BCS Bowl Predictions: Virginia Tech Headed to Orange Bowl as ACC Champions

Virginia Tech was one of the few BCS top 10 teams that did not receive the upset memo this past weekend, and that's why the No. 8-ranked Orange Bowl-bound Hokies will be ranked inside the top 5 this week.

Tech has one game left on its 2011 schedule, a road game at Virginia where they can clinch the ACC Coastal Division, and then it's off to Charlotte, North Carolina.

This time next week, expect the Hokies to be 11-1, and headed for a rematch with the slumping Clemson Tigers, Tech's only loss all season.

The Hokies' 10th-ranked scoring defense, which is allowing fewer than 17 points per game this season, will have the edge over Clemson's 12th-ranked pass attack this time around though.

The Tigers showed Saturday afternoon in Raleigh just why they aren't worthy of the ACC crown. They've lost two of their last three, and their 23-3 win over Tech in Blacksburg seems like a distant dream rather than reality.

Since that early-October matchup, the Hokies have won six in a row, including three road games inside the conference.

Tech is hitting its stride at the perfect time, and is still alive for the BCS National Championship Game, having just one loss on its resume.

The conference title and a trip to the Orange Bowl are certainly locks for the Hokies in 2011. They will even top the Clemson rematch with a Stanford rematch this January.

The Cardinal dismantled the Hokies in last year's Orange Bowl. This year Stanford is again an at-large squad looking to crash the BCS party.

They'll end up in Miami facing off against an angry and determined Tech team that will have just missed out on the National Championship Game.