Since arriving in Blacksburg, James Franklin has hit the ground running in recruiting. He put together a Top 25 Class of 2026 for his first at Virginia Tech with numerous flips from schools such as Penn State, Wisconsin, Syracuse, and Kentucky.
Behind closed doors, he is working on putting together his first staff at Virginia Tech. Just how he goes about rounding out his staff of coaches remains to be seen. Terry Smith was named the interim coach by Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft in October when Franklin was fired. He kept the program together and got the Nittany Lions bowl eligible with a win last weekend in their regular-season final against Rutgers.
On Friday, the school hired Iowa State coach Matt Campbell as Franklin's replacement, passing over Smith for the job after the Penn State players lobbied for him to have the interim tag removed. That opened the door for Franklin to swoop in and pluck Smith to Blacksburg to join his staff.
Campbell and Kraft said not so fast.
According to Jordan Schultz, Penn State will be retaining Smith as an assistant coach on Campbell's staff and will be doing so as the highest-paid non-coordinator in the sport. That's not good for Virginia Tech.
James Franklin gets bad news on potential assistant coach
There were some who thought that Smith would follow Franklin to Virginia Tech, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Instead, Penn State is stepping up and signing him to a massive contract, reportedly, and that's good in terms of roster retention.
Penn State will prepare over the next couple of weeks for a bowl game under Smith, and then the Transfer Portal will open. Just how many players hit the portal and leave State College remains to be seen, but you can bet the number is not going to be as high as some think.
That will likely mean Franklin will have limited options to pluck players to follow him to Blacksburg, unlike the recruits. There is no doubt that Virginia Tech has a ton of work to do roster construction-wise over the offseason when the portal opens. There are going to be numerous needs, but the options from Penn State likely got fewer with the report that Smith is staying there. Seeing how much the players care for him, he'll get a lot of retention for 2026.