Virginia Tech football fans may not be overly excited about making a third trip this season to Atlanta. However, Tech's bowl matchup that will be announced today should totally appease Hokie Nation.

Taken out of any long-shot consideration for a BCS bowl bid Saturday when unbeaten Boise State whipped New Mexico State, No. 11 Tech (9-3) will face Tennessee (7-5) in the Dec. 31 Chick-fil-A Bowl.

Although the official announcement won't come until today, sources from both schools confirmed the pairing for the 7:30 p.m. New Year's Eve contest at the Georgia Dome. ESPN will televise the game that pits the ACC's No. 2 team vs. the SEC's No. 4 team.

Tech fans have been clamoring for a meeting with the Volunteers for years. Despite their geographical proximity, the two schools have met in football only seven times, the last meeting coming Dec. 30, 1994, when the Peyton Manning-led Vols routed Tech 45-23 in the Gator Bowl played in Gainesville, Fla.

NASCAR tycoon Bruton Smith has talked several times in the past decade to arrange a football meeting between the two schools at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, where he envisioned a contest that could potentially draw as many as 150,000 fans at the racing facility.

It will be the Hokies' second trip to the CFA Bowl, formerly known as the Peach Bowl. Tech squandered a huge halftime lead and lost 31-24 to Georgia in the bowl in 2006.

"I think a lot of people would be juiced about it," said Hokies senior free safety Kam Chancellor, speaking Thursday about the prospective matchup. "I don't really know much about Tennessee for real, but I know they're a good team.

"It would be good to finish my career with a win over a SEC team because I don't think we've done that for a while."

Speaking of an SEC club, the Hokies lost 34-24 to Alabama in their Sept. 5 season opener -- the CFA Kickoff Classic -- at the dome. On its second trip to Atlanta on Oct. 17, Tech lost 28-23 to Georgia Tech at Bobby Dodd Stadium.

Tech's last victory over an SEC team came in 2002, when it whipped LSU 26-8 in Blacksburg. The Hokies are 0-4 since the SEC since, losing to Auburn in the 2005 Sugar Bowl, losing to Georgia in the 2006 CFA Bowl, losing to LSU 48-7 at Baton Rouge in 2007, and losing to 'Bama this year.

Tennessee, under first-year coach Lane Kiffin, finished second in the SEC's East Division this season with a 4-4 league mark that included a 3-2 record inside its division. After closing the regular season with an overtime road victory at surging Kentucky, the Vols appeared to be headed to the Jan. 1 Outback Bowl, but the Tampa, Fla.-based bowl broke from tradition and selected Auburn (7-5) from the SEC West over the second-place finisher in the East.

With a victory in the bowl, Tech would finish with a sixth consecutive double-digit win season. That would leave the Hokies in select company with Texas, which has won 10 or more games every year since 2001, as the only Division I-A programs to do so in each of the past six seasons.

Southern California, which had been the only other team in such company, saw its streak end Saturday when it fell to 8-4 with 21-17 loss in its regular-season finale.