Virginia Tech is finalizing an agreement to hire James Franklin as the school’s new head football coach, sources tell Sports Illustrated.
Franklin will replace Brent Pry, who was fired by the Hokies in September after three-plus seasons in Blacksburg. Pry worked under Franklin at both Vanderbilt and Penn State prior to taking over the head coaching role at Virginia Tech in 2022.
Virginia Tech is finalizing an agreement to hire James Franklin as its new head football coach, sources tell @SINow
— Mike McDaniel (@MikeMcDanielSI) November 17, 2025
The hiring of Franklin is monumental for Virginia Tech, and was not something the university could have envisioned after letting Pry go in September after an 0–3 start. Franklin, who went 104–45 in his 12 seasons at Penn State, had the Nittany Lions one possession away from playing for a national championship last January.
Penn State fired Franklin in October after a shocking turn of events that saw the Nittany Lions follow up a double-overtime home defeat to No. 6 Oregon with back-to-back losses against UCLA and Northwestern. The 3–3 start that included two losses to Big Ten bottom feeders forced athletic director Pat Kraft’s hand, as he decided to part ways with Franklin and initiate a buyout of nearly $50 million.
Virginia Tech’s search committee reached out to Franklin following his departure from Penn State to gauge his interest in coaching in Blacksburg next season. Talks with Franklin intensified over the last two weeks, sources said, as he quickly ascended to the top of the committee’s list of candidates. In addition to Franklin, Virginia Tech also gauged interest in the job with James Madison’s Bob Chesney, Tulane’s Jon Sumrall, and Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck, among others, in a wide-ranging search.
Franklin compiled six seasons of 10 wins or more at Penn State, with 2024’s trip to the College Football Playoff semifinal serving as the high water mark in the coach’s tenure in Happy Valley. But his 4–21 record against AP top 10 teams and 2–21 mark against teams ranked in the top six turned into the predominant narrative around his time at Penn State – especially towards the end.
Despite his struggles against the nation’s elite, Franklin’s arrival in Blacksburg will be a coup for the Hokies. Virginia Tech has largely struggled to replicate the success that the program saw during the two-plus decade Frank Beamer era in the years following his retirement.
Virginia Tech only has one 10-win season since Beamer retired following the 2015 campaign, and it came in 2016 with Justin Fuente when the Hokies went 10–4 and won the Belk Bowl. Since then, the program has only won more than eight games once (in 2019), and has found itself barely scraping its way to bowl eligibility.
Franklin’s impending arrival puts an exclamation point on the commitment put forth by Virginia Tech’s Board of Visitors, which approved a plan to infuse $229 million into the athletics budget, with much of the money going toward improving the football product ahead of the next expected stage of conference realignment in 2030.
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