Back in October, the Penn State Nittany Lions decided to make a shocking decision to fire head coach James Franklin in the middle of the season. That kicked off a wave of several head coaching firings, including Brian Kelly and Billy Napier.
On Monday, after reports of the two sides having mutual interest, James Franklin is finalizing a deal to become the next head football coach at Virginia Tech, per ESPN’s Pete Thamel. Virginia Tech fired Brent Pry back in September following a disastrous loss to Old Dominion.
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ESPN’s Pete Thamel Reports James Franklin Is Finalizing a Deal with Virginia Tech.
As of Monday, ESPN’s Pete Thamel reports that Virginia Tech and James Franklin are finalizing an agreement for him to become the university’s next head football coach. Franklin has won 128 games over 15 seasons as the head coach at Vanderbilt and Penn State. He led Penn State to the CFP semi-finals last year.
As the college football season starts to wind down, schools like Virginia Tech are likely going to try and finalize their coaching staff for the upcoming 2026 season before this current season ends.
In a separate report by CBSSports, writers Chris Hummer, John Talty, and Matt Zenitz believe that James Franklin will end up taking the Hokies’ vacant head coaching position.
GettyJames Franklin’s firing from Penn State could have been influenced by Adidas.
The way that James Franklin has made his decision may cause a domino effect in the college football coaching carousel. There are so many desirable open positions across college football, which means the big programs will want to lock down a name as soon as possible. This takes away the possibility of another school swooping in and swiping a candidate.
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James Franklin Likely Wanted Out of the Big 10
James Franklin has been very adamant about his desire to continue coaching, but it makes sense as to why he would want out of the Big 10, which gave him trouble against the big competitors in the conference (Ohio State, Michigan).
Having the VT job would certainly be a step down from Penn State, but it would offer the Hokies’ football program stability that it’s been missing since Frank Beamer.
Penn State fired Franklin on Oct. 12 amid a three-game losing streak, including at UCLA and at home to Northwestern, that saw the team go from being ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press Top 25 to unranked. The Nittany Lions had National Championship aspirations before the season, and those were ultimately crushed before the middle of October.
Another member of College Gameday, legendary coach Nick Saban, also believes that Franklin going to Virginia Tech would be a great hire.
Saban believes that they are “All-In” and VT, and are just in desperate need of a coach who can successfully run the program.
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James Franklin Finalizing Deal to Become Next Virginia Tech Football Coach