The state of Virginia is facing a reported $2.2 billion budget shortfall over two years, but that didn't slow the Virginia Tech football team from throwing money around at the 2011 Orange Bowl.
The Hokies lost $1.6 million on their trip to South Florida, according to Dan Wetzel, the Yahoo! columnist who posted the information to his Death To The BCS blog.
It can be argued that losing "only" $1.6 million is progress for Virginia Tech. The team lost $2.2 million on its trip to the 2009 Orange Bowl. For those of you scoring at home, that's $3.8 million on the Hokies' past two trips to the Bowl Championship Series game.
Virginia Tech ran up $3,343,689 in expenses and was reimbursed $1,725,000 by the Atlantic Coast Conference, which like most conferences pools bowl revenue and pays each member a percentage. But the Hokies' cut didn't come close to covering the bills.
The biggest culprit was again unsold or withheld tickets. The Hokies got stuck with 9,500 of them totaling $1,243,988.