I don’t see how you roll the dice with VT and possibly not get the major you want (and we love VT).
What about UNCC for a year and then NCSU? I don’t know much about their (NCSU) ME program though.
A transfer to VT could possibly work, but I’d look at the VT transfer threads to see how likely that plan is to work. You have good options in NC so it’s hard to justify the cost of Clemson just over the state line.