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Tonight at 7 ET, Akron-Bowling Green, UMass-Ohio and Western Michigan-Northern Illinois simultaneously kick off Week 13. Based on how often each team runs the ball, I’m picking WMU-NIU to finish earliest.

Enter Baldman: Franklin’s Hokies might contend quickly

Virginia Tech just hired a coach who, earlier in this very same calendar year, was a play away from the national title game. Coach hires always feel like dice rolls to me, but … how do you argue against that?

James Franklin’s career record is 104-45 with five top-10 finishes despite coaching a pre-Diego Pavia Vanderbilt and taking over Penn State in the aftermath of massive sanctions. The Hokies might be sending thank-yous to UCLA and Northwestern for making him available. (And to SEC hiring committees for competing over Lane Kiffin instead, plus Mike Norvell’s agent for Florida State not joining the market.)

Beyond the basics, this specific fit makes a lot of sense. The DMV and Hampton Roads are top recruiting areas, and Franklin’s long coached nearby, spending nine years on Maryland and JMU staffs before becoming the area’s looming presence while at Penn State. Grace Raynor, arguing a month ago for Tech to make this hire:

“(Previous head coaches) Justin Fuente and Brent Pry failed to recruit the area well. In Fuente’s case, he seemed to care more about recruits in Texas. In Pry’s case? He kept having to compete with … Franklin. Penn State has eight players from Virginia on its roster, including Norfolk native and star running back Kaytron Allen. In the 2023 class, Penn State signed six of the top 10 players in Virginia in the 247Sports Composite, including Nos. 1 and 2. Virginia Tech and Virginia each signed none.”

At Penn State, Franklin signed 12 straight top-25 classes, making that seem as mundane as his 10-win seasons (even though Joe Paterno had recruited as low as No. 39 and No. 48 in the 2000s). In this cycle, Richmond four-star WR Davion Brown was among the dozen recruits who decommitted from Penn State after Franklin’s firing.

Tech was recruiting at that top-25 level a couple decades ago. With Franklin’s hire surely juicing the NIL situation, I’d bet on a return, especially with the school board recently announcing a $229 investment in athletics.

From Franklin’s perspective, Blacksburg has to look like a place with as much per-capita football passion as State College — but also with far more appetite for mere (“mere”) 10-win seasons, something the Hokies have had only once since Frank Beamer left in 2015. Sure, it’s been 15 years since the most recent of Virginia Tech’s four ACC titles, but that’s still four more than Miami has.

My one question: Will this full reset be enough encouragement for Franklin to rethink his staffing? If not, this ends up being a smaller-scale version of Penn State, with fans eventually getting tired of, say, eight-win seasons. I realize eight sounds great right now.

And yeah, just to repeat the joke everyone’s already thought: If Franklin’s problem is having to beat top-10 teams, well, the ACC doesn’t have any right now. 🤝

But for real. Look at the ever-wobbly conference’s presumed heavyweights: Florida State might again go too hard in the portal, while Clemson might again go too light. The conference’s middle class has long been a voluminous turnstile. The whole thing’s up for grabs.

Quick Snaps

👼 The Pop-Tarts Bowl started by offering one Pop-Tart for sacrifice. Last year, that number doubled to two candidates. The assembly has now tripled, as two have become six. This means next season must quadruple the tally of potential pastry martyrs to 24. After that? Brethren, a quintupling. Can you envision those 120 breakfast slabs ascending to sainthood? See the Orlando bowl game on Dec. 27 for more information.

🎠 Three more coaching items:

Remember all that to-do about Franklin’s $49 million Penn State buyout? From our story on the hire: “Penn State recently negotiated a new $9 million buyout to Franklin, (…) perhaps an indication of what Franklin will earn at Virginia Tech.”
“Ole Miss has given Lane Kiffin an ultimatum to decide his future before the Nov. 28 Egg Bowl against Mississippi State, a person briefed on the discussions told The Athletic.” (Yes, he’s posting through it.)
Maryland is keeping Mike Locksley despite the program’s thousandth midseason collapse in the past decade or so. Weeks ahead of early signing day, Maryland still has a commitment from the nation’s No. 2 recruit, DE Zion Elee.

💚 For the first time since 1959, North Texas is in the AP Top 25. That had been the longest drought by any team that previously appeared in the AP, a status now held by New Mexico State (1960). That doesn’t include the 19 FBS programs that have never been ranked, with the oldest being NMSU’s rival New Mexico.

👀 “Unprecedented friction in a long-harmonious conference.” Stewart Mandel on the Big Ten up and deciding to become the most internally dramatic conference.

🍨 In our new bowl projections, look at this potential anger party between four teams furious about having missed the Playoff: a BYU-Georgia Tech Pop-Tarts Bowl and a Miami-Vanderbilt Gator Bowl.

Speaking of, something that might make up for that ACC titles thing above about Miami:

Storm Warning: Miami still building case against ND?

Remember 2014, when TCU entered the first-ever Playoff selection Sunday at No. 3, assuming it’d have a spot? (Frogs fans, I apologize for bringing this up. You crushed Ole Miss in that Sugar Bowl! Yes, I’m going somewhere with this.)

Well, that season’s final rankings not only dropped the Frogs behind Florida State and Ohio State teams that just won conference title games, something the Big 12 famously didn’t have at the time … TCU also fell behind archrival Baylor.

In all six of 2014’s previous weekly CFP rankings, TCU ranked as many as six spots ahead of the Bears — even though Baylor won their October meeting.
Otherwise, TCU was the better team that season, as funny as that always feels to say about the team that lost. The Frogs faced a significantly tougher schedule … for a while.
The committee’s reasoning for the late switch: At the buzzer, Baylor beat 9-3 Kansas State, meaning the Frogs’ and Bears’ schedules became comparable enough for the two to be considered equals. Once the committee believed the two resumes were tied, Baylor’s head-to-head win kicked in. (Remember: Head-to-head as a tiebreaker has always been part of the committee’s public criteria.)

Why do I bring all that up, 11 years later? Well, you might recall Miami beating rival Notre Dame 27-24 a couple months ago, the same margin by which 2014 Baylor beat rival TCU. Ahead of new CFP rankings tonight, the No. 9 Irish rank six spots above the No. 15 Canes, the same distance the 2014 Frogs had on the Bears at one point. Between 2025’s 8-2 duo, the computer ratings favor the team that lost their head-to-head meeting, again just like 2014.

The Irish have faced the tougher schedule so far, but that part is also about to align, thanks to their ACC semi-schedule:

What happens if Notre Dame looks a little flat against either of those 3-7 ACC teams that Miami handled by a total 80-17 margin? Or if the Hurricanes put Pat Narduzzi’s envisioned 103-10 beating on 7-3 Pitt, doing what Notre Dame couldn’t?

Once we end the season with a head-to-head meeting and four common opponents between these two teams, there is a scenario in which Miami pulls so close to Notre Dame that the committee lets the on-field result split the difference.

Obviously, I’m not guaranteeing the Canes will jump the Irish on the strength of beating 3-7 Virginia Tech and 7-3 Pitt. It’s also important to note this committee has different membership than 2014’s.

But if other teams in this rankings neighborhood spend the final Saturday winning huge games and conference titles while both these teams are idle … OK, let’s wait to see where they rank tonight before we imagine the whole 12-team field coming down to this rivalry.

If that change happens, it certainly won’t be tonight. Expect Alabama’s ranking in relation to Notre Dame’s to be tonight’s focus. Predictions here.
More: In Chris Vannini’s 136-team rankings, Miami’s been ahead the whole time.

That’ll do it. On my way to Manhattan, the non-Kansas one. Your emails are always welcome at untilsaturday@theathletic.com.

Sunday’s most-clicked: The Texas state trooper who embarrassed himself at South Carolina-Texas A&M.

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