Former Penn State head coach James Franklin made it pretty clear during his recent appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay: he plans to coach again.
“I don’t know anything else,” Franklin said. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I don’t have hobbies. I don’t golf. I don’t fish. This has been such a big part of my identity, such a big part of my family. We love it.”
The $50 million question — roughly the price of his buyout, depending on whether he lands another job — is where he might be roaming the sidelines next.
With numerous FBS jobs opening each week, Franklin could have plenty of options. However, The Athletic’s Grace Raynor made it clear that the “simple answer” is for Virginia Tech to go “all in” on the former Nittany Lions coach.
“If athletic director Whit Babcock has any intention of taking this coaching search seriously, he’ll do whatever it takes to make a run at Franklin — the bar-none best candidate to take the Hokies back to the glory days they enjoyed under Frank Beamer,” Raynor wrote.
The Hokies were among the first programs to fire their head coach this season. In the midst of his fourth year, Brent Pry was released after an 0-3 start. He finished his Virginia Tech tenure with a 16-24 record, recording just one winning season — a 7-6 finish in 2023.
Virginia Tech Hasn’t Been the Same Without Frank Beamer
Whoever takes over in Blacksburg will be the third head coach in a decade, following Beamer’s retirement in 2016.
Not only did Franklin make it clear he wants to coach again, but he also reaffirmed his desire to win the national championship that eluded him during 12 seasons at Penn State.
“I thought we were gonna win a national championship (at Penn State),” Franklin said. “We were close. That goal hasn’t changed. We’re just gonna go win a national championship somewhere else now.”
The Hokies haven’t resembled a national contender in years, lacking back-to-back double-digit win seasons since 2010–11 and missing the AP Top 25 altogether since 2017.
James Franklin Makes a Lot of Sense at Virginia Tech
Raynor laid out that first and foremost, Franklin knows how to build a program. That traces back to his time at Vanderbilt, where he inherited a team coming off consecutive 2-10 seasons and just one winning year in nearly three decades. Franklin went 24-15 in three years before Penn State came calling.
At Penn State, Franklin went 104-45 over 12 seasons. His most glaring shortcoming was his record against top-10 teams (4-21), but that was in the Big Ten. The ACC — where the Hokies reside — is a different challenge entirely.
“With just four ACC teams in the AP Top 25 (compared to 10 from the Big Ten and five from the SEC), the ACC is wide open, and Franklin could do what he does best — start laying a strong foundation — with considerably less pressure than what he experienced in State College,” Raynor wrote.
Finally, Franklin already has a strong recruiting presence in Virginia.
“And have you seen the way Franklin recruits the state of Virginia?” Raynor continued. “The Hampton Roads area, which includes Norfolk, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Suffolk and Portsmouth, is one of the most fertile recruiting spots on the East Coast and has produced some of the program’s greats — most notably Newport News native Michael Vick.”
That recruiting failure was one of the biggest issues that plagued both Justin Fuente and Brent Pry.
Taking all that into account, maybe Franklin should answer if the Hokies come calling.
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