Virginia Tech Will Head to the Duke's Mayo Bowl Against Minnesota

The ACC has announced that Virginia Tech will head to the Duke's Mayo Bowl to take on Minnesota on Friday, January 3rd at 7:30pm on ESPN at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC.

This will be Virginia Tech's third trip to the Mayo Bowl following their stunning 35-24 comeback victory over Arkansas in 2016 and their dramatic 37-30 loss to Kentucky in 2019. Tech's two previous trips have had some weird storylines as Arkansas star TE Jeremy Sprinkle was suspended in 2016 for the game due to shoplifting during the team's bowl trip to Belk. In 2019, Kentucky QB Lynn Bowden punched a Tech player pregame against VT DT DaShawn Crawford yet wasn't ejected because it happened before the officials had jurisdiction over proceedings, inspiring a rule change.

This is also a unique matchup as Virginia Tech and Minnesota have never faced off in a football game before. The lone time that Brent Pry and PJ Fleck have faced off previously was 2019 when Pry was the defensive coordinator at Penn State and Fleck was the head coach at Minnesota. Penn State beat the Gophers 31-26 in that game.

Virginia Tech will look to finish off year 3 of the Brent Pry era with a victory and a winning record. This game also gives Tech another chance at ending their long victory drought against Power 4 competition in out-of-conference games. The last time Tech did beat a Power 4 opponent in an out-of-conference game was in 2017 when they beat West Virginia 31-24 in a primetime season opener at FedEx Field on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.

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