMU, meanwhile, is coming off a frustrating Saturday. Syracuse beat the Mustangs 30-27 on a 2-yard touchdown pass with 17 seconds left, and SMU fell out of the AP Top 25 on Sunday.
Rhett Lashlee didn’t sugarcoat it afterward. He blamed the loss on his team’s own issues - a stalled run game, the turnover battle, costly penalties and too many sacks - and said, “we shouldn’t have been in that position.” Syracuse brought down Kevin Jennings four times.
The turnover problem has been hanging around, too. SMU has coughed it up 11 times in eight games, with five interceptions and six lost fumbles, while forcing only six turnovers.
Still, Gerald J. Ford Stadium has been a difficult place for visitors. SMU is 5-0 at home, while Virginia Tech is 3-1 on the road.
Franklin has seen this quarterback under pressure before. His Penn State team beat SMU 38-10 in the first round of the 2024 College Football Playoff, and two first-half Jennings interceptions were returned for touchdowns. Grunkemeyer also made his college debut in that game, and his first pass was tipped and picked off before SMU turned it into its only touchdown.
This season, though, Grunkemeyer has been much cleaner, with just two interceptions in 262 attempts.
Virginia Tech’s defense has lived in opposing backfields all year under coordinator Brent Pry. The Hokies have 77 tackles for loss in eight games, nearly 10 per game, which leads FBS.
Thirteen of those came at Clemson. The one thing missing has been takeaways through the air: Virginia Tech has only two interceptions on the season.
Jennings is the challenge. He has completed 73.7% of his passes for 2,414 yards, 21 touchdowns and five interceptions, and SMU is averaging 464.1 yards and 35.3 points per game.
Virginia Tech’s offense has its own concerns. SMU has 22 sacks this season, and opponents have converted only 27% of their third downs, going 31 of 115.
Grunkemeyer has been sacked 23 times, including six at Clemson, where Virginia Tech managed just 70 rushing yards and was outgained 146-13 in the third quarter. Franklin said the bye week gave the staff a chance to get some offensive linemen back.
When the Hokies can run it, the offense looks different. Virginia Tech averages 139.8 rushing yards per game, and Jeffrey Overton Jr. has 639 yards at 5.7 per carry.
That version of the team lives in manageable downs. The Clemson version keeps ending up in third-and-long, and SMU’s defense has been good at ending drives, getting off the field on 73% of third downs.
The first CFP rankings come out Tuesday. If Virginia Tech wins Friday, the Nov. 21 trip to Miami still carries title-game weight. If it loses, the rest of November shifts from championship talk to bowl positioning.
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