<\/p>\n
Virginia Tech head football coach James Franklin speaks during the ACC Kickoff preseason football media days Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C.<\/p>\n
Aaron Beard\/AP Photo\/Aaron Beard<\/p>\n
FILE – Penn State head coach James Franklin watches the action against Northwestern during the second quarter of an NCAA college football game, Oct. 11, 2025, in State College, Pa.<\/p>\n
Barry Reeger\/AP Photo\/Barry Reeger<\/p>\n
Virginia Tech head football coach James Franklin speaks during the ACC Kickoff preseason football media days Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Charlotte, N.C.<\/p>\n
Aaron Beard\/AP Photo\/Aaron Beard<\/p>\n
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) \u2014 New Virginia Tech coach James Franklin knows the Hokies’ proud history going back to the Frank Beamer era.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Annual bowl bids. A trip to the national championship game. Special teams play so reliably good that it spawned the name \u201cBeamer Ball,” and the beaten-up metal lunch pail symbolizing a blue-collar defensive ethic.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
\u201cYou guys all remember that Virginia Tech,\u201d Franklin said Thursday, \u201cbut none of the current players do.”<\/p>\n
That explains why Franklin’s arrival as the big-name hire after a dozen years at Penn State is about more than trying to win a few more games on crisp autumn weekends in Blacksburg. Rather, it’s an admission that the school must elevate its sports profile after years of seismic changes to NCAA rules and conference alignments. That includes raising more money and investing more in athletics in what the school has described as a \u201creset\u201d to meet that moment, down to the recent hiring of athletic director Brian White and the ongoing search for a new university president.<\/p>\n
As always, the spotlight is on football with its revenue-driving role in college sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven before the job was open, Virginia Tech I think had realized that what we had been doing for the last nine or 10 years hadn’t worked,\u201d Franklin said during the Atlantic Coast Conference’s preseason football media days. “And there needs to be a commitment.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think this a problem at a lot of places: does your expectations match your commitment?\u201d<\/p>\n
A firing marked the start of a change-filled year for the Hokies<\/p>\n
Trouble seemingly arrived last fall with an 0-3 start that led to the September firing of Brent Pry as coach. Yet the issues go back further, back to the gradual slide that began in the latter part of Beamer’s 29-year tenure followed by the inability of successor Justin Fuente to sustain the kind of success needed for national relevance.<\/p>\n
Yet as the Hokies ousted Pry, they also pointed to a need to reshape their athletics operations to complete with the ACC’s best in a strategy soon called \u201cInvest To Win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
\u2014 By the end of September, the school’s Board of Visitors had approved spending an additional $229 million on athletics over four years.<\/p>\n
\u2014 By December, the school announced an anonymous gift commitment of $20 million<\/a>, coming weeks after Franklin’s hiring.<\/p>\n \u2014 In early June, school announced the creation of the \u201cHokie Ventures\u201d nonprofit corporation<\/a> to support athletics with investment and revenue generation, followed by the announcement of a $75 million gift<\/a> with the majority earmarked for athletics.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u2014 And late last month, the school hired White away from Florida Atlantic as its new AD.<\/p>\n \u201cIn our world, it’s a national conversation: \u2018Man, Virginia Tech, they’re putting all their chips in,’\u201d White said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. \u201cThat’s something you want to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n Sports success can boost the financial bottom line in the ACC<\/p>\n There’s a financial incentive to improving Hokies athletics beyond fans buying up tickets, concessions and paying for gameday parking. It could offer a significant bump to the ACC’s annual payout (largely tied to media rights) to the school, which received more than $46.5 million for the 2024-25 season according to the league’s most recent tax filing.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n First there’s the 2024 launch of the ACC’s \u201csuccess initiative\u201d allowing teams to keep the money generated from their own postseason success, most notably with any deep push in the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n As an example, Clemson and SMU each earned $4 million for bids to the 12-team CFP in 2024, while Miami’s run to last year’s championship game secured $20 million.<\/p>\n The league also changed its revenue-distribution model in 2025 to reward programs that generate higher TV viewership, also a byproduct of teams winning enough to earn marquee broadcast slots with must-watch games.<\/p>\n Those come amid league-wide efforts to generate more revenue while facing a significant financial gap behind the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s so many places around the country that it\u2019s a critical time for, because it\u2019s a critical moment in the history of college athletics with the amount of change that\u2019s happening right now,” White told the AP. \u201cThere’s never been a more important time to be the best version of yourself.”<\/p>\n Franklin’s Penn State exit became an opportunity for Virginia Tech<\/p>\n That’s part of why Franklin is here now, absorbing traditions like the use of Metallica’s \u201cEnter Sandman\u201d as a gameday anthem at Lane Stadium while trying to offer a bridge to something new.<\/p>\n It didn’t seem likely at this time last year, with Franklin coming off leading the Nittany Lions to the CFP semifinals and was set to enter the year with the AP Top 25’s No. 2-ranked team. But things unexpectedly unraveled, swiftly enough that Penn State fired Franklin by mid-October amid a 3-3 start.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cHe’s a big name, and it’s just crazy he’s here,\u201d defensive lineman Kemari Copeland said Thursday.<\/p>\n Franklin also represents a marquee addition to the league’s coaching ranks, still headlined by two-time national champion Dabo Swinney at Clemson. SMU coach Rhett Lashlee is among those to cross paths with Franklin before; his Mustangs lost to Penn State in the 2024 CFP first round.<\/p>\n \u201cHe brings a lot of experience, he knows how to win and I think he brings a lot to our league and our coaches,\u201d Lashlee said Wednesday back in Texas.<\/p>\n Franklin talked Thursday about the importance of getting Beamer’s blessing in a phone call before taking over. It captured his approach now: embrace the past, but make sure to evolve, too.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI want the people that love Virginia Tech to watch us and say, \u2018That\u2019s what Virginia Tech football\u2019s supposed to look like,\u201d Franklin said.<\/p>\n AP Sports Writer Stephen Hawkins in Dallas contributed to this report.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and <\/a>https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Virginia Tech head football coach James Franklin speaks during the ACC Kickoff preseason football media days Thursday, July…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[125295,41845,125296,7,48218,2744,63382,27878,27876,96631,83965,97559,125297,116402,115180,94819,95241,116403,116404,95292,5991,2084],"class_list":["post-947429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-acc-virginia-tech-james-franklin","tag-brent-pry","tag-brian-white","tag-football","tag-frank-beamer","tag-james-franklin","tag-justin-fuente","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","tag-product-40780-ap-florida-sports-only","tag-product-40781-ap-georgia-sports-only","tag-product-40788-ap-kentucky-sports-only","tag-product-40791-ap-massachusetts-sports-only","tag-product-40803-ap-new-york-state-sports-only","tag-product-40804-ap-north-carolina-sports-only","tag-product-40809-ap-pennsylvania-sports-only","tag-product-40812-ap-south-carolina-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-product-40818-ap-virginia-sports-only","tag-rhett-lashlee","tag-virginia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947429","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=947429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}