There isn’t much Danny Rocco hasn’t done in college football.

Head coach at notoriously hard-to-win, resource-strapped VMI for the past three seasons, Rocco has carved out 128 career NCAA wins as a head coach across a career that spans parts of five decades. 

He owns a winning record all-time in the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs (7-5) and twice has made to the National Semi-Finals. 

Now, however, time has come for a change. Sources tell FootballScoop that the seven-time conference champion and five-time conference coach of the year is planning to step down from his post atop the VMI Keydets program, where he had been hired upon the departure of Scott Wachenheim — who earlier this decade delivered VMI’s record-setting Southern Conference Championship.

The 65-year-old Rocco served as a senior analyst for James Franklin at Penn State in 2022 before he agreed to become head coach at VMI, his fourth such stop after overseeing the programs at LIberty, Richmond and Delaware.

Multiple sources tell FootballScoop that Rocco is expected to have an opportunity to join Franklin’s Virginia Tech staff in a key, off-the-field, senior analyst-type of role.

A former linebacker in his playing days, starting at Penn State and ending at Wake Forest, Rocco has been a college coach since the mid-1980s. He has worked for Power Conference programs Boston College, Colorado, Maryland, Texas and Virginia, as well as his two former schools for which he played among his various stops.

Three-straight years, from 2006-08, Rocco was named Big South Coach of the Year. Twice he garnered the honor for his work in the Coastal Athletic Association (2015, 2020).

Despite its limited resources, VMI has proved a fertile training ground for notable, up-and-coming coaches this decade under both Rocco and Wachenheim.

Stony Brook head coach Billy Cosh was the VMI offensive coordinator during that historic SoCon Championship season, and Patrick Ashford is a former Keydets offensive coordinator who’s now an offensive analyst in Tony Elliott’s Virginia program that’s experienced its best season in decades. Additionally, current Purdue assistant coach Bilal Marshall served on the VMI offensive staff earlier this decade.

Franklin was hired in Blacksburg, Virginia, to take over at Tech late this year after he was dismissed midseason by Penn State and the Hokies had fired Brent Pry.

Should Rocco finalize a deal to join Frankllin’s inaugural Hokies staff, he would face quite the unique situation to kick off the 2026 season. Virginia Tech hosts VMI, its Lexington, Virginia, campus just 80 miles away, Sept. 5, 2026, to open the 2026 season.Â