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Only one of the three skydivers landed on the field as planned at Virginia Tech’s spring football game at Lane Stadium on Saturday. Ryan Hunt \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
April 18, 2026Updated 5:47 pm EDT<\/p>\n
The James Franklin era at Virginia Tech got off to a scary start Saturday, when the Hokies\u2019 spring football game was delayed after a skydiver hit the Lane Stadium scoreboard and had to be rescued.<\/p>\n
The skydiver was part of a three-person team, according to a university statement provided to The Athletic, and was carrying the American flag when he landed on the scoreboard and hung there suspended shortly before kickoff, which was set for 3 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of three parachutists was blown off course and got stuck on our stadium scoreboard,\u201d the university statement read. \u201cFirst responders from Virginia Tech and the Town of Blacksburg quickly responded and within 15 minutes had him safely on the ground. He was checked by medical (personnel) on site and was released. No serious injuries. Grateful for the rapid response and safe outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only one of the three skydivers landed on the field as planned Saturday, the university confirmed, as wind gusts pushed another onto the adjacent practice field.<\/p>\n
The game was briefly delayed due to the rescue operation, and players were not immediately brought onto the field.<\/p>\n
The spring game was the first look at a new Hokies team assembled under Franklin. The longtime Penn State head coach was fired following a 3-3 start to the 2025 season after 11-plus years at the helm in Happy Valley. He was later hired to replace Brent Pry at Virginia Tech.<\/p>\n
Franklin is tasked with revitalizing a program that has struggled in recent years. Pry\u2019s best campaign in his four seasons in Blacksburg was a 7-6 record in 2023. The last time the Hokies won at least eight games was in 2019 under Justin Fuente, and the last time the program won 10 games was in 2016.<\/p>\n
Franklin\u2019s Nittany Lions won double-digit games six times in Franklin\u2019s first 11 seasons leading Penn State. That included the three seasons that preceded a disappointing 2025 campaign. Franklin led Penn State to the College Football Playoff semifinals in the first year of the expanded 12-team playoff.<\/p>\n
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Apr 18, 2026<\/p>\n
Connections: Sports Edition<\/p>\n
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms<\/p>\n
Find the hidden link between sports terms<\/p>\n
Play today’s puzzle<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Only one of the three skydivers landed on the field as planned at Virginia Tech’s spring football game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,49,48,3863],"class_list":{"0":"post-869469","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-virginia-tech-hokies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116428051146397424","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}