Virginia Tech’s new head coach, James Franklin, is not new to the Mid-Atlantic region. Franklin had two stints at the University of Maryland as an assistant and positional coach. His two prior head coaching gigs have been at Nashville, Tennessee, and State College, Pennsylvania.
Franklin’s connections are strong in this section of the country, as he plucked a ton of talent out of Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic region during his time at Penn State, with VT being hurt negatively by that.
Now that the two sides have come together, Franklin is ready to change the narrative and knows he is able to immediately make a difference on the recruiting trail.
“So, for me being in the footprint is important and we’re excited about that it allows us to hit the ground running cause we already have significant relationships with most of the players in this area,” Virginia Tech’s new head coach James Franklin said on the recruiting footprint he’s already established.
During his opening statement, Franklin mentioned he started his recruiting efforts in the high school trails as of two days ago. He’s been on the phone with current Virginia Tech commits and some of the top high school talent in the state. Since Franklin already has an established footprint that fits with Virginia Tech's historic recruiting footprint, he doesn’t have to make new relationships and make up ground to other schools in the area compared to if he went a little further south.
“We started recruiting two nights ago - I had 40 players on the phone. Young men that are committed to Virginia Tech. [I] also called all the top players in the state of Virginia as well,” Franklin said on his early recruiting efforts.
