My brother is a Hokie. He called me Saturday night with about 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter. I told him that I expected a closer game and was surprised by how bad they were (I had not watched a minute of them previously this year) and he started going into how well Franklin was recruiting, that they would do a one-year makeover in the portal like we had, and that they would be back to their winning ways next season. I told him that he was yucking my yum and he needed to let me enjoy the win. He continued with his maroon-and-orange tinted monologue so I hung up on his ass.
I love my Hokie brother, but that team and that fanbase can shove it.
Franklin is doing a solid job salvaging their bad 2026 class but he’s got a lot of work to do to flip that roster. He’s going to have to hit the portal hard because he’s got a full roster rebuild ahead with a fanbase that isn’t expecting a rebuilding year. You don’t bring in Franklin to not have day 1 expectations.
If VT is doing really well in something… I am not happy and root for them to lose… but I can also respect that they are doing well and if I talk to a VT friend of mine, I can tell them I hope they lose but congrats on a great run in said sport. Sports rivalries are so dumb sometimes.
Yes, I get it… UVa is not a football juggernaut, but this year everything broke our way… QB & RB… great defense that gelled quickly and fortuitous schedule. VT yellers get off my lawn!
Honestly not great. He’s definitely bigger on high school, but the thing about him is he has changed his style up quite a bit over the years.
His big get last year was Trevor Pena who I wouldn’t necessarily say has worked out. (I thought Fields would go to them with Hagans and their WR need.. I think they really could have used him)
He did a little more prominent portal work the year before with Fleming and AJ Harris, but he’s never really had to go into the portal super hard. I’ll be very curious to see how he does with it this year.
Honestly, we obviously don’t know much about the financials of these recruits, but I’d rather him spend big on 18-year old 4-stars. They can’t contribute right away like 5-stars and they’re pricier than 3-stars. I’d rather him invest in guys that probably won’t contribute for a year or two than splash it all in the portal.
I’m skeptical they’ll have the cash (or the coach) they have this year by this time next year or the year after when they’ll need to pay to retain all these young guys. And its not like he’s a world class developer of talent or anything. He’s fine but not in the top tier of the sport at that or anything.
He’s also working with a big advantage of being the only coach really working on recruiting right now while the place he’s picking most of these guys from still doesn’t have anyone. I wonder if some of these might flip back once PSU’s guy is in place and some of these newly seated SEC guys get their feet under them.
All else equal I’d definitely like to start pulling some 4-stars out of high school ourselves, but so far I’m not shaking about their team for next year. If we could pick off like 2 (or more!) top-500 flips for the 2026 in all of this coaching turnover I’d feel okay that we can do the portal trick again next year (especially with the aid of all the coaching turnover) and start building with them and a so-far-so-good 2027 class which is already has 3 top-500 guys (pending the crystal ball we have sitting on one right now). Our first ones since Kam.