Virginia Tech Doubles Last Season’s Win Total Under James Franklin

Virginia Tech faced fourth-and-1 at the Clemson 5-yard line with the game slipping away Saturday night, and James Franklin passed on the tying field goal. Ethan Grunkemeyer found tight end Luke Reynolds in the back of the end zone with 1:44 left; Virginia Tech won 20-16 in Death Valley, and a program that went 3-9 last season is 6-2 and bowl eligible in Franklin’s first year.

The win was Virginia Tech’s first over Clemson since 2007, ending a seven-game losing streak in the series. For James Franklin, whose biggest knock at Penn State was losing big games, the call on fourth down felt like a statement of its own.

“Just felt like fourth-and-1 is as good of a situation that we were going to get,” Franklin said after the game. “And then we called a play that we’ve had a lot of success with.”

James Franklin took the job nobody expected him to take

Penn State fired Franklin on Oct. 12, 2025, one day after a 22-21 home loss to Northwestern dropped the Nittany Lions to 3-3. He left State College with a 104-45 record, and Virginia Tech hired him a little more than a month later, on Nov. 17, 2025, to replace Brent Pry.

Franklin then made the most interesting hire of the offseason by bringing Pry back as his defensive coordinator. Pry had coached Franklin’s defenses before, and the man Virginia Tech fired as head coach is now running a unit that sacked Clemson four times, including the fourth-down sack by Mylachi Williams that ended the game.

Franklin also leaned on what he knew. Grunkemeyer is one of several players who followed him from Penn State, along with receivers Jeff Exinor and Tyseer Denmark and a handful of defensive linemen. Rebuilding a 3-9 roster through the portal with players who know the system is the fastest way to get a new coach to a bowl, and Franklin did it in eight games.

The two losses still tell part of the story

Not everything has gone smoothly, and the losses show why the Hokies are not a finished product. Virginia Tech opened 4-0, including a 73-3 rout of VMI, then lost at home to Pitt when John Love missed a 36-yard field goal at the buzzer. A week later, Cal beat the Hokies 25-20, and some fans were calling Franklin overrated on social media before October was half over.

Virginia Tech answered with a 34-24 win over Georgia Tech that snapped the two-game skid, then went to Clemson and won a game that looked ugly for long stretches. Tech led 10-3 at halftime, trailed 16-13 going into the fourth quarter, and has struggled repeatedly in the third quarter of conference games, which is the kind of problem that eventually costs you a game in November.

The offense survived more than it thrived at Clemson. Grunkemeyer was under pressure on nearly every dropback, and Reynolds finished with only 44 receiving yards even though he caught both Virginia Tech touchdowns. Franklin said the Hokies struggled with the Clemson front in the run game and in protection, which is why the fourth-and-1 call was such a gamble.

Franklin did not pretend the Clemson performance was clean.

“I thought our defense took a significant step this week,” Franklin said. “It wasn’t always pretty, right?”

Where Virginia Tech goes from here

The Hokies get a bye week, and Franklin admitted the timing helps a roster that is banged up, especially on the offensive line and at cornerback, where Thomas Williams missed the Clemson game. After the bye, Virginia Tech plays at SMU on Nov. 6, hosts Stanford, visits Miami and closes with Virginia.

Franklin entered the season ranked third among ACC head coaches in a preseason ranking, behind only Dabo Swinney and Mario Cristobal, and he just beat one of them on the road. If James Franklin can take two of the last four, Virginia Tech finishes with eight wins and a bowl game, which would be a five-win jump from last season and a clear sign the rebuild is ahead of schedule.

The bigger point is how fast this happened. Last fall ended with Virginia Tech at 3-9 and Penn State showing Franklin the door after a 3-3 start. Eleven months later, both sides have what they needed from each other, and the doubled win total is only the first piece of evidence.