1) What’s the best way to enjoy this 2025-26 basketball team? Should we be worried about the tournament? Is this team legitimately good enough to string together a magical ACC run? Or is this a team that will finish middle of the pack in the ACC and we should just do our best to enjoy the highlight moments when they occur? — TechHokie13
Chris Coleman: I’ll answer this in two ways. First, the best way to enjoy Virginia Tech basketball this year is in person. This team has plenty of talent and a high basketball IQ, and as somebody who goes to every hoops game, I can tell you that you appreciate a good basketball product much more in person than you do watching on TV. Some of the passes this team makes just look so much better in person than they do on TV. They wowed me a couple of times on Wednesday night when I was at the game, but when I went back and watched the highlights, those individual plays didn’t come across quite as well.
Plus, it’s all on a year-to-year basis in college hoops these days. Neoklis Avdalas will most likely be in the NBA next season, and you never know how many players you’ll be able to keep or exactly what you’ll be able to afford from one year to the next. This is an enjoyable team to watch, so take advantage of it while they are here.
Also, here’s a little public service announcement. If you buy your tickets through Virginia Tech, it’s cheaper. Will Stewart and I bought tickets through StubHub for the first game of the season, but we went through Virginia Tech for our two tickets to Wednesday night’s game, and it was $20 cheaper buying through the school because StubHub tacks on all the processing fees. You can save yourself some money and help the program at the same time if you buy through the school.
Now, I’ll address what you really meant by your question. How do we enjoy this team from a mental standpoint? I’ve maintained from the beginning that I’m not putting a number on anything. The ACC is a lot better this year. Right now, Ken Pomeroy’s projections have Tech going 19-10 overall, with a 9-9 record in the ACC. Two games are missing because we don’t know VT’s other two opponents in the Battle 4 Atlantis, so focus in on that 9-9 projected ACC record.
The Pomeroy rankings have changed a bit since my basketball article earlier this week. Here’s how it stacks up when I wrote up my answer to this question yesterday (Thursday)…
• No. 2 Duke
• No. 9 Louisville
• No. 21 Clemson
• No. 24 NC State
• No. 27 North Carolina
• No. 45 Virginia
• No. 50 Virginia Tech
• No. 53 SMU
• No. 57 Wake Forest
• No. 59 Syracuse
• No. 61 Miami
• No. 63 Pitt
• No. 70 Notre Dame
• No. 72 Florida State
• No. 83 Cal
• No. 90 Stanford
• No. 94 Georgia Tech
• No. 105 Boston College
Everyone’s schedule is different, of course. For example, Tech’s schedule looks a little more difficult from one perspective. Of the top five teams right now in the Pomeroy ratings, the Hokies only get one of them (Duke) at home. They have to go to Louisville, Clemson, UNC and NC State with no return trip. Also, their home game against UVa is on Dec. 31 when the students are on break. That sucks.
On the other hand, the Hokies don’t have to go to the Conte Forum (where dreams go to die) this year. Cal and Stanford have to come to Blacksburg rather than the Hokies spending an entire week in California. Those are advantages that can’t be discounted. Everybody has a different schedule, and it’s no sense going through them all and trying to compare. Besides, the Pomeroy rankings will change a bit between now and ACC play anyway.
Long story short, this is an NCAA Tournament-caliber basketball team. I think the ceiling could be fairly high, but much of that depends on progress in the little things, from team defense to coming to a better understanding of how to play within the offense. I’d say for now, just enjoy the product without worrying too much about the end result. Once the Hokies get a few ACC games under their belt, then we can start thinking about March.
2) It appears James Franklin will be our new head whistle. By not being named coach and no signed contract as of yet, can he be doing things behind the scenes now that he would be unable to do once he does sign? Talking to other teams’ coaches to determine level of interest on working for him and with players to see if they would portal to Tech? — Tech76G
CC: It means he can recruit and tamper until his heart is content. He can call up a recruit who he was courting at Penn State and ask, “How would you feel about joining me in Blacksburg?” I’ve heard he’s already been doing that some. Whether that’s because he’s definitely coming to Virginia Tech or he’s just trying to get a feel about his recruiting ability at a new school is debatable.
And yeah, you can bet that he’s already trying to get a feel for his staff in case he does end up taking the job. He knows it would be in his best interest to put a staff together as quickly as possible after he got hired, so going into the hiring process already possessing a good idea of who you can get would be desirable. I suspect he’s already 100 percent certain on a few guys, though he’s probably not quite sure on coordinators yet. But that’s just my guess.
Again, I don’t know if he’ll be Virginia Tech’s next head coach, but I did manage to confirm a couple of things.
1: I posted on the board last week that there’s been a negotiation process between Franklin and Penn State for a lump sum buyout. I’ve since confirmed that from multiple other sources.
2: As to the rumor that he was in Blacksburg looking at real estate earlier this week… Well, I know that sounds like an internet rumor. However, I’ve heard through a higher-up at Virginia Tech, plus some others around the town, that it is true. Obviously, you don’t start looking at houses in a town if you aren’t serious about taking the job.
None of that means that Franklin-to-Virginia Tech is a done deal. I don’t know exactly how the negotiations with Penn State affect things other than the fact that he can’t sign a deal with Tech until something is signed with the Nittany Lions. And there’s always the chance that he changes his mind or does something silly like go after a job outside of his geographic footprint (Arkansas). But like I’ve been saying, if I were forced to place a bet, I would place it on Franklin-to-VT.
So, let’s talk timetable. I’ve never hired a football coach before, so most of this is over my head, but let me give you a couple of basic thoughts. First, it would be in Franklin’s best interest to take the job by early next week. Virginia Tech only has one home game remaining, and if he was in place as head coach by the weekend of the Miami game (eight days from now), then he could put together a pretty big recruiting weekend, even on short notice. That’s a competitive advantage over every other coach who is getting hired this cycle.
From Virginia Tech’s perspective, at what point do you tell him and Jimmy Sexton to you-know-what or get off the pot? If you wait too long, you run the risk of other programs reaching deals with your Plan B and Plan C targets, and nobody wants to drop to Plan D. Even if Plan D is a good plan, it still doesn’t come across particularly well. I don’t have an answer to that question; I’m just throwing it out there.
But also, what if Plan B and/or Plan C are coaching in conference title games? It’s definitely possible that one of Manny Diaz or Bob Chesney — or even both — are coaching in conference title games that first weekend of December, which, naturally, is after Signing Day. (Signing Day needs to move ASAP, but that’s another article.) Yeah, you can come to an agreement with one of them, but you have to wait a week to announce your hire. I don’t think you drop to Plan D intentionally just to save a week of recruiting. That’s my take. But that’s just another thing for the decision makers to think about.
Obviously, Franklin can save everybody a lot of trouble by taking the job as soon as possible. My take is that if he doesn’t take the Tech job (which I believe is his best offer, all things considered), then he’s just not as anxious to get back into coaching as he led everyone to believe on College GameDay. Maybe after not working for a month he realized he didn’t miss the grind as much as he thought he would. If he ends up doing TV next season, it probably means his heart isn’t fully into coaching right now, in which case Tech is probably better off with somebody else.
Again, that’s just my take. I still think he’ll most likely end up in Blacksburg, but we’ll see.
3) As head coach, what do you complain to the administration about on day one? If you’ve just been hired, we’ll assume they’ve met your contract demands (salary, NIL, staff). What do you need next to win at VT? — vtlee
CC: Great question. I think st_andrew nailed it correctly in his response in the Friday Q&A thread: physical space.
When I wrote A Shot Across The Bow way back in 2020, I included the picture below:
That’s Tech’s staff under Justin Fuente on the morning that he announced he was staying in Blacksburg and not taking the Baylor job. It’s such a small room by modern standards.
Tech has the Jamerson Center, which is mostly office space, and the Merryman Center, which is a few offices, meeting rooms, the weight room and stuff like that. I don’t think there’s anything else you can do with either building from the standpoint of expansion, and that’s important in modern football.
Here’s a passage I included in that 2020 article:
“The Jamerson Center, which holds the offices of the Tech coaching staff and the rest of the athletic department employees, was built way back in 1982 — before even I was born! It was built to service the needs of a 1982 football staff, not a 2020 football staff.
We have media guides back to the 1980s in our office. Here’s how the Tech coaching/support staff was set up in 1982: