Fired Virginia Tech HC Brent Pry to serve as coordinator on James Franklin’s staff, per report
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Fired Virginia Tech head coach Brent Pry will be back in a very familiar place for the 2026 season.
He’ll be back at Virginia Tech as the defensive coordinator for newly hired head coach James Franklin, who Pry used to work under at Penn State, according to a report by On3’s Pete Nakos on Sunday morning.
Pry, who was fired by the Hokies in September after an 0-3 start to the season, was Franklin’s defensive coordinator in State College from 2016-21 before taking the Virginia Tech head coaching job in 2022. After Pry went just 16-24 during his tenure at Virginia Tech and was let go, he’ll be reversing course and coming right back to Blacksburg, according to the On3 report.
According to Nakos’ report, Pry pushed Virginia Tech to hire Franklin to replace him as head coach, and the school did exactly that, hiring Franklin last month after Franklin was fired himself earlier this season by Penn State.
Pry tasted success under Franklin at Penn State, so their reunion in 2026 isn’t a total surprise, even if it is extremely rare for a fired head coach to end up back in the same place the following year as an assistant. In 2021, Pry was a nominee for the Broyles Award, which is given annually to the top assistant coach in the country.
Penn State’s defense was a force that year under Pry, ranking 4th nationally in red-zone defense (66.7%), 7th in scoring defense (16.8 points per game) and 8th in defensive pass efficiency (111.98) while holding its opponents to 4.7 yards per play.
Now, Pry will reportedly have a shot to have that same success again under Franklin, and he’ll reportedly get another shot to have that success in the same place that let him go as head coach just a few months ago.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
