šŸˆ Virginia vs Florida State, Friday, 26 September 2025, 1900, ESPN

There is talk of changing the student fees formula for all state schools in VA. I would keep an eye on any GA movement on higher ed in the next few months for that (not that there are many people covering that kind of thing left). They may be expecting some movement on that front to help fund some of this.

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He took us and the points? Or was that Andy Bitter?

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No they both took FSU. And that’s Andy Staples.

Ari is an idiot though. Andy knows his stuff.

I promise I’m not being a hater, but I would take FSU at -6.5 all day. We’ve looked great on offense, but as @BDragon said this is another tier.

NC State losing to Duke like they did really is driving this home. Duke looks good, but not great. I would take FSU -6.5 against Duke, probably.

Law of transitive properties + beating up only on bad teams leads me to have a lot of skepticism we can keep this one tight.

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Sorry, Staples yeah. He did say FSU would win, but by less than the 7, so maybe my us and the points terminology was wrong. But I mean, I think I’d take FSU +7 in this game (please don’t shoot me). Of course, I don’t gamble, so my pick doesn’t mean anything.

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New KFord projection sheet. We’re up to 8.2 wins and favorites in every game after the next two. (A lot of that win total movement appears to be from Cal’s biiigggg downward adjustment.)

He has us as a 10.8 dog to FSU, so with the home 3 points (it’s actually a little less now but w/e) we’re right there.

Also of note: this is the first time I scrolled through from the top of the carousel to find ours instead of scrolling up through the bottom! Yay consistent top half team!

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Oh Ari explicitly said ā€œI have a hard time saying Virginia is within a touchdown of Florida Stateā€ or something similar which is more what I was referring to. He’s one of the dumber CFB guys, so I’m pleased with that. His career as Andy Staples’ backpack seems to be going well though.

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Yeah, football’s supposed to subsidize other stuff that isn’t independently solvent. Financing your cash cow can work, but you better hope the milk doesn’t turn or that’s ballgame.

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Yeah I mean I get it from their perspective. May be a losing bet, but they have to make it. In the grand scheme of university budgets it is a relatively small bet to make.

But yeah it could go real bad if your athletic department is running a massive budget deficit that you can’t really back down from without a lot of pain in a few years.

The good news about having no national championship caliber programs is that it will hurt less if you have to cut them though.

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NC State game was on the road, we were assimilating 30+ new players, some of our best defensive players were injured. We were never supposed to be at our best early in the season, but should have beaten NC St and have obliterated the bad teams (what good teams do). If FSU hadn’t looked better expected, then I would fully expect a win in this game. And FSU’s bump could be more about Alabama. We’ll see. I’m not conceding anything about this game.

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Given the direction of things this year, I’d be pretty surprised to see additional government money for universities.

Edit - Looking at our remaining schedule, I have to note I always forget we have another non-con game. Then I remember we have one still to go, and I worry for a sec about whether its a team that’s maybe better than I expected. And then I remember its WSU and I’m just delighted.

Honestly, if I didn’t feel so snakebit with VT, I’d feel pretty confident about 8 wins.

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Not to sure what to think about this upcoming FSU game. We could win by 20, or we could win by 30. Wide range of possible outcomes.

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Honestly I am not worried about the O having a decent game against FSU. If we don’t get literally ran around and through on Defense, I will be happy. DBs have been sleepwalking all season and we lack speed (hopefully Kam makes up for some of that) at most positions. If we don’t get muscled we stand a chance, but I have low expectations here

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Only seeing 1 book drop the line to 6.5 but it does look like Draft Kings has pulled the line for now which indicates a change is coming.

@JoeBoxley name the biggest issue for Friday night. Can the defense do enough to slow down the 'Noles and get off the field and not because they’re being ran by in a track meet.

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Don’t think it’d be government money for universities per se as much as more freedom for them to raise and spend money.

Also I wouldn’t be too surprised… A lot of universities are being hit hard by the loss of research funding and foreign student tuition. State govs will probably have to step in in some cases.

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Oh, sure, but states are losing funding, too. In the arts, Federal-level NEA direct support is mostly toast, and NEA support to the states has been merely cut 50-60%. The VA state government is stepping in to help, but that means you’re getting 70% of what you used to get from the state instead of 40% (a big chunk of state government funding comes from the Feds. VA has stepped up its support, but its not entirely covering the state-level NEA cut), and you’re still getting 0% from the Federal government.

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Rewatched Stanford game and man, Rickert and Holmes really impressed in the pass rush department. We’re consistently winning 1v1. We’ll need that on Friday night, but also Rud is really going to have to dial up some blitzes to make Castellanos uncomfortable. He’s going to pick us apart if he has time.

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Yeah I’d rather blitz a ton and try to create turnovers/big negative plays than go with a bend but don’t break approach

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I would agree with that. Play to win, not to not lose.

I often think about the 2021 Ole Miss-Bama game when Ole Miss might have legitimately had a shot going in for the first time in a long time. They lost 42-21, but I thought Kiffin did everything right as an underdog. He went for it on 4th 3 times in the first half (went 0-3) and pulled out all the stops offensively and defensively all game.

It turned into a disaster, but he did all of the things you have to do if you’re going to beat Bama with less talent, they just all went the wrong direction.

I’d love to see a similar approach Friday night. This is the best team we’ll see all year and if we can get a couple lucky breaks Scott will start bouncing and you can do something special. Do the stuff that generates chances for those breaks, don’t try to just line up and outplay their game.

Maybe you lose 42-21 instead of 28-17 or something, but at least you really tried.

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The lack of speed is an age issue. Some of our guys are collecting Soc Security I think.

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