It's already been said that the VT Men's Track & Field team won the Indoor championship by a record margin. Let's look deeper at how dominant their performance was:
1) We were without three athletes, who are listed on the roster and have scored big in past championships. Isaiah Rogers scored 16 points in 2019 (second in both SP and WT) and was the MVP field performer for the meet. Joel Leon Benitez scored 8 points in 2019 and has a lifetime best a foot higher than this year's ACC winner. Diego Zarate scored 5 points in the mile in 2020.
2) We had a number of athletes who fell short of previous performances for one reason or another. Miles Green (his big event is the 400 hurdles which is only run outdoors) did not place in the 400 meters after placing fourth (5 points) in 2019. Jaelyn Demory dropped out halfway through the heptathlon after having placed second (8 points) in 2019. Alexios Prodanas did not place in the Weight Throw after having placed fourth last year. In no way do I mean to criticize any of the athletes. They could be battling through injuries or just be having an off day. It's not unusual in track & field.
3) We withdrew from the 4 x 400 meter race even though we were the #1 seed (10 points). It was the last event of the day, the meet was already won and we probably didn't want to risk injury to Jacory Patterson who had already run twice (and won twice). I also suspect that we were down one of our best runners (Tyreke Sapp) since he scratched from the 400 meters.
4) So, was this dominance a fluke? I think not. Yes, FSU was down a couple of key guys but so were we. I looked at the classes of the athletes who placed in the top-8 in each event. If all seniors graduate (there is an extra year of eligibility available for many), we will still return 127 out of 136 points next year. UNC ended up in second place this year with 81 points but could lose 46 to graduation. Likewise, third place FSU could lose half of their 76 point total. No team would be returning more than 38 points if all seniors graduate and VT, let me repeat, should have 127 points returning.