Despite finishing the 2025 season with a 3-9 record, things are looking up and looking up quickly for the Virginia Tech football program. In September, the school fired Brent Pry as the Hokies' head coach, and two months later, after James Franklin was fired at Penn State, he was named the next head coach in Blacksburg.
It was a dream come true for Virginia Tech fans. This has been a decade in the making. Imagine, at the beginning of the season back in September, that you would be saying that James Franklin is the new football coach at Virginia Tech? People would have laughed at you. Nobody is laughing now.
After two months on the job, one recruiting class is all but signed, and there is a Transfer Portal class with some major additions that has hopes sky-high going into 2026. One college football writer believes the Hokies are in position for a rapid turnaround in 2026.
CBS Sports believes Virginia Tech is in position for rapid turnaround in 2026
Cody Nagel of CBS Sports listed four schools that are in position to have a rapid turnaround as quickly as 2026, and one of the schools was Virginia Tech. Also making the list were Oklahoma State, Kentucky, and UCLA. Here is what he said about the Hokies,
"Virginia Tech is a classic "sleeping giant" in college football -- one of the nation's best programs that has never won a national championship. The Hokies were a fixture under legendary coach Frank Beamer, including a run to the BCS National Championship game in 1999, but over the past decade they've hovered right at .500, leaving a program with a proud history searching for a rejuvenated sense of hope,'' wrote Nagel.
"Virginia Tech has long been defined by what it almost achieved. With Franklin's proven ability to build culture, develop talent, and inject urgency into a program, the Hokies have a real shot at recapturing national relevance.''
Nagel isn't the first to label Virginia Tech as a "sleeping giant", but if there is someone who can wake them up, it's Franklin, regardless of what the obsessive Penn State fans say. The Hokies will face a tough ACC schedule in 2026 with their three non-conference games, but one thing is for sure: Virginia Tech fans can take inspiration from Indiana's run the last two years and say, "Why not us?"