Originally posted on February 27th.  I have now updated it with the completion of ACC regular season play in basketball.  And we’re still #1! 

While 99% of Hokie fans were happy to be moving from the Big East to the ACC four years ago, no one could have predicted the success Tech would have in the two major college sports: football and basketball.  In fact, Virginia Tech has the best combined winning percentage of the 12 members of the ACC in football and men’s basketball over the last four years in ACC play.  Yeah, that’s right, we’re #1!

Here’s the breakdown:

This table shows each ACC team’s winning percentage in ACC regular season games for football and basketball over the last four seasons.  The Combined Win % column ranks football and basketball evenly to compensate for the fact you play twice the number of basketball games each season as football.  And as you can see, Virginia Tech comes in at 66.4%, over 5% higher than the next closest team, unc.

Since joining the ACC, the Hokies are 27-5 in football and 31-33 in basketball in ACC regular season action.  Not too shabby, especially when you consider VT was just 17-11 (60.7%) in football and 17-47 (26.6%) in basketball in their final four years in the Big East in conference games.  Sure, ricky stokes didn’t help that any, but you can even see the improvement Virginia Tech has had in football, going up almost 24% in these two comparisons.  Throw out 2000 (VT went 6-1 in Big East contests), and VT was just 11-10 in their last three Big East football campaigns.

In basketball, the Hokies have progressed by leaps and bounds also.  They finished below .500 in each of their four Big East seasons, but have finished .500 or better in three of their four ACC seasons, including earning three first round byes in the ACC tourney. 

Another interesting thing about this study is bc, another Big East defector, is #3.  They were an average football team in the Big East, finishing no better than 4-3 in conference play between 1994 and 2003 (the last year miami and VT were in the Big East).  But the eagles are 16-8 in ACC games in three seasons, finishing 5-3, 5-3, and 6-2.   

Sure, miami has struggled in the ACC, winning just 50% of the time in football and 40% of the time in basketball.  But between VT and bc, you can see that the Big East wasn’t too shabby, especially in football.  The former Big East schools have pushed around the soft, wine & cheese ACC folks in football, while also making strides in basketball. 

In summary, in just four years in the ACC, the Hokies have two football championships, another football division championship, and three first round byes in the ACC Basketball Tournament.  hoo’s #1 in the ACC’s major sports?  The Hokies are!

Note: As mentioned above, this table looks solely at the win percentages in the two sports, not the number of games.  So if you were 2-0 in football but 0-4 in basketball, your Combined Win % would be 50%: (100% + 0%)/2, not 33% (2-4 combined).  This compensates for the fact teams play 16 ACC basketball games per season and just 8 football ACC games.

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