Terry Smith reveals 'immediate threat' James Franklin at Virginia Tech presents to Penn State

Longtime James Franklin assistant Terry Smith has been doing his best to continue to support the Penn State program as the interim head coach. However, with Franklin now landing the Virginia Tech job, a whole new series of challenges is going to present itself.

In particular, recruiting and the Transfer Portal are now going to be a challenge, given that Franklin has relationships with the Penn State players and Penn State has no permanent head coach. So, until the Nittany Lions have their head coach, Smith believes Franklin does pose an immediate threat to the roster.

“The immediate threat is to take Penn State players,” Smith said. “Right? With the uncertainty of the next head coach. The locker room is — the most important thing that we can do is to protect the locker room. When it comes to recruits, high school recruits, he has an advantage right now because we don’t have a permanent head coach.”

In this era of college sports, players are going to exit through the Transfer Portal. In particular, if there’s been a coaching change. Penn State isn’t immune to that and with Franklin landing a new job at Virginia Tech, it’s likely that many will look there for their future.

When a coaching change occurs, the Transfer Portal opens for 30 days, allowing players to immediately enter. Since Franklin was fired on October 12th, that window is now closed. However, it will open again this winter. That will likely see plenty of movement once again, particularly since the Spring window has been removed. So, players considering transferring need to do it in the winter or wait a full season.

Smith knows that high school recruiting against Franklin is also going to be very difficult in the coming months. A strength of Franklin’s has been to successfully recruit the DMV. That’s territory that Virginia Tech would love to dominate. It’s also a point of pride that Franklin emphasized at his introduction. In fact, he’s already on the trail.

“The passion is critical, we talked about it on Saturday, we’ve already started recruiting. Two nights ago, I had 40 players on the phone, young men that are committed to Virginia Tech. Also called all the top players in the state of Virginia as well,” Franklin said. “And we’re going to need this stadium rocking on Saturday. One of the things that was important to me and my wife as we were making this decision, we watched your gameday the last few weeks, and it was impressive, during a challenging season. … The stadium was rocking, the guys were playing hard, and that’s going to be important. We’re going to have a ton of recruits this weekend for an official visit, and I want them to feel the energy in our stadium. So, I want you to pack that stadium for us.”

Smith and Franklin have been together since 2014. There’s a good chance they’ll be together again soon. For now, though, they’re going to be locked in a recruiting battle until Penn State finds its head coach.