The first major move of the college football coaching carousel was made Monday as Virginia Tech got top target James Franklin as the Hokies’ next head coach. Franklin replaces his former assistant coach Brent Pry, who was dismissed earlier this season after going 16–24 during his time in Blacksburg, Va.
What is the program getting in the veteran head coach?
What it means for Virginia Tech
Since the start of the Hokies’ search and Franklin’s dismissal from Penn State, there was plenty of putting two and two together to match up a proven program builder with a place that loves to support its team but has gone through hard times since the end of the Frank Beamer era.
Landing Franklin is a huge coup for the program. He’s the type of coach whose mere name will help win the news conference and who can help Virginia Tech win plenty of games. After all, if he can win over 100 of them in State College, Pa., and take the Nittany Lions to the precipice of the national title game just 10 months ago, to say nothing of winning nine games multiple times at Vanderbilt, you know he’s capable of winning with the Hokies.
While not every coaching decision is the type where it feels like a slam dunk, Franklin checks off nearly every box the Hokies were looking for. He’s won at multiple places and has over 15 years in the big chair. After taking a chance on an unproven coordinator in Pry, it should be a breath of fresh air to land a guy who doesn’t have to learn on the job and has been tested at the highest levels in the SEC and Big Ten.
Plus, Franklin knows the recruiting footprint for Virginia Tech extremely well from his time as a head coach at Penn State along with stops as an assistant at Maryland and James Madison. If the Hokies want to win, that starts by collecting all the talent at home in the nearby Tidewater and throughout the DMV. Yes, they will need to supplement in the transfer portal, but the key to building a consistent winner begins with the talent base being high. Franklin has shown he’s capable of finding players and turning them into NFL draft picks.
Landing Franklin should also redouble the efforts from Virginia Tech’s massive investment into the football program that they loudly trumpeted a few weeks ago just as the search was picking up steam. As much as the institution was signaling it was ready to finally start spending what it takes to field a championship-level team, Franklin’s hiring should resonate further with fans and local businesses. It’s one thing to sell another Group of 5 head coach as the guy who can lead the Hokies back to the top of the ACC, it’s another to sell somebody who has a Big Ten championship and a College Football Playoff win to his name.
Why it’s a win for James Franklin
There was a lot of chatter in recent weeks over if Franklin would ultimately take a job like Virginia Tech in a non–Big Ten/SEC league or if he would wait out a massive coaching carousel this year to see if something more attractive were to come open at a blueblood (including even in the ACC, perhaps, at Florida State if that came open). Now we have our answer, which might not be much of a surprise given how much he pined to get right back into coaching during his interview with College GameDay after his dismissal.
In the Hokies, Franklin gets a lot of things that really suit him: location, access to the CFP in the lackluster ACC and a manageable path to winning a lot of games that could put him back in the mix for some of those top-tier jobs. Let’s face it, he can make the CFP just as easily here as he could in the Big Ten. It helps tremendously right now that Miami can’t get out of its own way and both Clemson and Florida State are in down cycles. There’s not a huge talent disparity from the top of the conference to the bottom. While he can’t run from his record against top-10 teams, he also won’t be facing off against many during conference play.
Plus, there will be a lot less pressure—no small thing given the intense focus on Franklin during his time at Penn State. Losing a game won’t produce a massive fan revolt over every little decision quite like it would in his last stop.
The more interesting thing about what Franklin has gone through in the last few months is what kind of changes he will be prepared to make. He was a great quarterback recruiter (an issue lately at Virginia Tech), but failed to properly develop them. He went through numerous coordinators on both sides of the ball trying to find a hot name that could get the Nittany Lions over the hump. Perhaps taking over the Hokies could allow him to not focus so much on finding a staff that gets fans and the administration off his back after a disappointing season and instead redouble his efforts to find the right fits like he did earlier in his coaching tenure.
Either way, it may not be what Franklin ideally would have liked in terms of a bounce-back gig, but it could be a perfect fit to restore his reputation after this season.
Final Grade: A
Franklin still needs to answer questions about why things went so off the rails at Penn State, but it’s hard not to see this as anything but a great marriage between coach and program. The Hokies get a proven program builder who recruits the area extremely well and should instantly make them relevant in the lower pressure of the ACC.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Grading James Franklin to Virginia Tech: Hokies Land Huge Coup in New Coach.
