The Argument for James Franklin to be the next VT Football Coach

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:

1. WKU coach Tyson Helton
2. JMU coach Bob Chesney
3. UNLV coach Dan Mullen
4. Iowa State coach Matt Campbell
5. Southern Miss coach Charles Huff
6. 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.