James Franklin ensuring Virginia Tech is prepared for VMI’s triple-option attack
BLACKSBURG — It didn’t take long into James Franklin’s head coaching tenure for him to be matched against a triple-option offense.
Seven games, for those keeping count. Vanderbilt, under Franklin’s watch, hosted Army in the seventh game of the 2011 season. The nonconference matchup came after the Commodores had played four straight SEC contests, and it’s understandable to overlook the game.
Franklin won’t have any problems getting Virginia Tech ready for its matchup against the triple-option attack this season. The Hokies, in Franklin’s first game leading the program, open the season against VMI on Saturday. The Keydets (0-1), under Ashley Ingram, are running the triple-option.
“It’s a challenge. It always is a challenge. If you’ve got a background in defending the option, I think that is helpful,” Franklin said Monday. “You have to spend time on it. We’ve spent time on it all summer. We’ve spent time on it all training camp. It’s a challenge, there’s no doubt about it. That’s why people run it, that’s why it gives people headaches.
“Talking to Bud (Foster, former defensive coordinator), he dealt with it a long time with Coach (Paul) Johnson at Georgia Tech, so I get it. I totally get it. It helps that Brent Pry was at Georgia Southern as the defensive coordinator and faced it every single day at practice. So that’s helpful.”
Franklin’s Vanderbilt squad wasn’t unprepared by any means when it hosted Army in the 2011 season. Pry, who spent the previous season as Georgia Southern’s defensive coordinator, faced Jeff Monken’s triple-option offense on a daily basis in practice, and the defense was prepared to slow down the Black Knights’ running attack.
Vanderbilt claimed a 44-21 win. The defense limited Army to 270 rushing yards, which was nearly 100 yards less than the Black Knights’ average of 361.3 entering the game.
Franklin said last week that the Hokies spent the final two periods of their Tuesday practice walking through VMI’s offense and defense, and the following day’s practice began to focus solely on the Keydets.
“Unless you’re living in that world, it’s hard to replicate it in practice,” Franklin said. “One of the big things is cutting. We’re probably not going to cut defensive linemen in practice. So finding a way to replicate that and prepare them for that and the speed of how those things are going to come at them and the discipline that you have to have, obviously, starts with stopping the fullback. So Coach Pry’s background is helpful, but it’s still challenging. It’s still a headache.”
A third debut
Franklin begins his third head coaching tenure Saturday night. It marks the second time his team opens against an FCS program (Vanderbilt hosted Elon in 2011), and there’s the outlier of the 2014 opener at Penn State coming against Central Florida in Dublin, Ireland.
Franklin learned from each experience. He found more similarities to opening at home compared to traveling to a different country for an opener.
“Just at a different point in my career, but tremendous experiences as a head coach in the SEC, as a head coach in the Big Ten, now in the ACC. There’s a ton of value in that,” Franklin said. “There’s a ton of staff that we’ve been together for a number of years, and a lot of guys that were on both of those staffs at Vanderbilt and at Penn State, so I think that’s helpful as well.”
Vanderbilt handedly won its 2011 opener. Penn State needed Sam Ficken’s 36-yard field goal as time expired to edge UCF in 2014.
Opening vs. the FCS
Virginia Tech is opening the season against a Football Championship Subdivision program for the first time since 2016 against Liberty (two years before the Flames moved up to FBS).
The Hokies also are scheduled to open the next two seasons against FCS programs (The Citadel in 2027 and Gardner-Webb in 2028).
With the ACC requiring its league members to play 10 games against power conference opponents, are games against FCS foes worth playing?
“I think every game on your schedule is worth playing. Every single game on your schedule is important, and obviously critical for what we’re trying to do. It’s not just play; it’s play well, and there’s also an aspect in college football that you don’t have a preseason,” Franklin said. “I know there’s some teams at the end of the season that have lost some games that maybe if they hadn’t lost, the end of the season could’ve been very different. I was a part of one of those teams. So yeah, they’re all critical.
“You better approach it the right way, you better have the right mentality and for us, we’re always going to respect our opponent, but ultimately, it’s about us and how we go about our business.”
Damien Sordelett (540) 981-3124
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Virginia Tech coach James Franklin discusses the Hokies’ preparation for the VMI and the Keydets’ triple-option offense.
