It took a little longer than expected on Sunday, but Virginia Tech knows their destination for their first bowl game under Brent Pry: the Military Bowl in Annapolis, Maryland against 11-2 Tulane.
The wait is finally over‼️@HokiesFB and @GreenWaveFB are going bowling in Annapolis🎳🏈
— Military Bowl presented by GoBowling.com (@MilitaryBowl) December 3, 2023
🗓️ December 27
📍Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium
⏰ 2 p.m.
🎟️ https://t.co/hyYpF0ia6V pic.twitter.com/Jw7M8WQg7x
The 2023 Military Bowl will be at 2pm Eastern on December 27th on ESPN, kicking off a slate of four bowl games on ESPN and FOX that day. This is Virginia Tech's third appearance in the Military Bowl with the Hokies beating Cincinnati 33-17 in 2014 and losing to Cincinnati 35-31 in 2018. This will be the first time Tulane has played in this bowl game.
Virginia Tech is 5-4 all-time against Tulane with the Hokies beating the Green Wave in their most recent matchup back in 1989 in Blacksburg by a score of 30-13. Of course, plenty has changed in college football since then with Tech's ascendance in the 1990s and 2000s to the top tier of the sport, to Tulane re-emergence for the first time since leaving the SEC in the middle of the 20th Century over the past couple seasons.
There will definitely be plenty of Hokie alum and fans in the Washington D.C. metro who will be excited that they get to see the Hokies play in their backyard. Tech hasn't played a big football or basketball game in the region in years, so its reasonable to expect a large turnout of Hokies in Annapolis.
It will be interesting to see what each of these teams look like for this game given the numerous transfer portal entries that will happen for both teams as with every team along with bowl opt-outs for NFL Draft bound players. Virginia Tech has a lot more stability and should have most of their key players available for this game.
Meanwhile, Tulane feels particularly vulnerable after Willie Fritz was named the new head coach at Houston. It's fair to wonder if there could be an exodus of talent for the transfer portal similar to what has happened at JMU since Curt Cignetti took the Indiana job.
Even with that, this is a great opportunity for Virginia Tech to get their first winning season since 2019 and do so against a Tulane program that has had a ton of success in recent years, having gone 23-4 over the past two seasons. There's no doubt that this has been a successful second season of progress for Brent Pry, but a bowl victory and a winning season would be the icing on the cake.
Of course, Tech getting the extra bowl practices for what is still a pretty young roster given the large high school recruiting classes Tech took in 2022 and 2023 will be quite valuable long-term regardless of the result in this game.
