Howle is extremely important but is up for OC at VT. Franklin knows how important Howle is for competing versus PSU in DMV recruiting. We’ll see if it’s important enough that he would go with Howle versus an experienced OC. Franklin is also considering Connor and Poindexter as well for different coaching positions. Love him or hate him, Franklin is going to be a potent force to contend with in this region. He is gonna take a few of these guys away from us, no doubt.
I keep harping on Franklin, so this will be the end of it. But I'm not worried about Franklin scooping our primary targets on the recruiting trail.
Franklin's recruiting has fallen off since the '22 class - ironically when NIL kicked in. The '26 class was set to be his worse at PSU since '15, which funny enough, is Tech's best in program history. I'll even say, I think some of those kids he scooped from PSU are having second thoughts after seeing Campbell/PSU's annual $30 million commitment to NIL. Same with Sieg and Brown at WVU. We can circle back with all these guys in coming years in the transfer portal.
I'd like to keep Howle - he's been a great developer and recruiter, not to mention he's an alum. But if Franklin is willing to risk a first time play caller as his OC just for a TE recruiting bump in VA, I need no more reason to believe Franklin is falling into one of his regular traps. Not even mentioning the bizarre hire of Pry as DC - I still have nightmares of his fourth quarter meltdowns, the safety blitz from 30 yards away, making no-name QBs look like heisman candidates, mismanagement of positions, etc etc.
Franklin & V Tech will be more like Rutgers, Pitt, WVU, Cuse as far as competitors are concerned vs. OSU, ND, Michigan, Clemson. They just don't have the budget, resources, facilities, stadium, tradition. They'll grab a guy we like here and there, more than likely on the borderline 3*/4* that they'll be willing to "shell out for" that we wouldn't.