Has ETSU Football Come Full Circle From 1992?
Thirty-one years ago an ETSU victory against VMI was a turning point for the program. Now, the Buccaneers may have passed that torch back to the Keydets.
Despite winning the Southern Conference football championship in the spring of 2021, there’s a feeling in the SoCon whenever you lose to Virginia Military Institute you’ve hit rock bottom.
It’s a football program that went almost 40 seasons, from 1982–2020, without posting a single winning record.
It wasn’t always that way, though. In the 1980s Virginia Military was considered a more prestigious football program than East Tennessee State.
Perhaps most notably, in 1987 the 3–6 Keydets defeated 5–4 ETSU, 20–13, the week after the Bucs enjoyed a victory against North Carolina State. As such ETSU would finish what should have been one of their best seasons in school history with just a 5–6 record.
Bunch of SOBs; the Same Old Bucs. When VMI’s Mark Stock landed with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1989, he told me he didn’t think he’d be in the NFL if it wasn’t for being able to play ETSU.
