Philip Montgomery believes he is ‘well-suited’ to serve as Virginia Tech interim coach

Three games into the season, Phillip Montgomery, in his first season on staff originally as the offensive coordinator, is all of a sudden the interim coach at Virginia Tech following this weekend’s firing of Brent Pry. With his prior experience, though, he feels he’ll be able to make the transition well for the final nine games of their season in Blacksburg.

Appearing on Monday at a press conference for the first time as the interim head coach for VT, Montgomery discussed how his resumé suggests he’ll be able to handle this change. He has been a head coach before in the past, with that having him capable, especially suddenly like this, of handling the day-to-day of the job.

“Yeah, I think it provides some different challenges, for sure. That being said, I’ve been in this role. I understand what it takes. I understand how you’re going to get pulled in a lot of different directions – what that does to your time, what that does to the energy that you’ve got to put in certain areas. I think I’m well-suited for that part of it.”

Montgomery has been in college and high school coaching since 1994, including two decades of experience either as a head coach or offensive staff member since 2003. He, as an offensive coordinator, had made stops at Houston, Baylor, and Auburn, as well as with the Birmingham Stallions last year in the UFL. Pry then hired Montgomery as the Hokies’ offensive coordinator back in February, with him now becoming his successor this season on an interim basis.

Most notably, though, Montgomery was the head coach at Tulsa from 2015 to 2022. He went 43-53 (.448) during his eight-year tenure with the Golden Hurricane in the American.

However, considering the circumstances with the news on Sunday, Montgomery is also going to have to lean on the rest of the staff that’s now his at Virginia Tech. Especially this week as he and the rest of the program adjust to what has happened, their coaches will have to come together to best prepare and handle their players going into their next game against Wofford on Saturday afternoon.

“I’ve got a great staff that’s going to be supporting me in that sense, and so, those guys, they’re locked in with me,” said Montgomery. “This is not going to be a one-man show. This is going to be a team effort.

“Again, the staff has done a tremendous job over the last 48 hours. I’ve been pulled in a lot of different directions, and us being able to sit down, make sure that we’re getting our game plan read, making sure that we have what we need to go out and have a great practice today, build it on today, and making sure, again, that the focus stays on preparing our players for this week.”

This isn’t an ideal situation for anyone following the dismissal of Pry and Virginia Tech (0-3) now with an interim coach in place. Still, Montgomery is able in trying to make this work for the Hokies’ players for the final two and a half months of this season.

“At the end of the day, it’s really more – again, I’m going to continue to keep preaching this,” said Montgomery. “This is more about our players and our program and our locker room, and us coming together and really doing some great things to have an opportunity to really make people proud of what we are and what we do.”