The former Penn State coach seems poised for a soft landing in Blacksburg.
Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I’m back from a reporting trip to Boston, where I was introduced to my new favorite college basketball player:College football’s coaching carousel will really start spinning after the end of the regular season in two weeks, but things got started a little early with Virginia Tech’s hiring of James Franklin on Monday.
. Now, both sides get what they wanted. Virginia Tech secures an experienced coach with a proven track record, while Franklin lands another head coaching job at a power conference school with a history of success. In the nearly 30 years that Frank Beamer led the Hokies , the program consistently ranked among the best in its conference and often among the top in the nation. Virginia Tech won seven conference titles under Beamer and lost the 1999 national championship game to Florida State. But the school has struggled to replicate that success following Beamer’s retirement. Justin Fuente, Beamer’s immediate successor, had two good seasons before the momentum fizzled out and he was fired in 2021. Pry went 3–8 in his first season and then barely got the Hokies to bowl eligibility in ’23 and ’24. However, in hiring Franklin, Virginia Tech gets a coach much more similar to Beamer than the two candidates the school tried to replace him with. Fuente came to Blacksburg after serving as the head coach for only four seasons at Memphis, during which the Tigers compiled a 26–23 record, and Pry had never previously been a head coach. Franklin’s résumé is much more impressive. He first built a winner at Vanderbilt and then carried that success over to Penn State, where he developed the Nittany Lions into a perennial Big Ten championship contender. While Virginia Tech rolled the dice on two less-experienced coaches, the school knows what it’s getting in Franklin. Franklin isn’t a perfect coach, of course. He wouldn’t have been looking for another job if he were. He’s an elite recruiter and an effective spokesman for his program, but he’s known for occasional questionable in-game decision-making and has a reputation for struggling in big games . Virginia Tech, though, seems like the sort of place that will maximize his strengths and minimize his weaknesses. Franklin will have access to talent-rich recruiting hotbeds in Virginia—from the D.C. suburbs to the Tidewater region, which produced Hokies legend Michael Vick. He’ll also join a conference that is far less daunting than the Big Ten. Winning at Penn State is hard when you’re competing against perennial national championship contenders like Ohio State, Michigan and recently Oregon. The quality of competition in the ACC is high, but there are no real annual juggernauts. Florida State is in disarray. Miami has strung together a couple of good seasons but failed to take the next step toward national championship contention. Even Clemson is 5–5 and headed toward its worst season in more than a decade. The door is open for Franklin to turn Virginia Tech into an ACC championship contender, and, perhaps eventually, a nationally relevant program again.The other major story in the NFL right now is the grievance the league has filed against the players' union over the publication of team report cards.by the Raiders. Las Vegas didn’t come close to recovering it, but it’s still interesting to see a play that uncommon.at a buzzer beater. He threw it up from the opposite free-throw line with 10 seconds on the clock at the end of the first quarter.to seal a win over the Hornets. After RJ Barrett’s go-ahead layup, Brandon Ingram and Scottie Barnes blocked shots to preserve the victory. Toronto has now won eight of its last nine after starting the season 1–4.Dan Gartland is the writer and editor of Sports Illustrated’s flagship daily newsletter, SI:AM, covering everything an educated sports fan needs to know. He joined the SI staff in 2014, having previously been published on Deadspin and Slate. Gartland, a graduate of Fordham University, is a former Sports Jeopardy! champion .
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