When it was announced that Virginia Tech President Tim Sands was retiring, that raised some eyebrows in Blacksburg. A few weeks later, it was announced that athletic director Whit Babcock was also stepping away from his position.
Those are two key members of the administration at Virginia Tech who are stepping away. Both were present and were part of signing off on their search committee's decision to hire James Franklin as the Hokies' next football coach. The former Penn State coach spoke about having a good relationship with the decision makers. Now, it appears he's going to have a hand in just who is making those decisions in Blacksburg.
Virginia Tech football coach James Franklin will have a say in next Virginia Tech AD
Speaking at the ACC meetings this week in Florida with ESPN, Franklin outlined that he was hoping the next athletic director would have football in mind when making some decisions.
"We're in a much different position now than we were, but I think there's also a realization that we haven't had success in football in a long period of time,'' said Franklin. "There comes responsibility, and there comes pressure for that, for me and the football program specifically. So being able to get an AD that's going to come in here and hit the ground running and be bold and aggressive with football in mind is going to be really important.
"It's going to be in everybody's best interest, because when football is successful, all the other ships rise."
Virginia Tech is in a different position when it comes to football and NIL. Babcock was instrumental in getting Virginia Tech to approve a four-year, $229 million plan to help the athletics department, with an emphasis on revitalizing football. It needed to be done as the school was falling behind the rest of the ACC in terms of everything when it comes to the football programs.
That was started late last summer and carried over into the fall. It was a good thing that it started when it did because throughout the hiring process of Franklin, it was a topic of discussion for the head coach. He knows what is needed to compete at the highest levels is having that at Penn State. NIL has changed the college landscape.
Like the hiring of Franklin, the next AD hire at Virginia Tech is a huge one. They need to hit and hit it big as they did with Franklin. It appears that he'll have a say in who gets the job, and that's a good thing. All of these decisions are going to be key to the future of the program for the Hokies. Times are changing, and Virginia Tech needs to keep up with the times to be able to have success at the highest level.
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