After the Virginia Tech football team began the season 0-3 last September, the school made the decision that needed to be made; they fired head coach Brent Pry. An embarrassing loss at home to Old Dominion was too much for him to overcome.
Shortly after he was fired, the school put together a search committee to find the next head coach in Blacksburg. However, as luck would have it, everything in life is about timing. A month after Pry was fired, James Franklin suffered the same fate at Penn State. In mid-November, Franklin was named as Pry's replacement at Virginia Tech. Everything worked out perfectly in terms of timing, being able to hire Franklin. What if Virginia Tech decided to fire Pry sooner? Would they have James Franklin today? Unlikely.
James Franklin falling into Virginia Tech's lap was pure luck
Nobody will deny that Pry wasn't on the hot seat entering the 2025 season. Some argue that he should have been fired following the disappointing 2024 season. Going into that season. The Hokies were a College Football Playoff darling to crash the new 12-team field. A season-opening loss to Vanderbilt in overtime led to a season with a very talented team with a handful of NFL Draft picks on it needing to beat Virginia on Thanksgiving Weekend just to become bowl-eligible.
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It would have been easy for former athletic director Whit Babcock and Virginia Tech to fire Pry and begin the search for a new coach. Instead, Pry fired some assistants and kept his job. Things never got going in 2025, and he was fired in September.
So the fair question is this: 'What if Virginia Tech fired Brent Pry after the 2024 season?' You can bet that James Franklin isn't the coach right now. There was no way that they were going to be able to pry him away from State College. Not after a berth in the semifinals of the CFP. In all likelihood, given Virginia Tech's coaching hire history, it wouldn't have been surprising to see them end up with a former coordinator as Pry's replacement. That's not what the school could risk doing again.
Instead, Pry was retained for another offseason, and Babcock got the wheels in motion for more money for the athletic department. The money and commitment are there, and that played a major role in enticing Franklin to come to Virginia Tech. He was the best available coach who was unemployed, and many Hokies fans thought it was a possibility that he would even consider coming to Blacksburg, never mind accepting the position.
It remains to be seen just how things end up shaking out with Franklin at Virginia Tech, but if his history tells us anything, there is a good chance that things will be turned around sooner rather than later. Virginia Tech is considered a sleeping giant waiting to be woken up, and Franklin is the perfect coach to wake it up. The timing of firing Pry and having Franklin fall into their laps unemployed is something that Hokies fans could only dream about.
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