Lane Stadium has rarely ever been as quiet as it was on September 13, 2025.
On that fateful night, thousands of fans wearing Chicago maroon and burnt orange walked silently out of the venue once known as "The Terrordome" for its ability to strike fear into the hearts of visiting teams, after watching Virginia Tech go down 28-0 at halftime.
The only terror felt in that matchup was Brent Pry's hapless squad that went on to lose 45-24, Old Dominion's third win against Virginia Tech in seven years. The next day, Pry was fired, and the Hokies were once again leaderless. A program that was built and run by Frank Beamer for 28 years was now searching for its third coach in a decade.
After a 10 years of mediocrity, Whit Babcock's athletic department was faced with a choice: continue on its current path of doing more with less, or finally recognize its football program for what it was - a once-proud brand with an electric entrance, but also a 30-43 record since 2020.
Just a few weeks later, Virginia Tech's Board of Visitors seized the initiative and secured historic investment, building the foundation for a much brighter future in athletics. Then, in November, Virginia Tech announced the hiring of James Franklin, a move that made it clear that the old way was dead. Change was finally here.
Franklin, a coach known for his CEO-like approach to running a football program, hit the ground running, signing a top-25 recruiting class and bringing on standouts from Penn State en masse.
With his roster assembled, it was time to put all the pieces together on the field. To look "like Virginia Tech is supposed to look," as he would later put it.
Before the Hokies obliterated VMI 73-3 to start the 2026 season, during pre-game warmups, Lane Stadium's video board played a video introducing players and coaches. When Franklin made his appearance, Jay-Z's Public Service Announcement blared, its opening line, "Allow me to reintroduce myself..." serving as the soundtrack for a night that felt like the first stop on Franklin's redemption tour.
The result of Saturday's game was a foregone conclusion. Virginia Tech vastly overmatched VMI at every position, and the scoreboard reflected this imbalance. While Hokie fans would be wise to avoid drawing any conclusions from what was a glorified scrimmage, it was obvious that they needed this kind of win badly.
After a decade of having their hearts broken and their patience betrayed, the act of comprehensively dismantling a lesser opponent–something that has been far from a given in recent years–was cathartic.
Soon after the Hokies went up 14-0 after just eight offensive plays, the mood inside Lane Stadium was reminiscent of a house party, a feeling that hung around for the rest of the night. People of all ages were dancing, singing, and having a blast, unbothered by whatever was taking place on the field not only because a win was a certainty, but because they had started on a new, exhilarating, well-earned journey back to relevance.
As Franklin himself would tell you, however, one blowout win against a very bad FCS team doesn't right a listing ship by itself. Casting out a boogeyman once and for all might chart a course to real progress, though.
Virginia Tech takes on Old Dominion this Saturday at noon. The Monarchs have become one of many thorns in the Hokies' sides, winning matchups with Tech in 2018, 2022, and 2025. Losses to ODU sunk or helped sink the tenures of both Brent Pry and Justin Fuente before him.
Coming up short against, or in the case of last year's game, being crushed by, ODU did more damage to Tech's reputation as a program than any of its numerous losses to lesser opponents since Beamer retired in 2015 did. The Hokies became a national laughingstock when, in 2018, the Monarchs overcame +28.5 odds to win 49-35 over Fuente's squad. At the time, it was the largest non-conference FBS upset in more than five years. That black mark has followed Tech ever since, its weight compounded by the Hokies' two subsequent losses to ODU in later years.
Saturday, exactly 364 days since Hokie Nation left in droves at halftime against ODU, marks a turning point. A thorough drubbing of the Monarchs would do incalculable wonders for both the Virginia Tech brand and the fanbase as a whole. Such a win would without a doubt signal a changing of the guard, from past regimes that accepted mediocrity at face value to one that demands excellence in everything it does from this point forward.
A loss silenced Lane Stadium last year. One big win this week could ignite "The Terrordome" once more.
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