| Sport | Football |
|---|---|
| First meeting | October 16, 1920 VMI, 35–0 |
| Latest meeting | October 19, 2024 The Citadel, 13–10 |
| Next meeting | 2025 at Charleston, SC |
| Trophy | Silver Shako |
| Statistics | |
| Meetings total | 80[1] |
| All-time series | The Citadel leads, 45–33–2 |
| Trophy series | The Citadel leads, 31–13–1 |
| Largest victory | The Citadel, 50–0 (1992) |
| Longest win streak | The Citadel, 12 (2003–2018) |
| Current win streak | The Citadel, 1 (2024–present) |
The original "Military Classic of the South" was a football game played on Thanksgiving Day between Virginia Tech (VPI) and the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) beginning in 1913 and lasting until 1985.[2][3] Unfortunately, as Virginia Tech continued to expand its student body, the game quickly became unmatched and VMI left the series in 1985.
Today, the current Military Classic of the South is an American college football rivalry game played between the civilian students and cadet students from The Citadel and the cadets from Virginia Military Institute.[4] The first game between VMI and The Citadel was in 1920. The game has been played nearly continuously since World War II; since then, only five seasons have seen the game not played. Currently, The Citadel is expanding its student body to become a larger comprehensive college and bringing in transfer graduate student athletes, while VMI remains all-military. Thus, the future of this series may be uncertain.[5]
- ^ "Football History vs the Citadel".
- ^ "Back in the day Tech VMI was the game".
- ^ "A History of the Corps of Cadets".
- ^ "SoCon Football Week 10: A Historical Sketch of the 'Battle For The Silver Shako'". Medium.com. November 3, 2015. Retrieved February 7, 2017.
- ^ Hartsell, Jeff. "VMI and The Citadel: The same, but different".