Virginia Tech was ambitious and aggressive once Penn State fired James Franklin, making the long-time Nittany Lions head coach their top target for their head coach opening. Beyond just having Franklin at the top of their board, there was clear ambition by Virginia Tech to land him well before the end of the season, something with almost no precedence at the FBS level minus a few moves in 2021 (Clay Helton to Georgia Southern, Jim Mora to UCONN, Joey McGuire to Texas Tech).
There were two reasons that appeared to be at the core of why Virginia Tech made such a push to land Franklin early.
First, Virginia Tech wanted to get Franklin in amidst a busy coaching cycle where other appealing SEC and Big 10 openings were opening left and right, many of which could be intriguing fits for Franklin. If VT wasn't going to be able to get him, they also knew they would need to pivot quickly to other options given the crowded cycle while also knowing that other schools may get more heavily involved with Franklin if their own top options didn't pan out (like Lane Kiffin's ego trip with LSU, Ole Miss, and Florida).
Second, Tech knew that landing Franklin early would be an instant advantage on the recruiting trail, one that would allow Franklin to focus largely on building a strong 2026 high school class with two weekends to host recruits.
There are other reasons including the chance to do live current roster evaluation which is valuable, especially at practice, along with planning for retention strategies. However, that clearly wasn't as big of a priority especially since VT's hiring came so early that it fell under the previous coaching change portal rules of having a 30-day window open immediately after the firing rather than having a 15-day window open five days after the hiring of a new head coach.
Franklin talked often in his introductory press conference about how Virginia Tech had a clear plan. Part of that was the timing of when they wanted to hire him, both to get ahead of potential competition and to give Franklin a chance to attack the recruiting trail in a way we've never seen before.
It's one thing to have a plan though and it's another thing to actually execute it to perfection. So far, Tech's aggressive plan to land Franklin with weeks left in the regular season (and therefore a couple weeks before Early Signing Day) has paid off perfectly. Let's dive into why it has paid off.
