Before we move forward, it's interesting to pause and think about how different the world might look today if Dante Moore had tripped over his feet here.
Fifty-three days after his third-ranked Penn State held an overtime lead over No. 6 Oregon, James Franklin was introduced as the next head coach at Virginia Tech.
The Virginia Tech opening was already 13 days old at that point, and by then the Hokies had already formed a search committee, and that search committee outlined nine boxes it wanted the next Head Hokie to check: executive leadership, head coaching success, the vision and drive to rebuild the program, modern program management in the NIL, rev share and portal era, a track record of player development, experience with communication and public engagement, recruiting excellence, staff building and management, and a cultural institutional fit. When Penn State fired Franklin on Oct. 12, the search committee met and voted 8-0 to make him their top candidate.
I wrote after Franklin's firing that he could get the Virginia Tech job the next day, and it turns out that wasn't far off.
"They were very aggressive. The very first time we met, I feel like they were ready for me to say yes that night, and I thought it was just an initial conversation," Franklin recalled on Wednesday. "What was very obvious to me very early on was that they had a plan. I think you'll be surprised as you go through this process how few people really understand what college football takes in today's day and age. They had done their own homework. It wasn't coming to me, what do you need? They already had their own list."
Virginia Tech has already committed nine figures to modernize its football program, but the efforts to end their string of five losing records in six seasons will go beyond writing a check. AD Whit Babcock said last month that the new head coach could split power with a general manager; that decision will be left up to Franklin, but Virginia Tech plans to supplement its GM with hires in scouting, data analysis, and outbound sales to help generate NIL opportunities for its players. Franklin indicated Wednesday that Virginia Tech will devote part of its budget toward the Virginia Tech/Montgomery Airport to get coaches out and players into Blacksburg as efficiently as possible. The Hokies are hosting numerous official visitors for this weekend's game with No. 13 Miami.
Of course, Virginia Tech's readiness for this new marriage is only half the equation.
There's a reason Franklin was available, and it wasn't simply because Penn State lost to Oregon. The Nittany Lions endured a well-publicized and long-building collapse after that loss. A program can only hit its head on the same ceiling so many times. With 128 wins across 14 and a half seasons, Franklin is a future College Football Hall of Famer. And yet, if the gears of the machine turned as they were supposed to, he'd be preparing to coach Penn State against Nebraska on Saturday night.
In the month-or-so between jobs, Franklin and his wife Fumi watched multiple Virginia Tech games. They tailgated at an Old Dominion game. And Franklin spent time pecking ideas into his iPhone notes app.
"The first thing, you take a deep breath. Fifteen years as a head coach, a lot of success. There is a core system of how we do things that works. We believe in that, and we have conviction in that," Franklin said. "There's also time to say what things can we do better. How can we grow? The most important thing is, we've all got look in the mirror. We've got to be transparent and say, 'What can we do to take the next step to be as successful as possible?' That's hard to do, to be that honest with yourself. Being able to write notes in my phone. I have next staff notes, I have things that I learned through the process -- some of those things are for public consumption -- but areas we need to grow and get better. A lot of time to do it. More time in my life than I've ever had. That time was good. It was painful, but it was good. For me and my family to take a minute and recharge the battery, it was important. We're going to take all those lessons learned and pour them into Virginia Tech."