When you bang your head on the ceiling so many times, it’s only natural to try something different to finally break through. That’s what James Franklin did after falling one win short of the National Championship Game in 2024, and ultimately, those changes brought about a swift and unexpected end to his 12-year tenure in Happy Valley.
“I know that, that last year, we were very aggressive and bold, and took on some risk that I normally would not take on,” a reflective Franklin told former Nittany Lion turned aspiring media mogul, Adam Breneman. “Even our approach, we were a 1-0 team, and I allowed us to talk about things other than 1-0.”
However, it wasn’t just the mentality and messaging that changed; it was the roster construction and the assistant coach hires that Franklin acknowledged were outside the norm.
I sat down with new Virginia Tech head coach James Franklin & this one did not disappoint.
— Adam Breneman (@AdamBreneman81) May 7, 2026
I played for Coach Franklin, so I know him well… and watching him build a program from the ground up again has been awesome.
This was NOT a surface level interview…
We talked about why… pic.twitter.com/tgCSRSDJNH
Jim Knowles wasn't the right fit for a win-now program
In the waning years of his tenure, Franklin became much-maligned for his inability to win big games, and that mounting pressure to overcome the top teams in the Big Ten and bring championships back to Happy Valley forced him to make out-of-character decisions.
“Although I do think taking on risk is important, I think we took on too much risk in too many different areas,” Franklin told Breneman in Blacksburg following his first spring as the head coach at Virginia Tech. Then he got to the meat of the issue.
“I think the first thing is hires. We made great hires,” Franklin said, pausing before adding, “on resume. But I don’t know if they were the right fit at the right time.”
While Franklin spoke about all three phases of the game, it’s almost impossible to hear those comments and not think about Jim Knowles, who is now the defensive coordinator at Tennessee. Following Penn State’s CFP semifinal run, defensive coordinator Tom Allen left for Clemson, which prompted Franklin to make a big splash, hiring Knowles away from Ohio State, which won it all that season.
It’s hard to view letting Allen walk as a mistake. Though the program reached unprecedented heights, the defense took a step back from where it was under Manny Diaz and struggled in some of the biggest games, notably against Oregon in the Big Ten Championship. Hiring Knowles, in hindsight, was not the right decision, despite his championship pedigree.
Knowles has a reputation as a coach who takes a few years to fully integrate his defensive system into a new program. That’s something Knowles has openly acknowledged and has worked to correct since arriving in Knoxville this offseason. So, looking back on a move that was universally praised, making Knowles the highest-paid DC in the country, Franklin is right to say that it wasn’t made at the right time.
Maybe some of Franklin’s second-guessing was directed at Andy Kotelnicki, whom Franklin hired ahead of the 2024 season to run his offseason. That was another unconventional move for Franklin, but one that yielded immediate improvement from his former five-star quarterback and a season that ended with two CFP wins.
Kotelnicki wore out his welcome with much of the fanbase early in the 2025 season, criticized for an offense that relied too heavily on gimmicky formations and pre-snap looks, many of which were successful with Tyler Warren a year prior, but lacked a reliable floor of offensive success and a clear identity.
Pressure forced Franklin outside of his comfort zone, and it doesn’t sound like he’ll be taking those types of risks again. Time will tell whether that’s good or bad news for Virginia Tech, but in Happy Valley, it brought about the end of his incredibly successful tenure.
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