The Franklin Fit

Before we talk about the thing that everyone wants to talk about, it's important to look back on the only time in the last 20 years when a single decision altered the trajectory of the Virginia Tech athletic department for the better.

Want to guess what it was?

Pause here, I'll give you a second.

The only time the Hokies have completely improved their standing in modern college sports in the last two decades was when they hired Buzz Williams from Marquette in 2014.

It's hard to overstate what a bad place Virginia Tech men's basketball was in when Williams took the job. There was no talent on the roster, recruiting was somehow even worse. They were poorly coached, poorly funded and good for four-ish conference wins a year. I believe I once described the situation as if a tire fire was set within a dumpster fire, and that larger dumpster fire got pushed into a giant crater.

But Buzz gave the program instant credibility. It gave Virginia Tech basketball a nationally famous face. For the first time ever, the Hokie basketball coach was someone people outside the program actually knew, and wasn't notable just for the occasional March Madness interview when Tech fell outside the bubble. I'll always remember Buzz sitting on national TV during the tournament that year, wearing a maroon blazer and hamming it up like only he could. In fact, it reminded me of another nationally relevant coach on a broadly watched sports television show...

The fit wasn't perfect. In fact, you could argue that it was non-existent. Buzz was not an aw shucks, small town, humble member of the community. In fact, he went out of his way to distance himself from Tech as much as he could–he once told a gaggle of reporters before his second or third season that he still needed to use his GPS to get from his house to the facility, all but screaming I DON'T CARE TO LEARN ABOUT YOUR LITTLE TOWN.

Right away you started to hear the whispers about how Buzz was "particular". But if we're being honest, that's just passive aggressive southern speak for "asshole." He even went so far as to push out the longstanding office administrator for the program because he wanted to bring his own. He literally "retired" someone in the name of getting his building and his program to the exact specifications that he wanted it.

He built his rosters that way, he coached that way, and he eventually succeeded that way too. We would hear stories about Seth Greenberg raging against the administration for not moving fast enough to get (insert good player here) through the door–Alex Len is the first one that comes to mind. Buzz simply figured out ways to make it work.

To my point: how do you think Buzz convinced Chris Clarke — the number two player in the state and a central recruit early in Williams' tenure — to flip from Tennessee and known bag dropper Donnie Tyndall to Tech? Hmmm... I'm sure it was just through pure charisma and the power of the lord.

Williams got his way at all times. He rubbed people the wrong way, he built his program without giving a damn about the broader university and even got his hands dirty when necessary. He quite literally buzzsawed his way through Blacksburg.

Like Williams, James Franklin is not a "culture fit" at Virginia Tech. He doesn't have a tie to Frank Beamer or the good ole boy cabal that has steered the program for the last 10 years.

By all accounts he is demanding, occasionally difficult, and wears down administrators and university officials. There was a time where his name constantly surfaced for other jobs (always ending with an extension, of course.) He blasted the facilities when he first took started at Penn State, needling both donors and bosses for improvements, and even made noise about extending the runway at the State College airport for his team's west coast trips.

He pushes and pushes until he either gets what he wants or hits a breaking point. Two consecutive (and inexplicable) losses in a year they were supposed to make a run at the national title was apparently what broke his bosses at Penn State.

That October separation ended a 12-year tenure in which he won nine or more games seven times. A tenure where, had there been a 12-team field like there is now, he'd have made seven College Football Playoffs. I don't know about you, but I will gladly trade a decade of those results only to get fed up with the man because he set his own expectations too high.

Franklin is not the ambassador of the town. You probably won't see him tossing snowballs with students or glad handing with the locals over pizza and beer at PKs. He's a lunatic who will stop at nothing to improve the talent on his roster. He's not here to win hearts and minds, he's just here to win ballgames.

There are plenty of people who will point out the flaws. Franklin's dismal record against top-10 teams, or his penchant for tightening up in close games and blowing it down the stretch. Hell, Yahoo Sports' Dan Wolken must have had the blowtorch in his drafts, warning Tech fans to not take their victory lap just yet:

Franklin usually got the big stuff right. But on the margins, when a head coach is required to make consequential tactical decisions in the heat of battle, he was often quite bad and never got better.

But here's the thing, with respect to Mr. Wolken: Virginia Tech needs the big stuff. They need someone who can bully donors into giving more to NIL because he needs to flood the roster with talent. Or someone who will meticulously build a program that has lacked discipline and toughness since the last time they contended for the ACC. They need someone whose borderline-psychotic need to win can re-set the expectations of a fanbase that has seen their passion atrophy over the last decade.

This year I started working at a Richmond-based office, which means I chat with way more Hokies who are between 22 and 26 than I have in quite a while (read: I'm old now). And over the summer we were chatting about the Metallica concert at Lane Stadium, which a few of my non-geriatric counterparts took off work to attend. Each one of them said that the concert was the latest and longest they've ever stayed in Lane, despite attending the school for four-to-six football seasons.

The kids leave early because there hasn't been a culture–for at least a full class of young alumni and students–that encourages them to stay. They're used to watching Tech be out gunned on the field and outclassed on the scoreboard, and are in desperate need of someone or something to convince them to not go to Top of the Stairs at halftime.

The Hokies have been led by head coaches who either couldn't or wouldn't challenge the broader administration for the resources they need to succeed since at least 2010. Beamer tried to stick to the old ways until it was too late. Fuente faced too many Beamer loyalists to truly make the program in his image and Pry was hired, in large part, because he wouldn't. He was a "culture fit."

This is not to slam Brent Pry. There's no way Franklin takes this job without a thorough rundown of the ins and outs of the program from his former longtime defensive coordinator and friend. But Pry was specifically brought in because he was a "Beamer guy". Franklin is the perfect hire because he isn't at all.

Imagine Whit Babcock saying "weights weigh the same" to James mother-fucking Franklin. Imagine the university not providing the funding he asked for. Imagine the Hokie Club literally not having a functional leader while Franklin was in charge.

You can't imagine it, because it wouldn't happen.

The Hokies needed someone with the passion and bullheadedness to push right through whatever antiquated bones still make up the foundation of the Virginia Tech athletic department. Someone who won't let anything (or anyone) stand in the way of his football program. Someone with enough juice both on the trail and in the media to make Virginia Tech relevant in the last years before what is likely going to be a cataclysmic (and potentially final) round of conference realignment.

James Franklin doesn't fit a typical Virginia Tech hire at all. And that's what makes him the perfect fit.