{"id":701303,"date":"2026-06-13T07:40:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T07:40:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701303\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T07:40:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T07:40:36","slug":"virginia-tech-friday-qa-james-franklin-true-freshmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/701303\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Tech Friday Q&#038;A: James Franklin, True Freshmen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        <a href=\"https:\/\/virginiatech.sportswar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/04\/IVM-260418-FTB-Spring-Game-1182.webp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-9544277 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/virginiatech.sportswar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2026\/04\/IVM-260418-FTB-Spring-Game-1182.webp\" alt=\"Virginia Tech, James Franklin\" width=\"2100\" height=\"1400\"  \/><\/a>It\u2019s hard to see James Franklin not succeeding at Virginia Tech. (Ivan Morozov)<\/p>\n<p>1) There\u2019s nothing but positive news coming out of the football program ever since James Franklin arrived. NIL money the likes we\u2019ve never seen before, some of the highest recruiting we\u2019ve experienced in decades, and a general \u201cbuzz\u201d that the program is about to turn the corner. But let\u2019s say things don\u2019t work out, we continue to struggle to break .500, or God forbid worse, and things don\u2019t materialize as we all hope over the next few years. What do you think will be the reason? Is there one weakness that Franklin has that could lead to his demise, as it did at Penn State? \u2014 ToledoHokie<\/p>\n<p>Chris Coleman: Franklin is 128-60 as a head coach. He\u2019s rebuilt two programs and has nine seasons of nine-plus wins. If your expectation is for Virginia Tech to put a good product on the field and to be in a position where the fan base feels like the team has a reasonable chance to win each week, then I see very little chance of him not working out at Virginia Tech, particularly with the monetary backing he\u2019s received.<\/p>\n<p>In-game coaching has probably been an issue at times. It\u2019s not all bad, because you don\u2019t go 128-60 as a head coach if you\u2019re terrible at that part of things, but against the truly great in-game tacticians, he\u2019s probably not quite up to their standards. However, that doesn\u2019t bother me very much, because there are so few head coaches who check every single box. I\u2019m not even sure that guys like Kirby Smart would check every box. Would Smart recruit as well at Virginia Tech as Franklin has thus far? I don\u2019t know that he would.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that could hold him back a bit is also one of the things that makes him really good. He\u2019s really driven, really focused and demands a great deal from those around him. It\u2019s absolutely what Virginia Tech needs right now. However, sometimes that type of pressure can cause players to play tight and coaches to coach tight, and that could rear its ugly head in big games.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/FBTC-online-tsl\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774668145_872_FBTC-2025-Free-Checking-1000x200-1.jpg\" alt=\"First Bank &amp; Trust Company\" width=\"1000\" height=\"200\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to see James Franklin not succeeding at Virginia Tech. (Ivan Morozov) 1) There\u2019s nothing but positive&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-701303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}