CHARLOTTE – Everybody wants to be wanted. James Franklin is no different.
Given his circumstance last winter, the veteran coach probably needed validation more than most. Less than a year after going 13-3 and getting Penn State to the College Football Playoff semifinal, he was unceremoniously fired just six games into the new season.
It was a reality check softened by the fact that Franklin wouldn’t be out of work long. With a .638 winning percentage and bowl appearances in each of his 15 full seasons as a head coach, it was more a matter of when and where he would land on his feet rather than if he’d get hired again.
So why did he decide to go to Virginia Tech?
Simply put, because that’s where he felt wanted.
“They made it very apparent early on that my family and I were who they wanted,” Franklin said Thursday at the ACC’s Football Kickoff preseason media event. “We had an opening conversation at our house. We thought it was just a get to know each other conversation. They were ready for us to sign that night. We weren’t ready at that point, but that factored. When you just went through what we went through, to feel appreciated and wanted was very important to us.”
As needed as the ego boost might have been, there were more tangible reasons why Franklin chose the Hokies over the several other jobs for which his name was mentioned.
Two hundred twenty nine million reasons, exactly.
That’s the amount of the increase Virginia Tech has made to its athletic budget over the next four years as part of a historic financial commitment to the program. It’s an investment that includes facility upgrades for football and provides significantly more money for recruiting and staff salaries.
Even though there are still challenges that need to be met, Franklin believes his new school has taken a strong first step toward returning the Hokies to the national prominence they enjoyed during the 1990s and early 2000s – a move that would also benefit the ACC as a whole.
“I think that Virginia Tech realized that what we’ve been doing for the last 9-10 years hasn’t worked and there needs to be a commitment,” he said. “This is a problem at a lot of places: Do your expectations match your commitment? That’s the case at very few places. So, when you see the ‘Invest to Win’ plan that Virginia Tech recognized and admitted, that’s helpful. When I came in and we had discussions on what we had to do to be successful, what was nice is that the things I was talking about weren’t far off from where they already were.”
Franklin’s arrival in Blacksburg has already had a positive effect on the program. His name recognition alone has helped raise Virginia Tech’s profile exponentially among fans, the media and most important demographic of all, players like redshirt senior Kemari Copeland.
“I saw rumors of who the coach was going to be on Twitter and I was like ‘What the heck, Coach Franklin is coming to Tech?” the third-team All-ACC defensive tackle said. “I thought there’s no way. But then the weeks went on and it started to solidify. It’s been surreal. Just having him in the building is like a total energy change. Everything is different because he’s there. He’s a big name and it’s like crazy that he’s here.”
Even crazier is the fact that the Coach Franklin replaced, Brent Pry, is also still around. Franklin retained him to serve as the Hokies’ defensive coordinator.
It’s an unorthodox situation, but it’s one that has a chance to work because of the history the two men share. Their relationship has spanned three decades, starting when Pry’s father was Franklin’s offensive coordinator when he played quarterback at East Stroudsburg.
Pry spent four seasons as Franklin’s defensive coordinator at Penn State, where his unit led the nation in sacks per game in 2018 and ranked among the nation’s top 10 in scoring defense, rushing defense and forced fumbles in 2019.
Surprisingly, it was Pry who first suggested the idea of staying at Tech in a diminished capacity.
He and his family were already planning to stay in Blacksburg while his son Colby finished high school. When Franklin approached his friend asking for recommendations on who to hire, he got an answer he wasn’t expecting.
“When I said I’m taking the Virginia Tech job, do you have any defensive coordinators you can recommend, he said, well, me,” Franklin recalled. “Then it was let’s talk through this in detail, what’s it going to look like, how we’re going to do it? Then you get into the contract, which is not as clean as you might think. Then when you work through all those types of things, then it’s the reality of walking back in that building and walking past the head coach’s office. I couldn’t do it. But it shows his humility, his love for Virginia Tech and it also talks about our relationship.”
When Franklin broke the news of Pry’s return to his team, the players responded by giving their former coach – and new coordinator – a standing ovation. It was a move that only added to the positive vibes that have been building around the program since his hiring.
“I think we’ve won the offseason,” Franklin said. “I think we’ve done the right things. There’s a lot of excitement, there’s a lot of momentum right now. (Now) we’re getting to the stuff that matters most – practice, winning games and having that stadium rocking.”