2008 Orange Bowl
In the wake of the Hokies's defeat, Virginia Tech chose to start a new quarterback and a new offensive plan. Behind freshman Tyrod Taylor, the Hokies rolled to five straight victories, including a win over No. 22 Clemson by 18 points. During the winning streak, Sean Glennon, who had started at quarterback for the Hokies during the first two games of the season, returned to alternate possessions with Taylor in an unusual two-quarterback system. On October 25, the Hokies had a chance to make up for their early-season loss to LSU when they faced No. 2 Boston College on a Thursday night in Blacksburg, Virginia. Though the Hokies dominated for most of the game, Boston College quarterback Matt Ryan managed a late-game comeback to win the game 14–10 with 11 seconds remaining.
2007 Texas Bowl
The matchup had different conference representatives from the inaugural 2006 game (itself the revival of the old Houston Bowl). This time, the teams were the TCU Horned Frogs of the Mountain West Conference and the hometown University of Houston from Conference USA. The original plan was C-USA versus Big 12, but the Big 12 did not have enough teams eligible for bowl games to fill the remaining slots after Oklahoma won the conference title and Kansas was selected at-large to the Orange Bowl.