New Virginia Tech head coach James Franklin might not be missing his time at Happy Valley much, considering the red-carpet treatment he is getting at Blacksburg. The program has already put the ‘invest to win’ $229 million plan in place for the athletic department. Never mind the $8.2 million per year salary Franklin is getting at the Hokies. Now, on top of that, the new HC is getting another $192k gift.

According to 247Sports‘ Doug Bowman, James Franklin will have a new and renovated office by August 1 this year, and it will cost VT $192k in total. The new office is just one of the luxuries James Franklin will enjoy in Blacksburg. The program is ready to provide him with private jets, a flexible staff budget, and even upgrades to major facilities. That is in stark contrast to what Virginia Tech’s previous head coaches got.

After Frank Beamer left in 2015, there were real concerns about Virginia Tech’s infrastructure during Justin Fuente’s tenure. The program got an indoor facility in 2015, but it lacked heating. VT even got a new weight room in 2021, but there were no ‘new weights.’ And until James Franklin’s office renovation, the program didn’t have a dedicated football office, which is the norm at the Power-4 level.

“The motto of the department at the time was, ‘Do more with less,'” One of VT’s former staffers said to The Athletic in November 2025. “There were 65 Power 5 teams, and we were one of two that didn’t have (film database) Hudl, which everyone uses to recruit… We eventually got it, but when you’d ask for things, they’d say, ‘Coach Beamer didn’t need this.”

When Brent Pry became head coach, VT gave him additional resources, but they were still not enough. The Hokies lagged far behind their competitors in key areas. Virginia Tech’s athletic department budget was around $122 million, ranking 14th in the ACC and the lowest amongst the conference’s public programs.

Assistant coaches’ salaries saw a modest pay bump, hovering around $5.5 million annually and still lagging behind those of key ACC programs. It will be tough to say if Pry was set up to fail in a competitive NIL era, but the modest investment and resources didn’t really help him. And that had always been the norm in Blacksburg.

“I think it made sense, the hire. The problem that they ran into, though, is when you hire a guy who hadn’t been the head coach, he didn’t know what to ask for,” a team source said to The Athletic about Brent Pry. “I think that’s kind of the story of this place right now. They need somebody who knows what it looks like to come in here and get this place in order because it has not been in order.”

For a long time, Virginia Tech has done things with fewer resources, and that became its identity for decades. However, when your last 10-win season came in 2016 and you consistently finish at the bottom of the ACC table, you need to make changes. Especially when other rivals are already years ahead in the newly emerged NIL arms race.

James Franklin announces VT is in a different position now

The Hokies aim to raise $30 million annually from donors to compete in the NIL game and build championship-caliber rosters. The program has now committed roughly $15.5 million to assistant coaches and support staff and another $3 million to recruiting operations. Not just that, Franklin has also discussed using private jets for recruiting visits to make them more efficient. It’s all a massive shift from the previous era at Virginia Tech.

“We’re in a much different position now than we were, but I think there’s also a realization that we haven’t had success in football in a long period of time,” Franklin said during ACC meetings. “There comes responsibility, and there comes pressure for that, for me and the football program specifically.”

Franklin understands the daunting task Brent Pry faced with VT, given fewer resources, and that’s partly why he hired him as his DC. For one, the duo goes way back to Franklin’s Vanderbilt days and has a strong relationship. But also because the former PSU head coach knows Pry’s coaching acumen and his defensive brilliance, and understands that he was just a victim of rapidly changing times at Virginia Tech.