Penn State is very happy that his buyout is now “only” $9M.
Post Beamer, like Florida, VT is where coaching careers go to die. I thought Justin Fuente would be a great hire and you see how that turned out. Four years after VT fired him, Fuente is completely out of coaching and is doing color for TCU broadcasts.
If he couldn’t win at Penn State with all of its vast resources, I don’t see how Franklin succeeds at VT.
Franklin only has a few days to prepare for Miami.
VT is awful this year, let’s hope Miami doesn’t screw the pooch, fail to show up and lose to an awful team because it is cool and rainy in Blacksburg. This team is far too temperamental for me to have confidence they will win any particular game. They played great against NC State so I hope they keep the trend going.
Fanklin is not coaching against miami. Miami is not losing to tech. They are one of the worst teams, playing under a coach who won’t be there in two weeks on a team that quit.
To me, it would be weird if he isn’t on the sidelines immediately given what VT is paying him.
“James Franklin will coach Virginia Tech this Saturday, as he was officially hired as the new head football coach. He will replace former head coach Brent Pry and is expected to be formally introduced at a news conference on Wednesday morning,”
The reason I think this is wrong is that a coach gets hired to be the NEXT coach, usually with interim coach notwithstanding. A new coach signs a contract for a set number of years and that never usually happens mid year. The start point happens when a new season does. It’s way different than the ending of a tenure which can happen any time.
So Franklin comes in to coach two games, how is he paid? Are Miami and Virginia a 1st season for him? Doubtful. Partial payment? Is he vested for the year as far as bonuses and escalators are concerned? He might be in the stadium, I would be surprised if he’s the head coach on Saturday and not the interim coach.
Losing to VT would be an egregious loss It would be the “downer of the year.”. Unfortunately, despite playing our best game of the season against NCST, I find myself still worrying about crapping out. If it happens, you can depend on me to holler like hell.
To me, the greatest discovery from our last game was the emergence of Gerard Pringle. I’d love to see the Canes shift to an I-formation with Pringle at tailback with our bigger backs at FB. Pringle is hell on wheels catching swing passes. If Pringle can get through the first line of defense, he has the best chance of any of our backs to take it to the House. He’s got the twitchy moves. Do you suppose there’s some chance that Shannon Dawson has listened to fans?
BTW, I saw a poll where Dawson and Hetherman were named Coordinators of the Week in the ACC.
You guys are like battered wives. Lol. Virginia Tech is awful. Losing to lousiville and smu while it should not have happened both teams have a head coach who can call plays. Ve Tech just got smoked by fsu. They want to quit.
I would think they wouldn’t throw a new coach into the fire with an awful team against a rebounding UM. As a team, VTech wants to start over with a clean slate, so their new head coach has a lot of hype in the off season and leading up to next fall. Starting out in Blacksburg with 2 losses isn’t a great look.
While the pro-set offense is thought to be the best offense in the game of football, that premise may not always be true. You’ll recall the days of Texas and Oklahoma running their triple option and plainly steamrolled their opponents. It seemed almost that collegiate teams had no defensive answer for the triple option, and Texas and Oklahoma rolled to national championships. That was case until in the Orange Bowl on September 27, 1986, when the Miami Hurricanes shut the door on the big mouth Brian Bosworth-led Sooners, and delivered to Barry Switzer his most humbling defeat.
UM proved that a well-coached defense can stop the triple option or veer offenses, but it requires a Jimmy Johnson-like defense to do it. In my single year of coaching football, I learned from the great Carl Madison, whom I consider Florida’s greatest high school coach, three things:1. rush-centric teams are more often successful than pass-centric teams; 2. deception can fool even the most powerful defenses, and 3. two ordinary players can successfully block an All-American. A perfect validation of his strategy was seen in Fletcher Deberry’s Air Force teams. Military academy teams ordinarily don’t have the athletes of other collegiate teams, so they historically rely on rushing offenses. DeBerry’s Air Force proved that in spite of having less talented players, they can succeed.
Miami has a pass-centric offense, and when Carson Beck has a clear pocket, he’s a very accurate passer. Such is not the case when Beck is blitzed. Our rushing game is supposed to relieve pressure off Beck, but this year it as not been as successful as last year, because Dawson’s interior rushing game became wholly predictable. In the last two games, it appears that Dawson has gotten the message sent out by fans and by football pundits, and we witnessed some offensive creativity. We saw successful offensive plays rooted in deception, the ingredient that is woefully lacking in our offense. We also saw the advent of Gerard Pringle, our smallest RB, but one with a glimmer of daylight can execute what is missing in our offense, that is, the chunk rushing play. Pringle is a real problem to defenders if he breaks through the initial defensive wall into the secondary. I favor some I-set formations because more backfield players increases deception. When Miami starts fooling people on offense, even fooling cameramen, we will have arrived on offense. I saw this happen time and again with teams coached by Carl Madison; obscure Panhandle teams taking down big boys from South Florida. That’s why Carl won state championships in three different states.
I don’t know how well Pringle will perform against a real defense, but I like that he is patient but not hesitant, then once he finds a hole he bullrushes through with a healthy dose of spins and cuts. It makes him elusive.
Warrick Dunn, Amos Zereoue… (heck)……Clinton Portis…the list of “smallish” RB’s goes on. The big “bruisers” are fine for wearing down a D but the smaller patient back always presents a problem.
Frank Gore once gave an interview where he stated that the key to RB longevity and getting yardage ….was never to take direct hits..just be patient.
I saw some articles earlier this week that suggested Franklin would be coaching today, they were wrong
I looked around for a definitive answer but there wasn’t one.
Today there was one.
From the Sporting News:
“No, James Franklin is not coaching for Virginia Tech on Saturday against Miami.
The Hokies will still be led by interim head coach Philip Montgomery.
It’s rare for a coaching hire like this to take over in the middle of a campaign. The incoming coach has little-to-no grasp of the other coaches or of the players or schemes in place on the field.
Franklin will surely be keeping a close eye on things, and it’d make sense for him to be in attendance.
But a coach like Franklin will also recognize it’s important not to step on the toes of another coach, especially an interim like Montgomery who is just trying to do his job in a tough situation.
Franklin’s era will officially begin soon enough on the field. But not quite yet.”
