National college football analyst Josh Pate has been high on the Virginia Tech Hokies even before the year had started.

Kyron Drones received plenty of praise as a dark horse All-ACC Candidate, and Virginia Tech had entered plenty of conversations to become a team that could compete in the ACC Championship. Pate agreed with all of that and more in the preseason.

With the College Football Playoff expanding to a 12-team format, Pate explained that Virginia Tech could be a team that came out of the ACC with a guaranteed spot in the College Football Playoff. “Virginia Tech,” he continued, “playoff contender in the ACC. One of the best defenses in the conference… You’ve got an elite run game, a high level defense, they’re hungry, and they’ve got a very manageable schedule.”

On the latest episode of Josh Pate’s College Football Show, he claimed that Virginia Tech has sneaky potential to remain relevant throughout the rest of the season:

“There is another interesting team just floating out there. It is Virginia Tech, not Vanderbilt. I have Vandy 41st by the way, Virginia Tech is 32nd, I don’t normally go past the Top 25. Virginia Tech is 32nd, and I want to ask you to do something, I want you to think of all of the teams you”ve left for dead–Virginia Tech is one of them. Then, I want you to go look at their conference standings, then I want you to look at their remaining schedule, then I want you to go look at the position they’re in. Virginia Tech is the most quiet, well-positioned team in the country right now. All of their preseason goals are still there. Ask yourself, ‘Who have they lost to?’ I think they’ve got one conference loss. They’ve still got Clemson coming to their place later in the season. They went into the bye week feeling very good about themselves. I’ve got them back to their preseason rating, or thereabouts. I had them [rated] at 87.6 to start the year, I’ve got them at 87.8 now. So, Virginia Tech, we thought highly of them coming into the season, and in the aggregate they’re rated a smidge higher than I had them in the preseason. In that course of time, they went below their preseason rating, but they’re back, so let’s see what they do with it.”

Virginia Tech is certainly sitting pretty. The Hokies only have one conference loss against Miami. Virginia Tech’s hardest game down the stretch will be at Lane Stadium, and the future that Brent Pry has been hoping to build may come sooner than expected.