James Franklin will be the next head coach for Virginia Tech: Reports

Published by RawNews1st

Virginia Tech is finalizing a deal to make Franklin its next head football coach on Monday afternoon, according to multiple reports. The move came just more than a month after Franklin was fired at Penn State following a disastrous start to the season.

The job will mark Franklin’s third as a head coach in college football. He got his start at Vanderbilt in 2011, and he made the jump to Penn State in 2014 — where he quickly brought the program back after the tumultuous end to the Joe Paterno era and the Bill O’Brien years that followed. Franklin went 104-45 with the Nittany Lions, and had more than 10 wins in six of his seasons leading the team. They went 13-3 last season and reached the College Football Playoff, though they were knocked out in the semifinal round by Notre Dame.

Franklin will replace Brent Pry at Virginia Tech. The Hokies fired Pry, who previously worked as Franklin’s defensive coordinator at Penn State, in September after an 0-3 start.

The downfall came after they fell in double overtime to Oregon in what was a top-five matchup following a 3-0 start. Franklin’s buyout was originally in the neighborhood of $49 million, which would have been the second-biggest in college football history behind only Texas A&M’s $77 million paid Jimbo Fisher in 2023. But Penn State negotiated Franklin’s number down to $9 million, according to Brandon Marcello of CBS Sports, with most of the original buyout being offset by his salary at Virginia Tech.