Just heard an interesting stat on a local talk radio show (I am trusting that it is correct).

Only three Power 5 schools have never won a national championship in a sport sponsored by the NCAA:

Mississippi State
Kansas State
Virginia Tech.

(Club sports are not included.)

My immediate observation is that none of the schools are the flagship institution for their state.

My question is whether any of us would consider Virginia Tech to be a sports “failure”

Virginia Tech spent a number of years as an independent and a significant number of years as a member of non-P5 conferences. It has only been an ACC member for, what, about 15-20 years? Anyway, it is fine to say that they have never won a national championship but it is somewhat disingenuous for whomever first came up with this to discredit them as P5 non-achievers - since they have only been P5 for a relatively short period of time (much shorter time in the top tier than Miss. St. or Kansas St.).