Mark Thurston of the West Virginia Mountaineers at Mountaineer Field in Morgantown, West Virginia. (Photo Credit: Doug Pensinger /Allsport)
LANDOVER, Md. - Virginia Tech will kick off the 2017 season on a grand stage in primetime as the No. 21 Hokies take on No. 22 West Virginia at FedExField in Landover, Maryland at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 3.
Once bitter BIG EAST rivals, Virginia Tech and West Virginia are rekindling a rivalry that has been dormant since 2005 when the two squads meet at FedExField. Tech has won seven of the last 10 meetings in the series, including the last two contests played on campus - a 34-17 win in Morgantown (10/1/05) and a 19-13 victory in Blacksburg (10/2/04).
Head coach Justin Fuente of the Virginia Tech Hokies. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
This will only be the seventh time the Hokies and Mountaineers will have played each other on a neutral field. The last neutral site game between the two programs occurred in Richmond, Virginia (9/29/62). Sunday’s game will only be the fourth time that both Virginia Tech and West Virginia will play while both are ranked in the AP Top 25. The last time both teams squared off and were ranked nationally was at Lane Stadium (10/31/98) when No. 20 Virginia Tech topped No. 21 West Virginia, 27-13.
For VT, redshirt freshman QB Josh Jackson will make his debut for the Hokies, marking the second straight year that Tech has opened the season with a signal-caller starting his first major college football game. Jackson is the first redshirt freshman to open the season at QB for the Hokies since Tyrod Taylor in 2007.
