I'm continuing to drop some posts evaluating guys on my radar who could potentially be the next guy for VT. When I started writing these, I never thought I'd be writing about James Franklin, but here we are. This is my seventh post. Check out the previous six:
- WKU coach Tyson Helton
- JMU coach Bob Chesney
- UNLV coach Dan Mullen
- Iowa State coach Matt Campbell
- Southern Miss coach Charles Huff
- UGA DC Glenn Schumann
This week: James Franklin
Who is James Franklin?
James Franklin is the 53-year-old former Penn State head coach who was fired on October 12, 2025 after 12 seasons in Happy Valley. The Pennsylvania native (seriously - who knew he was a PA native? Not I.) compiled a 104-45 record at Penn State and went 24-15 across three seasons at Vanderbilt (2011-2013), giving him a career 128-60 record (.681 winning percentage). Franklin is a proven program builder who took Vanderbilt to consecutive 9-win seasons (something that had never happened in program history) and rebuilt Penn State into a perennial top-15 program following the multifaceted fallout (NCAA sanctions, tarnished image, etc) from the Sandasky scandal.
Franklin was fired despite leading Penn State to the College Football Playoff semifinals just nine months earlier. After starting 3-0, the Nittany Lions lost three straight games (two as heavy favorites), including stunning losses to winless UCLA (then winless) and Northwestern (then assy). His 4-21 record against AP top-10 opponents at Penn State and 1-18 against top-10 Big Ten teams became the defining statistics of his tenure.
Despite perennially hitting a glass ceiling at Penn State, I think he's still worth considering as a coaching target at Virginia Tech.
Franklin demands (and upgrades) program investment at every stop
This is Franklin's superpower, and one could argue it's exactly what Virginia Tech needs. At Vanderbilt, Franklin lobbied the administration/donors for a new indoor multipurpose facility, video board, hillside seating, stadium lights, and artificial turf—all while getting $3 million/year raise with a contract extension that included facility improvement provisions.
At Penn State, Franklin has been relentless in demanding investment. The school raised close to $25 million for Lasch Football Building upgrades in his first four years.
In 2023, Franklin used the opening days of a hotly contested election for three of the alumni seats on Penn State's Board of Trustees to shame share his opinion with the Penn State administration:
I don't think it really should be a discussion, I don't think it really can be a discussion. Because when you're Penn State and you're in the Big Ten, the reality is if you choose to and want to compete at the very highest level, you can't pick and choose what you're going to compete in.
In the years following (2024/25) this speech (for lack of a better term), Penn State Athletics received $164.9 million in gifts—the most successful fundraising year in department history—with much of it tied to the $700 million Beaver Stadium renovation (for context, VT raised just under $32m in FY24).
It's obvious that Franklin's persistent and unyielding bitching and moaning campaigning secured significant facility upgrades, NIL infrastructure, and positioned Penn State to compete financially with Ohio State and Michigan.
Virginia Tech wants needs a coach who will pressure the administration and donors to invest at (conference) championship levels. Here, Franklin is proven, undeniably one of the best.
Franklin is an elite recruiter
The data confirms Franklin's recruiting prowess. At Vanderbilt, where the average class ranking was 64.6 nationally before his arrival, Franklin signed three consecutive top-50 classes, including a class ranked as high as 19th in 2014. At Penn State, Franklin has secured top-25 recruiting classes in each of his last 13 seasons, including a top-5 class in 2018 (#4 by ESPN, the highest in program history) and the #6 class in 2022. His recruiting classes averaged 12.75 nationally over his final five years, and nine of the 15 highest-ranked recruits in Penn State history since 2000 were signed by Franklin, including three five-star recruits in 2018 alone—the first time that had happened since rankings began.
Writer's note: the source for all of these datapoints is state media (pun intended), and I was too lazy to verify.
Could he replicate (something close to) this at Virginia Tech? Maybe. Franklin recruits on relationship-building and relentless effort. He's deep ties in the mid-atlantic, which would help in Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland. But Penn State has advantages Virginia Tech lacks—Penn State had a national brand and (over the course of Franklin's tenure) developed an NIL and staffing war chest. While he didn't have the same level of prestige and funding at Vandy, his time there predated the NIL era. Suffice to say, the game has changed quite a bit since Franklin had to recruit players to an under-resourced school.
Community presence: A mixed bag
At Vanderbilt, Franklin was described as "a staple in the community" who "spent countless hours speaking to local groups and visiting with students on campus." He worked fraternities and sororities to build student support and was a constant salesman for the program. At Penn State, Franklin has been involved in community service, including annual team trips to Penn State Children's Hospital, speaking at THON every year since 2014, and supporting "Be the Match" bone marrow registry drives.
However, there's less evidence of Franklin being deeply embedded in the State College community the way he was at Vanderbilt (and anecdotally, I've heard this contributed to his firing). This could reflect the difference in job demands (you don't need to convince Penn State fans to attend games like you do at Vandy) or it could suggest Franklin's community engagement wanes as he settles into a job. Because Virginia Tech seems to want a coach who is friendly, approachable, and visible, this is worth monitoring (also worth some introspection here, but that's a different conversation).
The Brent Pry complication: Would it be weird?
Yea, extremely. Franklin and Pry have known each other since 1993. Pry's father was Franklin's offensive coordinator in college, and they worked together for 11 years at Vanderbilt and Penn State. When Pry was fired from Virginia Tech in September 2025, Franklin called him "like a brother" (Pry spoke of Franklin similarly frequently) and said "we have texted a bunch" and "my wife and Amy have talked."
The optics of Franklin taking Pry's job would be weird. That said, I'm not sure this weirdness really impacts VT football... It's not like Pry brought in a bunch of James Franklin staff or transfers (he might still be here if he did).
The bottom line
Franklin is an elite recruiter and master fundraiser who would immediately pressure Virginia Tech to invest at (conference) championship levels. He's proven he can rebuild struggling programs and develop NFL talent. And - If we pay slightly below his typical market value - we might be able to get him at a discount (because Penn State's offset obligation would subsidize the difference). But he's also just been fired from a better job than Virginia Tech for failing to win big games, and replacing your close friend who you publicly supported after his firing creates a messy dynamic.
Franklin will likely have options - how good will those options be? I'm not sure. Would he really choose Virginia Tech—a program in conference purgatory with fewer resources than Penn State—over waiting for a better opportunity? Maybe. But I believe (no sources or #sauces) that Franklin's relationship with Pry will discourage him from taking the Virginia Tech job. But if I'm wrong, I think this is a home run hire for the Hokies.
Comments
As the great poet TO once said, Get ya Popcorn ready
I would be okay with Franklin. I honestly don't know if there is a head coach that would move the needle more on a DMV recruiting area level or on a national program discussion level more than him. Likely he would end up having the same issues if he got us to big stage games, but to even get back to that level there's a mountain of work to do.
Charles Huff would be interesting. He wouldn't be the splash that Franklin would be, but I think he could go head to head with Locksley.
I would prefer Huff 100 times out of 100 vs Franklin
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I disagree that it would be a homerun hire. I referred to Sheldon's article in another comment. I just don't think it's a good idea to hire a coach fresh out of the the P4. I also think he's too old. I think we need someone younger. Someone with fire and something to prove. Franklin would come here already having proven himself to a degree. I just think this would be a pre-retirement jaunt for him, akin to pro soccer players taking their victory lap in the MLS after they've kind of spent themselves in Europe.
That said, I don't think we'll know if any hire is a "homerun" until after 3 full seasons. There are some coaches I could get excited for. Then there are coaches I would be pretty disappointed with. Invariably VT will manage to hire a coach nobody expected and I won't know what to think about it.
All I know is that after 3 full seasons there is always enough evidence to know whether the coach is working out or not. We'll see what happens
The data in Sheldon's article is a good callout! Should have included above.
I should note there are a handful of retread P4 coaches that have worked out (Sark, Kiffin), but they tend to go to the biggest programs. I think Franklin will do the same since he probably wants to compete for a natty.
The reason schools don't go that route more often is because any P4 coach that is gettable is going to come with baggage. Either they underperformed at their previous school or they're washed up (looking at you, Rich Rod).
Like another poster said, you really want someone who is younger and hungry to prove themselves. That just doesn't fit the mold for what most P4 retreads are.
Here
and here
and here
and, of course, here
I agreed with that take the last two hires, but, this time, we can't afford take a chance on someone looking to prove themselves. We know the crapshoot that can be.
We need a proven, consistent winner. That coach could come from another level, but needs to be more than a 2-3 season run.
Franklin has his baggage, but so does everyone else. He might not be the coach to get us to a natty, but he can turn us into a winner over the next three years so that we are in a better position when conference realignment happens again.
And, maybe into a place to attract the coach that can get us competing for a natty. If we get to that point, we can even take another chance on an up and comer. But we are a long ways from there right now.
Right now, we just need to win.
agreed
but Franklin isn't the only coach who can win games, you know.
Here's a list of coaches and their winning percentages
Jon Sumrall (16-2, 0.889)
Jamey Chadwell (27-6, 0.818)
Bob Chesney (14-5, 0.737)
James Franklin (104-45, 0.698)
Dan Mullen (109-61, 0.641)
Charles Huff* (30-17, 0.638)
Tyson Helton (53-34, 0.609)
Shane Beamer (31-22, 0.585)
I agree we need a winner. I want a winner. I also want a winner who is young, hungry, has something to prove, has won at multiple levels/stops and can do it without blue-blood support. Those coaches exist. Franklin doesn't have to be the only answer. He's old. He's grown used to having elite talent in PSU and he's getting fired for not doing enough with it. I'm not saying Franklin would be a bad hire for VT. I'm saying that there are BETTER options.
*Huff's record spans two gigs, Marshall and So. Miss
Agreed, I'm not on the Franklin or bust bandwagon. I don't love him as a coach, but do think he would win here, which is why I would support that hire.
As I've stated elsewhere, I'd be happy with Chesney or Huff. I don't think Chadwell is a fit for VT (nor as likely to be able to turn things around) and the Shane thing has so many angles, I'm not sure what I think about that!
I'm sorta with you
Here's where I am. If we manage to hire Franklin (doubtful, imo) then I'll be convinced that our department is serious about trying to get back to our winning ways, albeit in a bit of a misguided approach. I think he's proven that he can win. He'd raise our floor. But he's not a good game manager, particularly in games that matter. I don't think he's the ruthless winner that I want but he'd win enough to make us competitive in the ACC, which we haven't been for a decade. That's a big improvement so I wouldn't complain.
If we hire someone like Huff or Chesney I'll be excited about where this team will be heading, though cautiously optimistic. Hiring a younger guy like that carries a certain type of risk and they're not guaranteed to find the same winning ways in Blacksburg as they have found in their current roles (Justin Fuente is a cautionary tale here) but I think their potential is higher than Franklin's. They could flop, absolutely. Or, they could come in and win 8-10 games right away and be in the ACC CG as early as year 2 with a potential playoff berth. That's exciting!
If we hire Shane, or any other P4 coach with a mid winning percentage I will be completely disappointed and checked out. Shane will win 6 games in year one, proving that he's better than Pry, getting pats on the back for making us better than we were, but he'll plateau around 8 wins or so. I have more faith in Franklin to elevate VT than I do in Shane.
If we hire someone nobody has ever heard of (or someone who wasn't on anybody's list) I won't be surprised but my excitement level is going to depend a lot on who that particular individual is (though, in all likelihood, I'd be disappointed because it likely means we missed on our big targets and are settling for someone we hope will win. Hope doesn't win games. Winners win games.)
Franklin is the most sure thing we have, which isn't saying much.
Mullen is next most sure bet
Huff and Cheney have a lot of up sided
I wouldn't be upset with any of them or not getting snyoff them depending on the hire, but if Franklin is interested wed be stupid not to listen and hope he gets us to ten win seasons and then leaves so we can hire some one we like
Less is more? ;^)
haha
okay I see your point. I'm not looking for a coach who can do more with less, per se, I'm looking for a coach who hasn't relied on talent as a crutch to be successful. Franklin has almost always had elite talent to work with. I don't want to assume that he will be able to get that same sort of talent in Blacksburg. I'd rather hire a coach who has proven that he can win with less than elite talent because my assumption is that whoever the new coach is they're not going to have elite talent to work with in Blacksburg.
did he not do so at Vandy?
Saban was 55 when he arrived at Alabama
Ed O was 55 when LSU hired him
Franklin is 53 now
He's not some fossil. He's young enough to still be hungry and I imagine he might be even hungrier now.
I think Saban is an outlier and Ed O is an interesting example because he was a one hit wonder with elite talent at his disposal (something whoever takes over at VT won't have).
I don't think James Franklin can be compared to Nick Saban.
He sure can if you replace Penn St. with Michigan St. and Virginia Tech with LSU (assuming we can hire him). That would mean he wins one natty here before moving on to __________ (insert blue blood).
The Tennessee Titans
Ah, correct. He'll go to the Titans (Equivalent of the Dolphins) before the blue blood.
Yeah, the dolphins would still apply but I wanted something equivalent to match your scenario
"pre-retirement jaunt"?
He's 53, not 63. He has a lot of years of coaching left.
This would almost be akin to VT football's version of the Buzz Williams hire. Just a possibility that no one would have seen coming, but a slam dunk, home run, program building/resurrecting level hire with a ton of splash. The Pry thing is admittedly a somewhat awkward layer on all of this, but I mean let's face it, it wasn't VT's fault that Pry failed as horribly as he did. He just wasn't cut out to be a HC. Was a very good DC at PSU under Franklin and never made the jump for a reason, and we saw it all play out. (Honestly think we got somewhat of a sample of what it would have been like with Bud as HC, to be honest).
But that aside, I don't think Pry would necessarily have an enormous grudge with VT, and as unimaginable as the thought of Franklin at VT would have been even a few weeks ago, it seems like this really is setting up nicely to be a great fit for what both sides need right now. Are we interested? Is he interested? I guess we will find out.
I think Pry could actually be an asset in convincing Franklin to come here. I legitimately believe Pry loves VT and the stuff he would say about it being a special place weren't just lines. He knows he failed, he spent three years talking about the standard and expectation and he didn't meet it. He told Franklin all about Blacksburg which is why he left PSU in the first place. It's definitely a little awkward, and I think it's more likely Franklin goes somewhere else with Pry as his DC.
Make it happen, cap'n
If he were interested in the challenge at VT, I wouldn't hesitate.
He'd absolutely be better than the last two coaches at VT, not that the bar is all that high. He may be here a shorter amount of time, but savvy negotiation could potentially get him at a (relatively) bargain price.
I despise his preferred brand of football, and I don't think he appreciably raises the ceiling of the program.
But he definitely would raise the floor. We kind of have to shoot our shot
We definitely need the floor raised.
We should hire this guy last week and twice on Sunday.
And today is Sunday.
Please hire him, and talk him into a good deal, letting Penn State pay part of his salary.
Of course I'm amenable to hiring most of the coaches mentioned so far, and would support whichever one we can get locked in earlier rather than later.
I'm adding him to my list of "Go To" candidates in order of preference and this is after time has passed to really "understand" why it is this way.
Huff (used to be Mullen)
Mullen
Franklin
IMHO, Huff would be the hungriest of the group and have the passion/energy battle won. He has the GFY attitude needed right now from a HC. He will be able to win (quickly) and keep the locker room.
As stated before, I would be pretty amped on either 3.
I think from an organizational level at least, Franklin would be good for VT.
This is the value prop imo. Franklin might win 'only' 9 games (or less), but you know he'll squeeze every dollar out of our administration.
Hmm, so what if Franklin came here? Would he hire Pry as his DC? No, of course not, but talk about a weird dynamic.
I think we'd have a shot without the Pry situation, but he's likely to get much better offers, at least in terms of salary and institutional support. If he's choosing between something like UF, Auburn, or even Arkansas vs VT, then he's likely to go the SEC route. If he's choosing between VT and another school at roughly the same level, he'd likely choose the other option because of the Pry awkwardness.
I tend to agree
I think this is being overplayed to a certain degree. Pry failed horribly at VT but it wasn't VT's fault that he couldn't win. He just flat out wasn't a good HC, didn't hire good coordinators, and didn't get good QBs. It would be one thing if he was actually making strides and we fired him prematurely. But he had a losing record going into his fourth year and got blown off the field by ODU. Just an untenable situation.
It certainly makes it a bit more awkward but at the end of the day, this is a business. If Franklin wanted to hire Pry as an assistant or analyst on his staff I don't think many people would be opposed in VT circles. By all accounts he was super well liked, just not HC material.
It's certainly a weird dynamic. But I do feel like this was the most amicable firing there could've been. At least from what we, the general public, can see.
It felt like with Fuente there was a lot of pent up vitriol in the fanbase directed towards him and his friends (coaching staff) so that at the end he was like "get me tf out of here and never make me come back". With Pry, it soured and we just ripped the band aid off pretty quick.
I like to think with Pry Whit learned his lesson (to a degree) that you have a pretty good idea where a HC is heading after 3 full seasons. He probably was about prepared to part ways with Pry last year but Pry bought himself some extra time by hiring new coordinators but he was going to have to prove it early or get cut loose. Losing the way he did to Vandy and then getting blown off the field, at home, to ODU just cemented what many already knew. He just wasn't getting it done. Time to start over.
While the Vandy loss looked bad at the time, they are a top 10 team now. ODU, that's another story and warranted the action that was taken.
What I mean by the way we lost was how we had 4th and inches at a critical moment and elected not to go for it then the team visibly quit on the game and Vandy blew us off the field from that point on. So it's not about how good or bad Vandy is. It's about how the coach lost the team in that moment.
That's fair.
Agree. It's not who we lost to, but how we lost Vandy and ODU. It was apparent to anyone that the team quit on Pry in the second half of Vandy and never looked back. They could have played anyone and lost in the same fashion with where the team mindset was at around that point. Just point of no return.
This would be an obvious yes from me.
I've only heard this mentioned lightly, so I am not certain on the details, but if my understanding of his buyout is correct, there is language that he needs to look for job aggressively in either coaching or media, and that his buyout would be offset by that contract. I wonder if this means we can go lower on his early contract OR back load the contract, since it will be offset by his Penn State buyout, and use that money to build out the rest of the staff at a higher level. I do not know how viable this would be, but it is an interesting thought at least.
My understand is that this is doable, BUT the salary has to be reasonable. Ie - we could pay him the median ACC salary, but I we tried to pay him $1m, PSU would likely sue him.
This is correct. It can't be sham consideration (like $1 and PSU pays everything), and it would have to be fair market value. So yeah in your example $1MM would be well below FMV for an ACC coaching salary. But $4-$5MM would be about average and could be made a strong argument that's fair market for an ACC head coach.
I like the idea of back loading it. Hope that we can sway top coordinators now and then once the floor is raised and fan base is reinvigorated if he wins immediately, assume we should have more funds in the future that would help pay for the level we expect or desire to be.
Seems like if you backloaded it, though, that they'd argue that it WASN'T fair compensation.
Then again, you're backloading it for success, and you can argue that Penn State considered him a failure at this time.
Or could be "Optional" years at higher amounts for the years after Penn St would be off the hook. I didn't think a "prove it" contract would be unreasonable for a recently fired coach
It's a "yes" for me too - actually I think for relevance in the national scene, bringing in Franklin hits all the buttons. We'd be back in the conversation quickly.
That said, I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, but does anyone know if VT could offer Franklin deferred compensation so he cleans up on both ends? Penn State has to cover offset salary in the short-term, and deferred comp allows us to cover a huge payout conveniently at the same time his contract with PSU expires. This accomplishes a few things - allows a smaller upfront investment and gives us some guarantee that he doesn't split in year 2-3.
Side note - Frank Beamer and James Franklin - coincidence or destiny?
No, his contact has to be "competitive" per his contract buyout language.
Right, but could someone offer him $5MM per year + $3MM per year deferred for 5 years? At the end of 5 years he would receive a payout of $15MM. Essentially the offered salary is competitive for a coach who was fired ($5MM), but it becomes a more attractive option for Franklin - He would theoretically receive $5MM from the school, $3MM in offset from PSU, and another $3MM in escrow. Just a concept.
One other question I have is does Penn State have a legal right to a copy of his contract if we were to hire him? Seems like sharing that with them would violate Virginia Tech's rights if the contract is not required to be published by the State of Virginia laws.
First, I think they can get it through public disclosures.
Second, if they were to initiate litigation against Franklin, they would certainly be entitled to a copy of it through discovery.
Third, if PSU wants to dispute Franklin's new contract, it'd be in everyone's best interest to try to settle the matter out of court, and I'd expect Franklin's new school to freely offer up a copy of Franklin's contract as a means of trying to put the matter to bed quickly.
Fourth, a contract can include a "right to disclosure" clause that would require Franklin to disclose his earnings to PSU. I do not know if that would be in a coaching contract, but it is common in other type of contracts (e.g., VC funding of company will ensure they have a right to see their financial documents).
#TankinForFranklin
Comment to you " I'm not sure about him, not a fan, I don't think he raises our ceiling" people. What unicorn out there are you actually looking for? HE HAS WON 34 games in the last three years. THIRTY FOUR. IN THR BIG TEN. just played in final four game. Recruits like he has no pants. Has been big whistle for 15+ years now? I know he has flaws but geez aren't our standards just a bit high?
"He doesn't raise our ceiling, he only raises the floor."
-- guy living in a trailer that partially made it through a tornado
Hey, that tornado did raise the floor AND the ceiling for a short bit there
Well this seems like a pretty direct callout. I'll bite.
Franklin would get us back to the big games, sure. He would probably get our infrastructure built out to a modern size and whip the fossils in Merryman into shape, if not replace them altogether. If you kept reading that comment you'd see I acknowledged that for these reasons alone he would be worth the effort and we should still try and get him.
But personally, I'm more interested in a guy who could actually, I dunno...win those big games. I have no idea who that might be, but it ain't James Franklin. I've seen VT lose too many games they should've won to think that the dropoff from the B1G to the ACC offsets his terminal inclutchitude. Maybe it could be the guy after him.
Y'all might think my standards are too high, but looking at the state of VTFB right now, I'd say we never would've fallen off if more people around the program had my kind of standards.
I'll ask the same question that I asked to Mrs MattBoard's side of the family over the past few seasons (they are all Penn St fans): Who is the guy who is going to do that? Which coach out there is winning all these games against top 5 teams that isn't already locked into an absurd deal?
I don't think we'll get Franklin. I think some other team is going to pay more than we are willing to or is going to have something he is looking for that we don't know about yet. But in the event that we could, who is the better guy available to Tech right now?
edit: also, I apologize, the comment wasn't meant to target any one person. I was just using general coach eval language. The sentiment has been widespread here, reddit, twitter, etc.
It's not about who has won these games, it's about who could. Because they know that James Franklin cannot.
I"m convinced that PSU should go after Fran Brown. He'll keep up the recruiting. He calls games well. See where it goes.
You're good, and I don't think we'll get Franklin either. I feel like just because of his resume we're obligated to make a play for him, even if I've had my fill of "no strategy or scheme, just a 60 minute rock fight" type football. It's really more of a personal preference than anything.
I'd love to be wrong. Maybe he comes here and figures out something he never quite got the hang of in State College. It probably won't happen, but it could happen I guess
(Sorry. I have to work at the optimism)
I get what each one is saying. Here's how I view Franklin and to do so by referencing your comments above....
Agreed, he, like so many others (most), and just like Frank, can't win the big games - Top 5.
However, he should be a top candidate to stop VT from losing to ODU, JMU, Temple, Wake, BC, on a contual basis, thus giving us the consistenct opportunity to make our conference championship game and be competitive. Thus winning some to make the NC playoffs.
I believe we can print this ticket with Franklin as our coach.
And though it sucked that Frank couldn't get us "over the himp" on those big games, the Frank Beamer run was awesome and exciting before the last few seasons.
I will gladly take a Beamer and Franklin scenario today so we can make the next hire to the truly elite coaching level vs going the complacency route that was the root of all evil that has led us to where we are today (learn from our past mistakes).
Unfortunately, I also agree to an extent, that we are not on or will be on his radar this hiring cycle.
Complaining that Franklin can't win the big game is missing the forest for the trees. As you're implying right now, Virginia Tech has played in maybe 3 or 4 legitimately 'big' games since Beamer retired. Right now, it would be a significant step in the right direction just to be involved in any big games. To pretend that he isn't good enough for us shows a complete lack of awareness on where we are right now.
This isn't the early 2000s anymore, we haven't been nationally relevant in a decade.
The guy was a made FG in the closing seconds of the Orange Bowl 10 months ago from coaching in the CFP National Championship Game, but yeah, sure, he wouldn't raise our ceiling.
There are certain segments of this fanbase that have completely and utterly lost their damn minds over this coaching search. And there's a decent amount of us who are in complete delusional denial about just how bad our current profile is. Both our floor and ceiling are depressingly low compared to where we want to be. Our ceiling right now with all else remaining the same over the next 5 years is bowl eligibility, and that is probably asking too much given the makeup of the roster. This is a very bad program in desperate need of someone to come in and rebuild us back to legitimacy.
I think CFB fans never want to hire someone who's ceiling is known. If you hire an unknown coach, you have no idea what his ceiling is. If you're LSU poaching BK from ND, you can convince yourself that with increased talent, BK could take you to a Natty. But if you hire Franklin, you're acknowledging that you're never going to win a natty.
Some VT fans are at peace with that. Most are not.
And 90% of the time the 'ceiling' is bullshit. For the longest time there was wide belief within coaching that Andy Reid's ceiling was what he accomplished with McNabb and the Eagles. And now he has 3 Lombardi trophies to his name after being fired in Philly and more success elsewhere.
I'm not saying that Franklin is guaranteed to win a Natty, but Penn St wasn't willing to give him a legitimate long-term chance. Less than 12 months ago the PSU program hit their high water mark over the last 30 years, and they fired him because they think they can do better. It would be like VT giving into the ridiculous pressure at the time and firing Frank in 2003 after he smacked a player in the helmet on the sidelines and lost to UVa at the end of the year.
I've got bad news for this group. VT is never winning a natty in college football as it's currently constructed. Our best bet for a NCAA football championship is if the top ~40 schools secede into a superleague, and VT wins one as the tallest remaining kindergartner.
Now, if we get our act together we could maybe slip into a P2 conference, have sufficient funding to compete in other sports, and MAYBE we could fall ass backwards into one in any singular team sport.
In the ACC we are never winning a Natty. Revenue streams are too different between the haves and have nots, and we are a have not.
Should we get into the P2 that door opens. If Indiana can get its act together to be in the mix, there is no reason someone like VT can't, we just need to be in the SEC or Big Ten, first.
This. If Indi-fucking-ana can do it, so can we
100% Correct. VT is not constructed to compete in Pay-for-Play Transfer Madness.
The hope is that at some point there is some level of Reorganization/Regulation/Standardization to College Football.
VT really, really needs to be in a good position to be one of the "haves" when that occurs. Right now, we are firmly in the "have not" bucket.
Franklin (who I firmly agree will likely never win at the highest level and has a personality that is nails on a chalkboard) has a resume that suggests he could get us back to the "have" status. That's what we need.
His value would be hugely increased if he took an average salary which allowed us to pay and hire really strong Coordinators. If he wants $10+ million, I think the case for him is less strong.
We probably shouldn't even be talking about Championships until we are regularly beating Wake Forest, ODU and the like again. And yes, Franklin lost to bad teams this year--but that was an outlier--at VT we have made a habit of it for 10+ years.
Can confirm he's a community minded guy. I rarely go downtown but over the years it wasn't improbable to see him walking around on his phone coaching or recruiting.
The big game James moniker fits. Kinda like Beamer, his record shows a high floor but 1 and whatever against top five.
Recruiting would be elite and he knows our area well. Might even be able to bring Chad Powers in for a tryout.
Vastly different funding here than at PSU. Similarly passionate fan base.
All told I could dig it but I'd want him to have elite coordinators. He's the prototypical CEO coach.
Anyone who turns their nose up at Franklin given the current state of our football program is out of their minds. It's most likely that we're not good enough for him atm, not the other way around.
I think someone here commented the argument that he can't win a big game is absurd when we're just trying to win *A* game
I'll push back on this just a little. I'm not sure I'd exactly turn my nose up at him but I don't want him here. First of all, I don't think we could get him - and in order to get him I think we'd have to fork over a hell of a lot of money and I'd rather hire someone like Bob Chesney and save a little money for coordinators and support staff. Would Franklin raise our floor? Absolutely. Would it be worth it? I'm not sure.
I can definitely see your point. I think if we were still pushing 7 wins a year I would completely agree with you. But when we're getting rolled by the likes of ODU, who just got smashed by JMU, I don't think we can be too worried about value in the long run. Just one schmuck's opinion haha
We should NEVER play odu. Or jmu or liberty. Theyre always trap games. We will be their super bowl until the end if the time. Complete negligence on whoever set the odu series up. Playing at odu is criminal.
agree that we shouldn't be playing those teams - but the reality is that we are and we're losing to them. That's a coaching issue. If we have to play those games, we should be winning them 63-27, not losing them 26-45.
#teamBobChesney
Out of what is available or expected to be available, VT could do far far far worse hiring someone other than Franklin. Its going to take a lot of money to get him, but there are going to be mutual expectations in this relationship and not just the school hoping to get back to relevance and a coach happy for his first HC spot - I have to imagine Franklin feels his own coaching clock ticking, and is going to be relentless in his pursuit of a national title wherever he goes.
The only comment I'll disagree with is the awkwardness of Franklin replacing Pry. Franklin isn't taking Pry's job. Pry lost his job before hiring Franklin (or anyone) became a discussion. If anything, Franklin would be taking Montgomery's (interim) job.
Franklin being close to Pry could be an advantage as Pry could give him detailed information on where in the Athletic Department he ran into impediments. First step to cleaning house.
There is no doubt that Franklin is the top of the list of proven coaches on known market. He would win 9 games next year here at Lil ol
l VT. I for one sound like to see him on the sideline next year for VT. Itd be like Buzz in a lot of ways. We know we'd probably only have him for 4 or 5 years max. And thats OK. We need to win now. Now is next season. Thats how they should look at this hire. The rebuild has to happen this off-season.
Plenty of other intriguing candidates out there but non are more proven than Franklin.
Honestly if his goal is to win the natty I think VT would be intriguing to him. No annual rivalry games with sec contenders. Very manageable conference schedule. Miami is probably toughest game year to year. Win one game in the acc championship and you have your shot. Clemson looks down big time too.
At fsu youre playing Miami and Florida every year. Would he trade the little 10 gauntlet for the sec gauntlet? Im not sure.
It's not that I'll be angry if he is hired at VT. But I'm skeptical of his ability to win here.
We know Franklin is not a good on-the-sidelines coach. Okay, you don't have to be if you have top coordinators with you. Will we be able to afford him and top coordinators? Maybe, but far from guaranteed.
Franklin pretty much never winning a big game is not just a matter of Franklin not able to beat top teams. Lots of coaches have terrible records against top 10 teams. What was Beamer's? It is Franklin not able to beat teams with similar or superior talent. He will not have top talent here at VT. If he is going against teams with similar talent as what VT has, will he be able to beat NC State, Wake Forest, Pitt, etc.? Maybe, but I'm skeptical. And that is not even thinking about beating Miami, FSU, Clemson, etc., which I am highly skeptical he can beat.
Franklin is a great recruiter. Well, he was a great recruiter at Penn State with all that money and history. Will that ability translate to VT? Maybe. That he was able to do it at Vanderbilt is promising - and I did not realize his recruitment there was good/vastly elevated over the past, so thank you for highlighting that. But I still don't think he'll be anywhere near as good recruiting to VT as to Penn State.
He sure comes across as a whiney brat and a fake tough guy with the pretending to want to attack the fans and he gets past them and has guards between them. Is that cherry-picking items? Maybe. I have not followed him closely, but have seen enough to give me pause. If he wins, that's all okay. But who knows if he will.
And, I freely admit this, I just detest Penn State and he just gives me an icky feel. Especially after how the last Penn State hire went. Yeah, I know, I'm being irrational on this last point. If we hired someone from University X at the office and they were terrible it does not mean the next person from here will be terrible unless there is some reason to assume a pattern, but I just get the, 'ugh' feel from him.
Probably all a moot point anyway as it seems really unlikely he'll be here anyway.
If you are skeptical about his ability to win here then I would set your program expectations exceptionally low (lower than they are now) about any coach's ability to win here.
the floor at VT is phenomenally low at the moment. I think any coach would raise it. It's just a question of by how much. And then there's the ceiling to consider too. In the age of NIL, I wonder how any coach will do recruiting to VT with our pretty modest war chest. Franklin has recruited well at Penn State but how much of that is him vs PSU recruiting itself? He recruited well at Vandy but that was BEFORE NIL - are things different now? I don't know.
I think Franklin would probably do okay here. I'm fairly confident he'd raise the floor (again, though, not hard to do) but I don't think he raises the ceiling by that much. I don't think hiring him guarantees us 9+ wins and that seems to be what pro-Franklin fans on TKP think he would do. Could he? Maybe. I think it's just as likely that he completely falls apart when he doesn't have the talent that he's used to. And in order to get him here, we'd have to spend a pretty penny on him. I just don't think it's worth it. I'd much rather pay less for a younger G5 guy who has done well with the resources he's had at previous stops. Pry's biggest mistake right off the bat was hiring two completely green coordinators as a first time head coach. I'd rather have a guy with HC experience, albeit at a lower level, who can hire experienced coordinators with a larger budget for staffing because we don't have to pay the head whistle an arm and a leg just to get him here. I don't think chasing big names and paying tons of money to a guy who won perennially at a blue-blood program is the path to success for VT. I think you make the same pitch you would to Franklin (easy path to the playoff, etc.) but to a younger up-and-comer who wants to make a name for himself. If a guy like Bob Chesney wants to win a national championship in his career, VT is a great place for him to get P4 HC experience with a relatively easy path to the playoff. Win 10+ games and the ACCCG and you're pretty much in the big dance. He doesn't even have to win it here - but he could use a playoff run at VT as a springboard to a blue-blood program that will provide him with all the resources he'd need to go and win a championship.
At this point, I'd love for the next coach to be able to get VT to the promised land and win a championship here but that just seems incredibly unlikely. At the very least, I'd gladly take a coach who can elevate our station en route to a bigger job for himself. If we're getting big-dogged by some blue-blood that would be an improvement over where we are. Nobody has been knocking down our doors trying to take any of our coaches for a long time. We need to get back to that. I think then it would mean that we're better than we are right now. I'd take that for the next 5-10 years.
Our NIL budget is competitive, that's one of the very few things we do well, and one of the reasons we had quite a few good players come in over the last couple years (though, we still missed the mark in making it a complete team, but that's a whole other topic).
You give Franklin the keys to this program in this region and he'll dominate it in recruiting. No other qualifications needed, the James Franklin name itself has legitimacy in this region and pairing it with Virginia Tech would supercharge our ability to recruit in our own region. As you said, he was able to recruit at Vandy before Penn St, you damn well know he'd be able to recruit to VT.
At the end of the day, Franklin was a FG away from being in the National Championship Game this year and he was fired 10 months later because of 3 losses. Penn St made a giant mistake they are most likely going to regret for a very long time, and we should be throwing whatever it takes to bring him in here. If you're looking for someone to come in and immediately raise the floor and push our ceiling back up to where it was under Beamer, this is who you hire. If you're hellbent on making sure your profile is that of a school routinely participating in big games, driving national hype and positioning yourself to be highly sought after when the ACC implodes, James Franklin is your guy. Sure, there might be other guys out there who might be better, there might be other guys out there that might have a higher ceiling, but Franklin has proven his abilities at historically worse schools in tougher conferences than what we are and where we are now. He would immediately have us annually contending for the ACC title. We would routinely be in the mix for the playoffs, and would routinely be ranked. Our steady state would be where it was under Beamer before the downturn.
We should consider ourselves lucky to ever routinely get back to the point that Franklin would most likely have us playing at within 2 years if we hired him. In fact, its insulting to him to even consider that he isn't good enough for us. Realistically, we aren't good enough for him. If he's at all interested, thank our lucky stars for it and give him whatever the hell he wants to come here and be our head coach.
See this is exactly my point. I don't think he'd come here and for him to even consider it he'd demand a big paycheck. I'm afraid we'd make ourselves coach poor by hiring him and I'm not certain that he'd find the same sort of success he's enjoyed elsewhere. It's not guaranteed. The only guarantee is that we'd spend a ton of money for him. I don't subscribe to throwing tons of money at a coach for work that hasn't been done yet. And there's lots of work that needs doing at VT.
How sorry would we be to throw everything at Franklin only to have him go 22-17 in 3 years?
Us bringing in Franklin would be betting on him to get us into the P2. At the end of the day, that is the goal of the hire. Everything we are setting up from the BoV agreements to the football oversight team to the GM that the coach essentially hires is tailor made for someone like Franklin to come in and run this program as he sees fit to get us there. And the kicker is, Penn St is contractually obligated to make up the difference between whatever salary we give him and the $8m he was making through the end of the decade. We actually have less chance to become coach-poor because of that offset clause than with most of the other guys we'll be considering. And if our bet pays off, we would likely be in the P2 by the time the offset clause lifts and we'd have enough cashflows to make up the difference.
And quite frankly, while there are no sure bets in this coaching market, he's the closest one to it out there right now. If you don't think he can do it for us, there is nobody out there who can.
Last time I heard this we hired Justin Fuente.
Nothing is guaranteed. Nothing. That's why I'm not comfortable chasing Franklin, who will demand a salary that would inhibit our ability to hire top flight coordinators.
At the end of the day, you and I are both just keyboard warriors with little knowledge of what's actually happening in the coaching search. I hope that by new years we'll know who our coach is. I think it's more likely than not that the new coach will be neither Franklin nor Chesney.
We'll spend the rest of the off season dissecting the hire every which way and convincing ourselves that it was either the best possible hire or the worst possible hire but we won't really know until 2029.
as Alum stated, his salary would be partially paid by Penn State if we hire him. Others have noted that we could likely offer him a median ACC salary of 6 million. We had to pay Pry 4 million and he had nowhere near the resume of Franklin, and that was a few years ago (coaching salary inflation is as extreme as NFL QB inflation).
That difference is pretty minor, and any coach worth his salt is going to demand more than the ACC median given our expectations.
We don't want to be the 2017 Redskins who let Kirk Cousins walk because they didn't want to pay him the market rate for a QB since he "didn't seem elite" and then were stuck starting guys like Alex Smith and Case Keenum. Sure they cost less, but those teams would have won more games with an expensive Kirk Cousins.
I know QBs can't really be compared to coaches, but I think the point comes across (I hope).
At the time for what it was it should have been a good hire. We were just sold a bag of goods about Fuente's ability to recruit that he could not live up to. We don't have that worry with someone like Franklin because he already did it at a program worse than us and a program better than us. He checks all the other boxes we would want.
Again, his salary offset clause helps us greatly here and we can afford to low-ball him a little bit to have more money to spend on his assistants, and you know he's not going to give a shit, he'll still get paid the same in the end. We could hire him at a ACC-reasonable $5m a year, have $3m remaining from his overall contract to spend on his assistants, and be better off for it in the end than going for someone else.
And I believe it was Godfrey last week or the week before who reported that we are positioned to be able to offer up to a 8 figure salary for the next coach. Who knows how realistic that is, but if we truly are willing to bet on ourselves like that, Franklin very quickly becomes the most realistic and obvious choice on who you throw all of the money after, assuming he's interested.
Pun intended? Sure hope so.
Spot on. There are no sure bets. You make the best choice you can based on the information available. We have nearly two decades of data on James Franklin.
What coach can we realistically land who you are confident could do better than 22-17?
If I were to handicap the odds of each of the 7 coaches who I've written about winning over/under a 7-win-per-year average over their first three years here, Franklin and Huff are the only ones I'd put close to 50%. Everyone else is below that. Easily IMO.
Sure but would you rather pay Franklin $6 million for 22-17 or pay Huff or Chesney $4 million for that record?
The whole point I'm trying to make is that I don't think Franklin is worth the money we need to spend to get him here. There are higher risk coaches with potentially more upside that we could get for less money. I'd rather spend less money on a higher risk higher reward proposition. If we pay Franklin out the wazoo and he wins then fine, money well spent. If he gets paid huge sums of money and founders than we're worse off than before.
We pay less money for potential and they do well, great money well spent. They fail, oh well, mitigated risk by saving some dough. Rinse, repeat
Pay Franklin whatever the ACC Median is because PSU is footing the rest of the bill for the next 6 years 🤷
For what it's worth, I don't think Huff is taking $4m.
We're never going to shed the "we have to do more with less mentality". /sigh
haha
for the record, I'm not trying to "do more with less" - I just think paying $6mm for Franklin is an overpay. I want to pay coaches what they are worth and I'm not interested in trying to operate on a shoe-string but I also don't think you throw gobs of money at someone who hasn't done anything for you yet. If we could draft a contract for Franklin that backloads the payment schedule based on performance and PSU will still subsidize then I'd be for that - I just don't think that'll happen.
Just so we are all.on the same page, the average Big 10 head coach salary is $6.3M. The SEC is $8.1M.
At the start of the year there were nine coaches making $10M or more and with private schools not forced to disclose it's likely more in the 13-15 range and Cignetti just joined the club mid-season.
If we are putting out $4M we are behind the ACC average and all of the P2. Even at $6M we are behind at least 42 other schools.
https://sportsdata.usatoday.com/ncaa/salaries/football/coach
Key got a new deal that is more than reported here, the new deal was rumored to be around 7m. Also I don't believe SMU pays that little
Part of why you hire Franklin is because the likelihood he founders is so incredibly low. There's almost nothing in his resume that indicates that he won't win less than 9 games a season anywhere he goes. We're barely squeaking to bowl games and fan apathy is starting to set in. Any other coach, like a G5 promotion or assistant, is more likely to fail than succeed, that's just how coaching works. Very few coaches in the industry have been as successful as Franklin, and the likelihood we hire an up and comer who can match his success is so extremely low in a way that we can't afford right not.
And your concerns about finances are part of why you hire Franklin as well. As bar illustrated in his post, Franklin fundraises like crazy. Just in that aspect, he would pay for himself many times over.
We need to mitigate the risk of continuing to languish in mediocrity or worse just plain bad and watch funding and interest dry up. We need to hire someone with a low risk of failing, and luckily there are two guys out there with a proven track record at multiple stops and with varying levels of resources - Mullen and Franklin. We should sell the farm to get one of them, because proven commodities like that don't come around often.
Well as far as I'm concerned the coaching candidate search is done and Bar can take a breather in his most excellent write ups. We have two targets for Plan A and one for Plan B.
Plan A: Franklin and Mullen
Plan B: Huff
Let's get Franklin in the boat so we can move on to re-building a winning program..
Teddy KGB! God, I love that movie.
yup, classic in my book for sure
I would be so happy with any of those three.
I thought the whole point of this recent BOV dog and pony show was to emphasize that we now (allegedly) have money to spend like the big boys. Being afraid to spend it on a guy with a great resume seems foolish if the main reason is that he may not be as good as he was.
If we have the equipment to play in the big leagues then we shouldn't be afraid to take a big swing. Limiting ourselves to guys who are less costly seems like a way to stay in the minor leagues.
I know that UF/UGA were down when he was at Vandy, but those teams still had more stars and talent than his Vandy team ever did, and he got wins there.
I tend to agree
My initial reaction is that if Franklin gets hired, my view of the team would be similar to how it was under Frank.
Very Confident: we beat the teams we're supposed to.
Confident: we routinely beat the mediocre conference/OOC teams.
Coin flip: we beat a 15-25 ranked team.
Hopeful: we get a Top 10 win.
I don't care about the Top 10 record, I'm familiar with not winning Top 10 games and football was fun as shit even when we were losing those.
Give me this mentality back.
Exactly.
Win the games we're "supposed to" win, and have some hope. Maybe catch lightening once in a while.
But wondering if we're going to beat ODU, Wake Forest, and Vanderbilt, man, what are we doing here?
Yep stop being the 4th or 5th best team in Virginia and start being a top 2-3 team in the ACC again
There are no sure things in a coaching search, but IMO Franklin is as close as we're getting to one.
We know he has a ceiling that (at VT) is likely 9-10 win seasons, ACC championship game appearances, maybe getting into the playoffs. That's the best case scenario, but that's likely the best case scenario for any coach that we hire. So again, if I had to pick one of the coaches from this series that I think is most likely to reach their ceiling, I think that's Franklin.
Current state of college football:
Except right now, its not even about rich and poor, for us its the great teams, the good teams, 50 feet of crap, and us.
Hiring Franklin helps us remove the crap
idk man - I get your point. I'd like to be good again, at least. And I agree there's a pretty good chance Franklin gets us back to good, at least.
But that's a lot of money to pay just to be good. If we're going to pay that kinda money I think I'd rather reach great, y'know?
And I know, offset, offset, blah blah. Penn State isn't going to pay the offset if Franklin doesn't get a FMV contract. We'll have to pay more than peanuts to get him. I'm giving up on the "don't hire Franklin" campaign because it seems he's a popular top choice here.
I don't think it's very likely VT will land him either way.
In 3 months we'll all be dissecting the coach we actually do hire (which, I'll be surprised if it's any of the coaches bar1990 has reviewed) and I'll say then the same thing I've said before. I won't know for sure if he's any good until 3 years into the job. There'll be early signs, sure, but things could go either way from there in the first year or two.
Any requests for future coaches?
I mean I think I have a pretty good idea on who you might have lined up next. The prodigal son returns!
ugh...I don't want Shane either - but for completely different reasons
If you were going to tell me that my only choices were Kade Bell, Shane Beamer, or James Franklin I would take Franklin every single time.
I just think there are higher-proposition coaches out there we can get at better value - the money is in the coordinators, if we're being honest. I don't want to overpay for a HC if that limits what we can pay our coordinators and support staff - if we're going to be spending $12 million on coaching salaries total I'd rather spend less on a HC so we can spend more on coordinators than vice versa. At the same time, I want a coach who has HC experience (regardless of level) and has at least proven on some level that they can be successful. Franklin checks a lot of those boxes but he's going to be a hot commodity and will demand a pretty penny. I think we could get a younger hungrier coach with more upside for less money.
FIFY
Just look at Texas Tech - two coordinators who have almost zero P4 experience.
okay, fair point.
I'll revise, coaching salary money should go to coordinators
but yes, money for players is important. NIL covers that, though. Alum says we're competitive (I really have no idea) so if that's the case, what am I worried about?
Problem is, we're paying Drones (presumably) a ton of money to be the worst QB I've seen on campus in a looong time
I think we were at least at the forefront of mobilizing, setting up a collective (Triumph), etc. when NIL first came out. Not sure where we stack up now, but I think we're not in the poverty tier.
But Drones I think proves your point about coordinators.
No matter who's on the field, you need a coaching staff that can design a gameplan and put players in positions to succeed. Ironically, Bowen was an average OC which makes him the best we've seen in twenty years
"Bowen was an average OC which makes him the best we've seen in twenty years"
Sadly, I 100% agree with this. And am not sure we've ever had a decent QB coach since I've been alive. Certainly not since the early 1990s when I actually started paying attention to VT football.
We'll see... he might be pretty good if he winds up somewhere with a competent OL
are you talking about Bowen or Drones specifically? Would tend to agree on both.
My biggest gripe with Bowen was that he seemed to try to get too cute with stuff. Like thinking Drones was going to be some drop back passing stud last year or the dumb Collin Schlee packages. I think if he was part of a competent program where he got direction from the HC, he'd probably tell him to run the effing ball more with Tuten/Drones and we would've looked pretty good despite the OL.
With Drones, the above average version from 2023 is in there somewhere but needs the supporting cast of play calling, skill players, and OL.
Sadly as the money NIL to Drones has gone up the performance has gone down.
It's mostly the same bucket now... Schools can pay athletes up to $20.5m directly.
I'm torn on Shane because symbolically its like the opposite of what we should be doing. The rot that is still in Merryman is largely from a lot of people who gained influence when Frank was here and refuses to let go now.
However, Shane has been in the SEC for a while, getting his start under Spurrier and legitimately helping build South Carolina to a program able to punch above its weight to the point where the fans think they are better than they really are. He knows how to lead a program that is willing to test boundaries and to operate in the grey areas that you really wouldn't associate with the Virginia Tech program right now.
I do think he's the kind of coach who, probably moreso than anyone who isn't Franklin, could come in and influence immediate change within Merryman, and probably for the best. Would he keep around someone like Ballein? Sure, but I don't think you would see Ballein with nearly as much influence overall as he's had to this point. Shane would come in and run everything to his own standard, and wouldn't be afraid to sideline anyone who gets in his way. That last name means something here, and in his case, it can be used for good during a time where we've grown very accustomed to it being used for bad.
Also, we'd probably have to retire the #25 jersey, cause it would be super awkward for Shane to give his own number out every week.
So that's like a bonus in and of itself.
I agree with this.
Shane is certainly a cut above the last two coaches we had.
I don't think he would have any illusions at all about him having to earn his own spot in VT history. He would absolutely know that this is the job.
Franklin wouldn't come if we didn't have the money to hire coordinators. This isn't the guy who just takes all the money then hopes for the best. This is the guy who hires Joe Moorhead to leave his job as the head coach at his alma mater to be his OC, who hires Kotelnicki away from Leipold who he'd worked with for over a decade starting at Wisconsin-Whitewater, who hires Jim Knowles away from rival and defending national champ Ohio St. Coaches are often only as successful as the hires they make, and Franklin is good at making hires, not afraid to go after the big coordinator fish, and not afraid to fire someone who's not performing.
I actually haven't really thought about shane because - until the bud-foster-wants-shane rumors started happening - I thought there was zero chance he would actually come here.
But I suppose it's time to start diving into that one
Requirement #1 - Proven track record of clock management at the end of the half
I don't have an easy way to segment for this, but if I were on the search committee, I'd be watching middle 8 and final 4 minute coaching.
same same.... I just started with a smaller window. Once we can get 2 minutes down we can expand that to 4 / middle 8
if you're challenging my assertion that the coaches you review won't end up here, then every single coordinator in the ACC, both offense and defense. :P
lets hedge and try to weed out the coaches we DON'T want
I was thinking about that on the ride in to work today. I just want a coach whose name is well known. I know Fuente was well known, and like has been said before, coaching hires are a huge gamble. No offense to those named, but I'm tired of hearing we hired Tyler Bowen, Sam Siefkes, Brent Pry (yes offense), or Stu Holt and thinking, "Who?"
I just want to hire somebody who has name recognition, for good reasons.
To be fair to Stu how many special teams coordinators do you know the names of?
Its one of those jobs where the only reason we know his name now is because of how bad he is at it.
And I'll just about guarantee that only Tech fans know his name.
You mean you don't want to be where everybody knows your name?
Well it's also that VT fans will always know the ST coordinators name and hold them to a higher standard than most other fanbases
I would argue that Franklin is actually kind of great. How many coaches are able to win that many games consistently? Like yeah, Saban and Kirby are better and you'd rather have a guy who can win championships than someone continually bumping their head on a ceiling. But, the guys who are able to win that much every year are few and far between. The Beamer comps keep coming up, but they seem pretty apt. Do you think Beamer was good or great?
Beamer is a hall of famer.
I'm starting to think that it takes a hall of fame coach to win 10 games regularly at VT.
He was very innovative and understood how the game was played.
It takes a hall of fame coach to consistently win 10 games a year anywhere.
This is exactly my point
I wouldn't hate it.
The idea feels like Spurrier's tenure at South Carolina.
I don't think I'd hate it if VT hired Franklin, but I also wouldn't be bragging about it either.
I think he'd be like Buzz or Brooks - here for a couple to a few seasons and then splitting for 💸greener💸 pastures and taking all of his stars with him as soon as the P2 starts calling again, no matter if Tech beats the offers.
Maybe the floor gets raised, but we're also likely to get the rug pulled out from under us as soon as we climb out of the basement.
If, we do climb out of the basement.
Good chance he can do that.
It's one skill to get a team organized and out of the basement. Quite another to organize a good team to a Natty.
I would be happy if it only took 2 HCs to get from basement to Natty as I don't think 1 HC exists can do both or, if he does, anyone can identify who that is.
Interesting take. After thinking about it, this is probably right.
We have so far to go, there are no nonstop flights. We need a flight to the top of our conference and then a connection to continue on to playoff victories.
So a GT coach is involved? cause everyone knows if you're traveling ANYWHERE -even Hell itself-you GOTTA change planes in Atlanta... /sorta
And hope like hell you catch your next flight!
Honestly of ALL the major hubs, Atlanta is in my opinion the easiest to navigate gate to gate due to the center tram running between terminals so you never have go further than end of one terminal to the center then the far end of another(or same) terminal. O'Hare and JFK on the other hand...
I know I live in ATL and talk about how awesome it is a bit too much, but I love this airport. Yea, security is always 15-45 min, and that's annoying. Yea the clear line is always packed, but once you get passed security, you're good. You can go to any gate. There's over a half dozen lounges. Wide variety of food. Easy to navigate. It's big, and that can be intimidating, but it's just laid out so intelligently.
I hate airports that have separate security lines for different terminals, or different drop off spots for different terminals (like LAX, O'hair, Miami, etc) those airports suck.
I grew up in Atlanta so I am also biased, but it's a GREAT airport. I live in Charlotte now and it might be one of the two or three worst hub airports in the US. No tram, hub/spoke layout so if you have to change planes it's a 5K, and security lines are randomly staffed or not staffed with zero regard for demand.
Denver is my least favorite since it's roughly the size of Rhode Island and the hike from the tram to any gate is at least 20 minutes, plus the TSA lines there are the least efficient I've seen.
Never originated or finished at Denver so can't speak to the TSA lines, the rest of the post is dead on. Not to mention I've had a couple scary -ass approaches when landing with wicked swirling crosswinds that tossed our plane 100 feet in random directions both sideways and up and down-sometimes both simultaneously!
I live directly between Atlanta and Charlotte in Greenville, technically a bit closer to Charlotte, but I avoid it like the plague. Atlanta's airport is by far my favorite of ALL the airports I've used in my life. I have made sub 30 minute connections due to efficiency of the plane train and the layout of the terminals.
Whenever I see negative jokes about the Atlanta airport I'm always a bit perplexed. That's gotta be based on like an anecdotal experience getting stuck there during some massive storm, which is like obviously something out of the airports control and can happen almost anywhere (though of course some places are more prone to extreme weather than others).
It always comes from people who don't live in major cities and/or don't fly regularly. They always come through Atlanta for a layover, and they find the size overwhelming. But I do wish people just said that instead of "that airport sucks!!!@1!"
When people complain about switching in ATL It makes me think they haven't done so in many of the other major hubs, because it's a relatively painless experience. Once they experience a terminal where they have to walk 25 minutes, and it's not clear where they are supposed to be going, or take a bus to a whole different building and go through security again, they will learn their lesson lol.
Holy cow do I have one of those!
Early 2020-pre-covid-flying back from New Orleans to Richmond with layover in Atlanta due to land in Atlanta at 6pm on Saturday and depart at 705pm-normally no big deal. This time however there were T=storms blanketing the SE US-bad enough to already be causing some delays til...tornado warnings in Atlanta caused a full ground stop in Atlanta from 550-650 pm! On a busy Saturday! with the aforementioned storms! I watched my departure time for the Richmond flight go from 705 to 8 to 10 to 2am to 330am(along with all other thousand or so flights doing the same as they scrambled to get their planes back into position after their own delays leaving other airports. By some miracle, my flights departure actually move back to 115 am putting us in RIC at just after 2am.(IDK if you've flown into RIC but no flights usually arrive after 10 pm or so and while the airport is 'open' nothing IN it is). Despite being the only flight arriving, it took 30-45 minutes to get my checked bags.
But yeah-not at all in the airport's control and in all honestly, they did a masterful job at getting 'caught up' as quickly as they did!
I've actually never in my life flown into or out of Atlanta as a start/stop point- only ever connected through there. Being from Richmond its only 7-8 hour drive and I'd rather drive an have my own car than fly there and need a rental or rely solely on MARTA.
AKA Third World International /s ...NOT
O'Hare sucks, I always fly out of Midway. Although O'Hare does have a Smoothie King, and there's not a lot of those around these parts.
Man, I am amazed that we got through 6 prior posts (that was the number of prior posts at the time I wrote this one) talking about bad airports and no one has mentioned Newark yet. Not even counting all of the issues this year with the radar, the place is old, a dump, poor restaurant choices not easy to get from 1 terminal to another ...
"On multiple occasions since April 28, air traffic controllers have temporarily lost radar or communications with planes around Newark Airport—once for up to 90 seconds—spurring Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigations, making national news, and prompting a recent Saturday Night Live sketch that illustrated how mainstream concerns about air traffic control safety have suddenly become."
Newark: when you absolutely need to add a bus trip to your already convoluted travel plans
On airport topic, Chattanooga's is close enough to Atlanta that the taxiing on both ends is longer than the flight. They have to get clearance to land in Atlanta before they take off here.
As for interesting airports, in Zurich, they have chocolatiers in the airport making chocolate daily, the smell is maddening. And in Dublin, they have free whisky tastings after security. And since US Customs is handled there, no funky repacking of anything you buy in the airport when you get back the the US.
Zurich is also hella narrow concourse in the terminal omg i felt so claustrophobic in there lol
I'm amazed that people still fly into Newark when there are a half dozen other choices lol
The other choices exist but they aren't better 🤷♂️ i have so many thoughts here lol
Newark is fine and really only Terminal B sucks. They're putting major money into renovating and updating.
The location sucks too unless you're going to Rutgers.
Objectively false because you land in New Jersey, the pinnacle of earthly culture and paradise. Smh bar. Smh
Beyond that, it's the fastest drive to Manhattan from any of the three major airports, the public transit options are pretty easy too because you can take NJT directly to Midtown or transfer to PATH to get Downtown.
Newark: For when you absolutely must fly United and there are literally no other options, you looked extensively.
Newark: for when you want to be able to fly direct from the Philly area to western Canada to visit the wife's family. Of course, those are United/Air Canada code-shared flights, so I'm in agreement with you.
Newark has the worst airport food I've ever experienced.
Last time we were there, we were arriving in from out of the country. Catching our connection involving a 30 minute walk, a portion of which was outside???
Denver is my home airport. It gets a lot of hate that I don't really understand. It's laid out in a very easy to understand way— similar layout to ATL! Great food options (and getting better). Easy public transportation to get there. Only thing I would change is give me an option to walk between terminals; sometimes there are huge lines for the train. It is windy as hell out there, so that's a fair point.
My frustration with Denver was you fill up the rental car drive to the airport and get a fee from the rental agency for bringing it back with less than a full tank due to the distance between the gas station and the rental return.
I fly in and out of Denver constantly, and while the layout is fine, the trains are painful to travel in (you always feel like they are going to break down), and TSA is very hit or miss. But BY FAR the worst part is whatever cleanser they use in the restrooms. It has some sort of bubble gum/fruit smell - which when mixed with the normal nasty ass bathroom smells creates a potent and nasty combination that makes you nauseous.
Delta ->
Duh, Everbody Leaves Through Atlanta
Man one of the nice parts about being in Raleigh is that we get to use RDU, which is a Delta 'Focus City', meaning we get direct flights to most major destinations without needing to deal with Atlanta. And when you don't have to deal with Atlanta, Delta is actually pretty nice
I know it was already said, but I do want to double down on just how good a point this is.
Is there any coach out there right now that anyone here is confident can win a Natty for Virginia Tech? Any coach that we can reasonably hire that would take us from where we are now with the smoldering remains of a once proud program burnt to a crisp by 2 completely botched coaching regimes back up to get enough legitimacy that people ignore the ACC aspect of our conference and get us seeded in the playoff to the point where we can roll through the best of the SEC and Big Ten to win a Natty?
I don't think there is one coach out there who can do it. Not one. And if we hit the damn lottery and got a guy who even remotely approached that level, of even getting us into the playoff mix, we all know that person is gone at the first chance they get to a bigger school.
So if there isn't that guy out there, what's the next best option? Getting a guy who significantly raises the floor, and raises the ceiling to the point where we can at least be close to the conversation. A guy who rebuilds us from the inside-out, who has us operating like we should at all levels of the Athletic Department to support what needs to be the main revenue driving mass marketing venture of the university. And realistically, a guy who gets us in position to be top of the list when it comes time for the P2 to expand when the ACC implodes.
And I don't think there is anyone better out there who can get us to that point than Franklin.
Nice work taking Egbert's comment and expanding on it. Good comments, both of you. Leg'd.
Agreed. In one of my earlier posts I stated Franklin is one of the top, if not the top candidate right now to get us to the top tier of our conference. He would get us playing at a level where each season we can see a path to the ACCCCG and when we win it, an invite to the playoffs.
At that time, we would have become a program that can spend the money and have the program to attract CFB's coaching elite. It will be that guy who takes us to a Natty contender program.
So, it may well take 2-3 coaching hires to achieve this, assuming the next hire can bring us to the phase 1 promise land. With everything being sequential dependent, Franklin may be our best hope in achieving this and making it a 2 coach hiring process.
If we went with a Huff or Chesney type they would bring us up to a better plateau but may not be the answer, thus the need to hire the next best thing. In this scenario, we would potentially see 3 coaching hires to do so.
Man, the more I think about this, our journey to relevancy could take anywhere from 4-9 years.
I think the "journey to relevancy" NEEDS to be shorter than that, as I think that is when the top teams may be splitting off of the ACC to chase their P2 dreams (if possible). I think the level that you defined in your first paragraph is the state of relevancy that is needed, and I agree that Franklin is a good bet to get us to that point.
I surely hope it is. That's a long time and don't think we have the luxury.
The more I think about this the less convinced I am that he'd bolt at the first chance he gets. I know he left Vandy after having success there but I mean if he has similar success in Blacksburg, he'd have a pretty good pathway to the CFP nearly every year (certainly an easier path than at Vandy). And if he did have that kind of success, I imagine VT would be very good to him. Does $$$ really create that much incentive to go to some other bigger program where there's more pressure and a more difficult path to the postseason? He's from PA and was already at PSU so where would he really be lured to that is considered "home." Seems like that wouldn't be a factor.
He was also a young up and coming coach at Vandy. That job was a stepping stone from the time he got an interview. If his tenure in Blacksburg mirrored Vandy, he'd be here for 3 years then leave making him 58 in his first year at a new job. If it takes longer, are there that many schools that want to hire a coach who's in his 60s? Young coaches tend to move around more than older ones do.
More with less is the way to go, not less with more. And Franklin won't even have more here to do less with. It's been 13 seasons since he coached for a have not program and 10 years since he raised the floor at Penn State who had sanctions.
There's no proof he can do more with less in the current era. For that reason and because he's an asshole, I'm out. And let's be clear I'm fine with an asshole who can coach (Cignetti, Kirby Saban etc) but he doesn't coach, he recruits. And he clearly was struggling (as many other coaches have: Pry, Norvell, Belichick, Cristobal) to keep the players motivated and engaged when they've signed multi year guaranteed money NIL contracts. How do you keep players playing hard after they've already been paid? I don't have the answer, but good coaches like Cignetti, Lea, Deboar, Lanning, Elko have figured it out. Franklin clearly had not. That's a must have for whoever we're going to hire.
Most concerning to me is the amount of elite talent that went there and ended up undrafted. Especially on the offensive side of the ball. Talent carried him while he was there but there was a clear lack of development among many highly talented players, who ended up transferring out to lower programs. This was a pattern in the Franklin era, and the hallmark of a mid/bad developmental coach (Bitch Jones at Tennessee comes to mind)
Ps: I also take issue with the Buzz comparison. It's not like Buzz Williams at all, it would be much more like Georgia hiring Tom Crean after he was fired from Indiana.
Man, we are never shedding that mindset are we.
Until we sign a top 15 recruiting class that is the world we live in
That mindset works everywhere. Cignetti, Elko, Freeman, all your best coaches now have shown the ability to maximize what they have and win big even where the resources aren't great.
You want a prime example of the opposite? Brent Pry. Fielded a mix of defenses with elite talent, most good or very good, one or two elite, some not good. Was not asked to maximize his talent, and when he had little of it he failed miserably.
We are a power job, but if we want to make the playoff and win playoff games we have to punch above our weight. Even if we start spending way more (we were already spending a lot and losing to teams with far less resources, who have figured out to do more with less).
Lastly to your original point, Fuente sort of fit this, but he also kind of didn't. His early teams were good because Odom's defenses. By his final year at Memphis when Odom had left and the defense regressed, Memphis had been recruiting near the top of the conference. I regard Fuente as a good offensive coach not a great one. Odom did more with less at Memphis, Fuente it's really debatable.
We really haven't had someone fit the mold of a more with less coach since Beamer. You know. Our most successful coach of all time
I did a quick Google AI search for Coordinators at PSU during Franklin's tenure (below). As you can see with the exception of Pry on defense it has been a constant revolving door of coordinators. This has to make development of talent harder to accomplish considering the different focuses and schemes different coordinators bring to the table. Maybe that plays a part in the under achieving player development? And maybe it doesn't as other programs probably have this same issue. I did not do a deep dive into this.
Offensive Coordinators under Franklin at PSU
2014–2015 John Donovan
2016–2017 Joe Moorhead
2018–2019 Ricky Rahne
2020 Kirk Ciarrocca
2021–2023 Mike Yurcich
2024–present Andy Kotelnicki
Defensive Coordinators under Franklin at PSU
Bob Shoop 2014–2015
Brent Pry 2016–2021
Manny Diaz 2022–2023
Tom Allen 2024
Jim Knowles 2025–present
My question is how many of those former coordinators have moved on to lateral positions or bigger and better things. Is his tree growing or just pruning?
off the top of my head, Morehead, Rahne, Pry and Diaz all went on to head coaching gigs. Their success or not doesn't tell us a lot since it is a very different job than being a coordinator, but they didn't leave just to take the same job elsewhere.
Offense
Donovan left PSU to go to the NFL. Made one stop back in college as OC for Washington for a couple years before returning to the NFL.
Moorhead left to become Miss St head coach, got fired, became Oregon OC and then became Akron HC
Rahne left to become head coach at ODU and has been there since
Kirk Ciarrocca has bounced around at the OC Level. After PSU it was WVU, Minnesota, and now Rutgers
Yurcich was a disaster and is now OC at Youngstown State.
Defense
Shoop has been on a gradual slide towards retirement. Left PSU to be DC at Tennessee, then did assistant stints with Michigan and Miami, became DC again at South Florida, did an XFL stint in Birmingham, assistant at Marshall with Huff and now is the Jerry Kill of defense for Vanderbilt.
Pry we know the history on
Diaz left to be HC at Duke and is 13-7 there which might be a miracle for Duke.
Tom Allen left to become Clemson DC.
Charles Huff is from Franklin's coaching tree. He started at Vandy in 2011 as Franklin's quality control coach.
Here is way more than I want to read on Franklin's coaching tree
https://stuffsomerssays.com/the-blog/2024/05/05/james-franklins-coaching...
Ciarrocca was hired from Minnesota where he was quite successful (his first go). Yurcich was a Texas hire if I recall correctly.
Yurcich was hired away from Texas but is the only coordinator Franklin fired mid-season because of how poorly he performed.
Ciarrocca has been pretty good at Rutgers which is not an easy place to be successful. He kicked our ass twice.
These days, who hasn't?
True.
But, I would love for Kirk C to be our OC. I think he's fantastic.
I'm really curious to learn more about this.
Is Franklin's recruiting failure rate significantly worse than other coaches recruiting in the same range?
I seem to recall a lot of PSU players getting drafted. Scanning 247 all-time recruits I see Micah Parsons, Miles Sanders, Nick Singleton, Dani Dennis-Sutton, Rasheed Walker, and PJ Mustipher. Not everyone hits, but damn those are some good hits.
My memory very much matches yours, but I didn't have time to check the data.
PSU under Franklin in NFL Draft
2025: 5 (2 in 1st, a 3rd, 2 in 6th)
2024: 8 (2 in 1st, 2 in 3rd, a 4th,5th,6th and 7th)
2023: 6 (3 in 2nd, a 3rd, 5th and 6th)
2022: 8 (1st, 2 in 2nd and 4th, a 6th and 2 in 7th)
2021: 6 (2 in 1st, 2nd and 3 in 7th)
2020: 5 (2 in 2nd, 4th and 2 in 6th)
2019: 6 (2nd,3rd,4th,5th,6th,7th)
2018: 6 (1st,2nd, 2 in 4th, 5th, 6th)
2017: 1 (3rd)
2016: 5 (2 in 2nd, 3rd, and 2 in 6th)
2015: 3 (2nd and 2 in 5th)
2014*: 3 (2nd, 4th, 5th) *not sure if these apply as 2014 was Franklin's first year
Six 1sts, twelve 2nds, seven 3rds, seven 4ths, seven 5ths, eleven 6ths, seven 7ths.
62 if you count 2014. 5.6 per year average.
According to bar's article, the average recruiting ranking was 12.75. In 11 years, Franklin finished ranked 7 times. The 4 unranked finishes were his first two years both of which they went 7-6, and the two COVID impacted years - 2020 they only played 9 games and 2021 they went 7-6. The average ranked finish in those non-COVID non-rebuilding initial years was 9.43.
9.43 > 12.75
Franklin doesn't do less with more. He meets expectations or slightly exceeds them. Considering all the coaches and programs that recruit well and then consistently shit the bed, his ability to get what's expected out of his roster is fairly impressive.
Seriously, I'm done with this search and speculation at this point. If we are serious about Franklin, no reason we shouldn't be working overtime to bring him on ASAP (he's not coaching and before more competition opens up). The longer it goes and no news, the less likely it's Franklin for us.
lol Nothing will be announced until after UVA at earliest. There are more jobs to open too.
I wouldn't be surprised if it the job was open until Christmas. As long as it's a wrap before the portal opens in January, we're fine.
Would be nice to have a coach in time to flip a few high school recruits.
Can't they just transfer in lol?
Honestly, I don't think that's how you do it any more, because - unless you're landing 4+ stars - those players likely won't see the field for a couple years. I think a coach's first class should be transfer heavy (win now), then with each year, the scales tip toward a more even split.
Also, I'm more worried about re-recruiting the current roster than just throwing more mid-3-stars on to it.
I agree transfers are the immediate way up, but hanging on to the best of the current class (including trying to bring back recent decommits), plus the new coaches getting their best commits to follow them gets that developmental group going.
Do we really need to hang on to the best of the 106th ranked class in 2026? Even if you sort by average recruit ranking, we're still second to last in the ACC (in front of just UVA).
If those players really want to attend Virginia Tech regardless of the coach, then we should honor their scholarships, but I'm not sure there's much we should really fight to hang on to.
Until Christmas?!
If we hire Franklin, it could be announced sooner (I don't we'll land him, but we'll see).
That said, I think you're right... just looking at dates:
Given that we're not poaching a sitting playoff coach (LOL) I think we should have our guy between 11/30 and 12/7ish. Huff and Chesney are both in the conference title race, both basically out of the playoff race, and I assume neither would skip the conference championship game for a new job (Huff did not last year)
Christmas would mean would took a big swing or missed bad.
Or both, lol.
I agree that we could, and should, get Franklin (or any unemployed coach) on board sooner.
My guess is that they would like to announce coach and GM at the same time, so there may be a couple extra weeks for that. Does anyone know anything about Andy Frank, PSU GM of Personnel and Recruitment?
Might also need to communicate with PSU about the salary offset and timing of potential assistant coach transitions.
Frank was Franklin's DPP at Vandy. It's the same job, just a new title.
If we announce a GM and HC at the same time, it's for performative reasons. Make no mistake that (with the exception of Andrew Luck) every CFB GM serves at the pleasure of the HC.
The Key Play. Come for the in-depth coach reviews and analysis. Stay for the airport debates. Never change!
I had no idea what my flight analogy would set off, but not surprised!
It's the kind of top flight discussions we have regularly on here. And it gives me the chance to post about the great WWI Flying Ace too.
The Argument against James Franklin being the next VT Football Coach
Specifically,
retread defined as:
Franklin would be more in the "sitting P4 coaches" category here
It's hard to argue with Shelton's data....just sayin'
Based on Shelton's article:
the best options are re-tread P4 head coaches (46% success rate) and sitting G5 coaches (42% success rate)
With that said, the best options would be re-treads; Dan Mullen, Justin Fuente (LMAO), Chip Kelly, etc.
or G5 coaches; Troy Calhoun, Jeff Monken, Spencer Danielson, Bob Chesney, Jamey Chadwell, etc.
The worst options would be sitting (or freshly fired) P4 coaches; James Franklin, Shane Beamer, Billy Napier, Trent Bray, Mike Gundy, etc.
I think you all probably see my point here. I don't think it's worth selling the farm for James Franklin. I'd much rather hire Dan Mullen or Bob Chesney
I would still much prefer Mullen to Franklin
Shelton did address this above. Most P4 coaches aren't gettable unless they have baggage. The question is how much baggage does he have? I'd argue not that much.
His baggage is that he struggled to have Penn St fans realize they aren't Ohio State or Michigan and Nattys don't just fall out of trees and into their laps.
To clarify: I am extremely pro-Franklin.
I'm just saying that hiring retread P4 coaches doesn't work out very often because those guys failed at their previous schools for a reason. Franklin didn't "fail" per se, but he did plateau at a school with top-15 resources and almost never beat teams with more talent. So you can see why there's some trepidation.
This all rests on the definition of success.
I think the variance here is that our definition of success should be an overhaul of football administration at VT and modernizing our operations to meet the new demands and environment. A weak foundation will not be able to adjust as our sport continues to mature
Winning 9 games while doing so is merely the icing on the cake.
I think going for broke is the wrong move and that building the foundation is the correct move and more necessary to get us back into long term contention.
Anything else is just the facade of success putting us right back into this cellar when it collapses again sooner, rather then later.
He had success in an insanely stratified conference where he was at a school that is top 3 in resources with a giant gulf between them and the rest of the league (for most of the time). As the rest of the league used increased media dollars to catch up, he started losing. He is a recruiter and famously bad in game coach at a time when recruiting is done by GMs with donor checkbooks and the differentiator will be in game coaching. He is falling off as other schools start to get more talent.
boom. this pretty succinctly lays out some of the reasons I am not interested in hiring Franklin. Cheers. Bravo.
I don't get this line of thinking at all. He was in the playoff semifinal last freakin year for christsakes! His last three seasons he's been 13-3, 10-3 and 11-2. How is that falling off or others catching up? I just don't get that narrative.
He has averaged over 9 wins a season from 2014-last year, and he had 6 10+ win seasons in those 11. His only losing season was the COVID year.
He's a famously good recruiter, and he recruits to a school that has all the geographic issues that Blacksburg has, although i acknowledge the history helps with that. But here's the thing, he recruited to Vandy as well, and he was Maryland's top recruiter under Freidgen. We need someone who can bring in the recruits. I don't care how much you can X and O, it won't matter much if you don't have the guys to do it.
The big game narrative is also a bit overplayed, IMO. He is 15-30 vs ranked opponents at Penn State, but when you remove Ohio State and Michigan, he's 12-14. There is that OSU/Michigan mountain to climb, but that's not a mountain we have. Franklin just needs to get us past Clemson and Miami. If we end up constantly losing to Ohio State and Michigan in playoff games, you know what, i'll be frustrated, but I'll get over it.
At the end of the day, Franklin is just an absolute no-brainer. Now, I don't think he is interested in VT, but if it happened, it would be miles ahead of what the expectations were prior to him becoming a possibility, and i'm fairly certain anyone in the athletic dept at Tech or any of the talking heads on whatever network, podcast, youtube channel, what have you, would tell you as much.
Because i don't think Franklin is likely to choose us, I would be ecstatic with any of Huff, Mullen, Campbell, or Sumrall. I'd be cautiously optimistic if we ended up with Chesney or Helton. I'm not as sold on Schumann, for all of the risks mentioned in his write-up. I'd never heard of Golesh before this year, so don't know enough about him to have much of an opinion there.
This is exactly where I'm at.
But I think Sumrall is 100% off the table for us. And I'm souring on Campbell and Chesney.
what's causing you to sour on Campbell and Chesney, just out of curiosity?
So at the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that every coach in this sport builds a staff based on existing relationships they already have. They may not restrict their hiring to people they know, but there's rarely more than 1 degree of separation between a head coach and their assistants. And if there is, it's typically limited to only one or two people on the staff.
So when I apply that knowledge/assumption/reality...
Contrast that to Tyson Helton - he has (a) worked on two P5 staffs and (b) has sent his last three OCs to P4 programs. So I'm way more confident that Helton could put together a sensible staff than those other two.
yeah, this all makes sense. Thanks for elaborating.
I don't have much of a counterpoint on Chesney other than to say I think he's a ruthless winner and I believe ruthless winners find a way to win.
If Chesney hired two ace coordinators and a GM, I'd be 100% onboard. I just think that's unlikely given who he has (not) worked with in the past.
absolutely fair - hopefully, that's going to be part of the interview process from the committee - I'm expecting that among the questions and vetting they do they will directly ask each candidate how they plan to build out their staff, who they'll target, and how they will make sure that they can hire the people they want to hire. If Chesney is the guy in the end (which, I doubt but for argument's sake) I would expect that part of why he was offered the job was because he had a satisfactory answer to that question - he identified what his staff would look like, who would fill each role, how they would be acquired and compensated, and how that staff would help achieve his vision.
I'm hoping that whoever we end up hiring, Franklin, Chesney, *insert your preferred candidate here* has really solid answers to those questions.
100% this ^ . Especially considering the perception that the last two head coach failures were at least in part related to poor coaching staff hires and retaining underperforming coordinators, I would really like to think a significant focus of the interview process for this head coach hire will be reviewing a convincing plan for the entire staff.
I've really liked Campbell a lot too, but honestly starting to think he stayed too long at Iowa State and lost some luster. He's been consistent there, but outside of a couple of really strong seasons, he's mostly a 7-5 type average coach in the Big 12.
I don't think Campbell is ever going to leave ISU. I think he's happy there and doesn't have the climber mentality, knows he's not guaranteed success somewhere else and has a good thing going, and doesn't want to deal with recruiting at a place like PSU.
In his defense, you don't leave a statue job.
The main reason I've wanted Campbell is because if he can get kids to come to fucking Ames Iowa, he can get them to come to Blacksburg.
But as time has passed in this search, I've come to agree. I don't think he's going anywhere unless he gets an offer he can't refuse. And even then he might refuse it.
Oh, if I thought Campbell was a real option I would probably rank him above Mullen and Franklin. And I've been driving the Mullen train since 2022 at least.
I wouldn't be surprised if Sumrall and UK have a handshake deal at the end of the season. Stoops is likely out. Ironic that Bud allegedly mentioned Stoops as a candidate he supported 😂
UK is Sumrall's safety school
He's no doubt gunning for an SEC job one way or the other I imagine.
Yeah he seems like he'll get Auburn, Ole Miss if Kiffin leaves, maybe wait for LSU.
I would take Stoops in a heartbeat, he would do well in a place that actually gives a crap about football and doesn't have to go through an SEC gauntlet every year.
Yeah I think Stoops has joined the ranks of guys I'd take over Shane after yesterday
Man watching this Cal game, I don't want to hear anymore about how we don't want Franklin because we won't win a Natty or Top 10 games with him
Shit guys, Virginia Tech is a bad football team. Really, really bad. The absolute last thing we need to be worried about right now is the ceiling of James Franklin. We have our work cut out just to get back to .500 play, let alone being anywhere near the top of the conference or country.
Yup, lets get the new organization built out and the foundation built,
get 8-10 wins per season then get the natty coach.
Yeah, Franklin's "ceiling" is the least of our problems right now.
....please god do what you need to do to get this done
I have some rumors to say we may see Franklin named coach as early as today.
But where?
My first thought as well....
👀
I won't give a name, but from my understanding, the committee has presented their options to the 3 making the call, so now people who weren't required to sign NDAs have access to the goings on.
But it's the same person who told me the Thursday of the ODU game that the decision that Pry wasn't going to last the weekend has been made.
presenting options to the decision makers doesn't sound like naming a coach. I think if Franklin is one of those options it's up to the decision makers to reach out to Franklin to begin discussions. Maybe I'm reading wrong but the way I think you've framed it here it seems unlikely that we'll hear anything this week
edit to add:
Also, it's pretty brutal that the decision to move on from Pry was made before the ODU game even happened. You've got to believe that he, and the team, knew going into that game. The way they played would be indicative of that IMO
It really is a shame regarding your last point. If the decision to fire Pry the weekend of the ODU game was made even before that game, then Vandy was truly the last straw. And if that's the case, you know people with decision-making power had an inclination all offseason that this very likely could be it for Pry. That's why it's just inexcusable to me, with that knowledge that this was likely going to be a poor season, that we didn't at least plan for that by restructuring the AD/having Whit retire this offseason so a new AD could have been onboard to oversee things. It's like everyone just waited until the absolute last minute to make difficult decisions. I guess it's playing out now regardless with a largely powerless AD in name only with Whit and other decision-makers above him calling the shots. But wow - with a little foresight we could have handled this much better.
That's why I'm really thinking a big share of the blame for letting things get this bad goes to Sands. He needed to have a better pulse on athletics and he did not.
I think everyone, even here on TKP, knew going into this season that it would have to be special for Pry to save his job. I think he hit the 3 year rule at the end of last season and the only thing that saved him from being fired last December was firing his defensive coordinator and hiring a new OC to replace the outgoing Bowen. Those staff changes bought him a little extra rope. Just enough for him to hang himself, incidentally. I'd like to believe that if those staff changes hadn't happened, he'd have been shown the door sooner. By the end of year 3 we knew things weren't going to get any better. He made significant staff changes and I think the thinking in Merryman was essentially "Okay, you've made changes, now prove it" and if he didn't start this season 3-1 or better he was out the door. Going 0-2 with a completely listless performance in the second half vs Vandy sealed his fate, I think. The ODU debacle was the proverbial icing on the cake for the people who wanted him gone.
I absolutely agree with this point. I think Sands is culpable and I've said as much before.
Which makes it all the more damning about VT's administration that the AD problem wasn't solved before that, knowing that a coaching change was coming.
yeah, fersher
Yeah this is a mess if true, staff changes bought him 2 games? It's a waste of NIL it's a waste of just about everything. We sunk a season because Marve, Galt, and Crooks were fired a year too late.
I think this would depend greatly on how the committee's responsibilities are structured. If the committee's role is simply to make a recommendation, the I think you are absolutely correct. If the committee's role is to do the actual interviewing, etc. and the decision makers are signing on the dotted line, it could be announced sooner.
It all comes down to how the actual work is being done (which I don't think has been publicly stated or clarified).
Yeah even if they have decision-making authority, it's still far from naming a coach because they'd have to negotiate and get the coach to agree.
In high school, my nickm2 Prom Date Committee selected Jennifer Anniston, but she declined and I had to go with a second option.
Did ya actually ASK her(Jennifer Anniston) ? cause as ya know, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.....
My negotiations didn't get that far. But she was the most qualified candidate
Your committee should have cast a wider net to secure more candidates. Did you consider having one of your ex-girlfriends and some people that had dated other celebrities be involved?
BTW-was in NYC in Manhattan in the mid 2000s and ended up near the Manhattan courthouse (or as I called it 'the Law and Order steps) and they were filming a scene from the movie 'The Bounty Hunter ' and got to see Jennifer Anniston in person . Just as beautiful in person AS ON tv!
Until I see results of the hot/crazy matrix on Ms. Anniston, I will stand by my opinion that Brad Pitt is the stupidest male in the universe.
If she were as crazy as she is hot, you'd absolutely know all about it.
I guess I am the odd person, I always thought Courtney Cox was hotter than Jennifer on Friends.
I think they're in the same ballpark. I could see them as friends.
You are not alone there, my friend.
Monica looked alright, but her OCD made her a little less attractive. Rachel had her faults, but she always had her headlights on. And for a coming of age teenager while that show made its run, the high beams were a big perk.
This supports my point very well, thanks!
This absolutely supports her points, not yours.
there is certainly a lack of support somewhere...
Oh, I think everything is very well supported.
She's in every 6 beer discussion a group of people have. Those are some amazingly assembled and durable genetics. Like a Ford 300 6 cylinder.
yeah, this is a great point and I had a similar thought after my initial post on the matter. If the committee did all the interviewing and contract negotiations and all they need from the 3 decision makers is the rubber stamp then maybe this is it and we'll find out soon.
If the committee is just presenting information to the decision makers to give them a roadmap on how to proceed then we might not know anything for weeks.
So if this doesn't happen, we can blame you, right? ;^)
Edit: I hope it does, though. So many high-level openings right now, that nabbing Franklin early seems like the best option to get a good coach.
This. And it's more accurate with each vacancy.
That is my worry, the longer this goes on the more I can see LSU backing up a truck of money.
I'd be beyond shocked if LSU brought in Franklin. Now UF; sure.
Honestly the rumblings I've seen here and elsewhere on the interwebs is promising but I'm conditioned to be expecting the seemingly inevitable rug pull.
Trying not to get my hopes up about anything. Just assuming any "smoke" regarding specific coaches is just agent leaks.
Initially I was pretty strongly against a Franklin hire. At this point though, if we announced Franklin as HC sometime this week I'd be pretty content with that. With new openings every week (and it's not even November yet!!) the odds of VT doing well in the coaching circus drop even more so if we can lock down a solid coach early I think that's to VT's benefit. I probably won't be as excited for the actual football with Franklin as perhaps some other coaches but I'd feel comfortable enough trusting that he'd, at the very least, stop the backsliding and get us back to competing with ACC teams.
I don't think anyone, even the strongest pro-Franklin people, are excited about the offensive style of football under him. But it is very similar to what we're used to and he wins games. At the end of the day that's what matters most.
I think everybody already knows that Franklin is a coach. Yawn.
Sure, but is he NAMED coach?
Hi Coach, I'm named Dad
Bet online updated it's odds.... the favorite as of today.....
Jon Gruden
Uh no way in hell
He shouldn't even be a candidate, let alone the favorite.
Any school that hires Gruden is not a serious institution. He hasn't coached in over 5 years, and frankly wasn't great when his NFL career ended.
Plus - lots of REALLY ugly emails that would be a hard sell for me and many alums
Plus, he hasn't coached in college in almost FOURTY years.
No major program should consider him.
If somehow that comes to fruition, I'm going after whoever set that line on principal.
Historically Vegas lines regarding coaches are pretty terrible. Vegas is trying to drum up interest and bets, I'm sure those markets are much less heavily bet than your typical spreads and the big smart money doesn't dabble in them so no market need for them to be super sharp.
incidentally, "not super sharp" also describes people that would place such a bet
Jon Gruden recently made a video promoting an arena to be built in Va beach for a pro sports team 🤷
If it's not Franklin then I'm guessing it'll be Chesney. With all the openings right now, Id imagine any top level coach is going to go to sec or psu.
I'm getting a little higher on Chesney. Media members whose opinions I respect (aka ball knowers) say that he's a great coach and PSU should hire him but they won't because they want to win the presser.
I would honestly love Chesney more than Franklin tbh but I think Franklin is the smart (safe?) hire. I really genuinely hope that he's the backup if Franklin falls through
because, my cynical ass thinks Franklin is using us to leverage a better deal elsewhere and that it's a pipe dream that we even think we can get him
I just hope everyone else passes over Chesney too because I'm certain if he got an offer in the SEC or B1G he'd take that over VT every day and twice on Saturdays
IMO this is more realistic than cynical
If Chesney has a plan to work with a GM and established coordinators, then he's the guy. He might be the best pure ball coach of the bunch. My biggest concern is that he just doesn't know the right people in the industry yet. Hopefully he has a stellar agent who can help him there.
I'll say it many more times Franklin is the safest choice.
I like Huff, I like Chesney a bit more. The only thing with Chesney is that I think it's a year to early to really have a good idea on him, but he comes from the Kalen Deboers mold of just wins and I like that.
I mean I really don't want to get my hopes up on Franklin, but realistically, who out there would be after him who is legitimately a better opportunity? I don't think LSU or Florida is, I think they both fully believe they can get better than him. Arkansas and Okie St are probably on par with us, but Arky is a no-win job, he won't make them competitive in the SEC, and Okie St is a completely different recruiting footprint than his pipeline.
Maybe UNC? But they aren't open, at least not yet
I think if UNC had opened this year instead of last, Franklin would go there. I don't think they open, but even if they do it's been such a dumpster why would you even consider atm.
The attractiveness of the UNC job has been largely overblown. No real football culture there at all.
Obviously I agree with you, and the rest of my family went to UNC. But outsiders and many coaches still see it as a sleeping giant. Similar to Big 10 people saying they want GT and UVA. ACC minds know better, but that doesn't stop that perception however misplaced.
If VT and UNC are both open positions at the end of the year, VT will pick after UNC. 100%. UNC is a sleeping giant. They just haven't found the right person yet. UNC is the most likely team in the league to land in the P2. Yes, in front of FSU, Clemson and Miami (and UVa and GT).
And they demonstrated with the Bellichick hire that they're serious. Now, that hire has turned into a disaster, and will likely take a few big wigs down in CH, so maybe the school's commitment to big boy football will change, but right now, they've demonstrated that they've got the will, the money, and the rosey future to be the most attractive job in the region.
Is there anyone even semi-legit reporting Franklin is talking to VT?
Wife saw the VTFootball program Facebook post stating it.
247's Kolby Crawford stated tonight in his YouTube live stream that there is definitely an offer made and mutual interest, just waiting on an official acceptance. More details and info they have stated behind paywall regarding it. And some legit football media folks have started tweeting about it throughout the day. It definitely is legit, just have to see if we can close the deal.
Teal said something to the effect of "I'm sure they're talking, but that's an agent's job"
Franklin isn't signing with VT now. He knows that UK, Auburn, NC St., and UNC could all come open so he's going to wait and see what happens.
If true, very unfortunate because he loses time to start working the rebuild.
I am not sure about UNC. 1) they are showing signs of life and should have won the last 2. 2) Belichek's contract is probably iron clad and I am not sure they want to pay him 50 million to go away.
Danny Kannell said on Cover 3 that he would predict Franklin to VT on Tuesday. Caveat is they were given a coach and asked to predict where they end up.
Mrs MattBoard (who doesn't follow a lot of football media) sent me a link about it. So there is a lot of smoke at the least.
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