James Franklin knows that if he wants to be considered among the elite again, he has to win at Virginia Tech. I thought it was a horrible idea to go to VT, but who knows how things could look for the former Penn State head man.
If anything, Franklin seems very ready to go.
Just a year ago, Franklin was on the biggest stage in the world, coaching in a semi-final game. Now, he’s with a whole new program and understands that things happened and he needs to improve on them moving forward.
"I've got a huge chip on my shoulder. Kind of an unusual situation. Six games earlier, we're playing for a national championship. Obviously, some things happened that were in my control, and I take total responsibility for that. But yeah, I got a big chip on my shoulder. Extremely motivated. Really enjoy coming in to work every single day, working with a group of people that are passionate about making Virginia Tech proud.
“I feel a responsibility to coach Beamer, I feel a responsibility to Bud Foster. I feel a responsibility to our rector, which is the term that we use here for the president of our board or the chair of our board, and the president of the university, and the athletic director, and the fans and the community. We got a lot of work to do. Most importantly, our players are driven and excited and motivated, and we got a really good core group of guys that stayed at Virginia Tech, and guys that we brought from a number of other places, too,” he said, per Brody Bryan.
While Franklin seems motivated and that’s a good thing, Tech has been at the bottom of the ACC for a bit now. Penn State has been an elite program for a very long time and he couldn’t get it over the hump. There are questions about whether he’ll do so at VT, but Franklin knows there’s work to do.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Franklin said. “Most importantly, our players are driven and excited and motivated. And we’ve got a good core group of guys who stayed at Virginia Tech, and a number of guys who we brought from other places, too.”