Virginia Tech hiring James Franklin as next head coach after Penn State firing: Reports

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James Franklin has found a new home.

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.

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 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.

The Franklin era ended suddenly this fall, however, after a brutal start to the season. The Nittany Lions, who were ranked No. 2 in the preseason polls, went 3-3 to open the year — which included a rough loss to a previously winless UCLA team and an upset loss to Northwestern. They were 20-point favorites or greater entering both of those games.

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 roughly $50 million, which would have been the second-biggest in college football history behind only what Texas A&M paid Jimbo Fisher in 2023.

“I was in shock, obviously,” Franklin said on ESPN’s “College GameDay” a week after his firing. "Really took the next 15 minutes to let my kids know so they wouldn't find out on the internet. And then walked down and had a super emotional meeting with the team to tell 'em I was leaving. Really, that was it. It was that quick."

Franklin will now get a chance to restart in Blacksburg and revive a program that’s struggled over the past four seasons under Pry. The team has had just one winning record and hasn’t been in the national rankings since 2021. They hold a 3-7 record this season, and are being led by interim coach Philip Montgomery, entering next week’s contest against No. 15 Miami.

While specifics of Franklin’s new deal aren’t yet known, the Hokies made a move quickly despite plenty of top-tier jobs being open throughout the country this season. Landing Franklin early can only help their rebuild move faster, and it will allow the 53-year-old head coach to put the Penn State mess behind him almost immediately.

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