Virginia Tech Football: James Franklin continues racking up wins over Brent Pry

Recruiting in the Class of 2026 has been very slow to date for Virginia Tech football coach Brent Pry. At the time this article is being written, the Hokies have four commits in the class, with two of them coming over the weekend.

Before coming to Virginia Tech, Pry was the defensive coordinator at Penn State under James Franklin, and when push came to shove in recruiting, Penn State's head coach usually won more recruiting battles than not. Now, almost four years after being hired in Blacksburg, Pry is losing recruiting battles to his old boss, and the hat trick of battles happened on Monday.

Virginia Tech loses another recruiting battle to Penn State

On Monday, four-star linebacker Elijah Littlejohn committed to the Nittany Lions over Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, and North Carolina State. The Charlotte, N.C. native bypassed three ACC schools for the Big Ten. This is the third recruit in the last year to head to State College over Blacksburg, and the painful part is that two of the three had originally committed to the Hokies.

Last September, wide receiver Matthew Outten de-committed from Virginia Tech, right after the Hokies lost Labor Day Weekend at Vanderbilt, and flipped to Penn State. Then, last November, four-star quarterback Peyton Falzone de-committed from Virginia Tech five months after committing and committed to play for Franklin, remaining in his hometown state.

Just how close were the Hokies to landing Littlejohn? Who knows, but being in the mix for the talented linebacker and having him choose Penn State over the Hokies and other ACC programs is not something that Hokies fans can be happy about. There is no doubt that Pry has more, a lot more, to do in the Class of 2026 in terms of recruiting, but for the third time in less than a year, Penn State and Franklin got the best of him.