I get it. When you’re a college football head coach in the modern era, or any era, frankly, enough is never enough. You always have to be pushing the players on your roster, the coaches on your staff, and even the administrators at your school to reach a championship. But James Franklin couldn’t wait a season, or even a game, before asking for more?
When he was hired in Blacksburg, Virginia Tech made a major upfront commitment to its athletic department, with a record $75 million investment. A program that had been lagging far behind in the NIL-era arms race vaulted itself towards the top of the ACC, but even before Week 1, Franklin reportedly went back to the Board of Visitors to say that he’s appreciative “but.”
“But if you study the data, there’s a whole other step that we need to take,” Franklin told the BOV, according to Andy Bitter.
Said he's appreciative of everything the school has done and thinks the #Hokies are moving in the right direction.
— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) August 24, 2026
"But, if you really study the data, there's a whole other step that we need to take."
You see, you can push as much as possible, and you should if you’re in Franklin’s position, but the thing is, eventually, taking that next step falls back on the head coach. Franklin got everything in Happy Valley and still couldn’t do it, so maybe he should win a couple of games in Blacksburg before they spend even more money potentially backing the wrong horse.
James Franklin’s visit to the BOV at Virginia Tech feels like setting up an excuse
Franklin was a good hire for a program like Virginia Tech, attempting to reclaim its former glory and well off track in its quest to do so. That’s exactly what he did in Happy Valley, and before that, he led Vanderbilt to heights it had never seen.
Franklin is a CEO head coach; he specializes in alignment, and that includes institutional alignment. He had everyone on board at Penn State, especially after his 2024 trip to the College Football Playoff semifinals. The program retained more talent than anybody expected for 2025, made a few significant moves in the transfer portal, and plucked Jim Knowles away from Ohio State, making him the highest-paid coordinator in the country. That’s alignment. That’s investment. And it led to a 3-3 start and the end of his tenure.
The now 54-year-old head coach spent much of the offseason telling anyone who would listen that he wouldn’t have taken the Virginia Tech job if he didn’t think he could win there. He clearly had options, and the Hokies were the best one. Their massive investment proved that. But shouldn’t he provide some returns on that investment before asking the program to ante up?
Virginia Tech isn’t spending over $40 million on its roster this year, and that’s what it’s going to take to win a national championship now. Next year, it might be $50 million, a threshold LSU has seemingly already cleared with Lane Kiffin. But Virginia Tech isn’t asking for a national championship right now; it’s asking for improvement and gave him enough to provide it.
Now, it seems as though he’s setting up an excuse, running back the old playbook from his Penn State days, constantly asking for more and never doing enough with it. Curt Cignetti did it the right way at Indiana. Yes, the investment increased when he first got there, but you know when it really shot up? When he led the losingest program in college football history to the CFP in Year 1.
Prove it on the field, and the money will be there. That game got old in Happy Valley, and when the honeymoon period wears off in Blacksburg, they’ll get tired of it too.
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