The shallow end of the pool is where the turds float.
– Varga, Fargo
PENN STATE HC James Franklin → VIRGINIA TECH
Franklin’s career is in its third renaissance now after a very productive first act with Vandy in the SEC, and a disappointing mid-career stint in Pennsylvania with the Nittany Lions.
As most coaches do, he brought several familiar assets from his time at Penn State when he arrived in Blacksburg. Those assets include: QB Ethan Grunkmeyer, WR Tyseer Denmark, and TE Luke Reynolds, among others. He mostly raided PSU’s incoming recruiting class, and we likely won’t be hearing from those guys for at least a year.
Grunkmeyer and Reynolds are the two obvious standouts as expected starters. VT also brought in Bryce Baker from UNC, who was a highly touted recruit in the class of 2025. He redshirted last season behind Gio Lopez, failing to appear in any game for the Tarheels.
Based on what Franklin did at PSU, we can infer that there might be some CFF value at RB and TE. He did have the odd CFF-relevant WR earlier in his PSU tenure (e.g., Jahan Dotson, KJ Hamler), but by and large, his system was not conducive to individual WR production.
At running back, it was sort of the same story. Earlier in his tenure, he had players like Saquon Barkley and Miles Sanders, who each led the team in carries with season-highs of 272 and 220, respectively.
That wasn’t the MO of this system recently. The freshman pair of Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen assumed starting duties immediately in 2022, splitting the work almost evenly with neither topping 167 carries. This pattern continued for the next two seasons, though the workloads did steadily increase. This past season was a departure from that trend, where Allen received a disproportionate amount of the work later in the year, finishing 2025 with 210 carries to Singleton’s 123.
The Hokies brought in Elijah Davis (sometimes called Bill, for some reason) from ULLAF. He never received a porcine workload with the Cajuns, but he’s been solidly productive with the work that he has received (763 rushing yards in 2025 on 158 carries in 13 games).
To my surprise, Marcellous Hawkins is once again listed on the roster for 2026. He was actually the starting RB for the Hokies last year, carrying the football 118 times for 749 yards and one score.
Then there are young players like Jeff Overton and Messiah Mickens, both four stars from C/O 2025 and 2026, respectively.
At WR, in addition to Denmark, names CFF players will recognize include: Que’Sean Brown (Duke) and Ayden Green. The Hokies also brought in LA Tech transfer Marlion Jackson, who caught 20 passes for 270 yards and two scores in 2025. Brown will be the betting favourite to secure WR1 duties in this system, but how much that actually matters for CFF is probably something that will be debated.
Despite a class of 23 incoming high school recruits, there is only one true WR prospect, Davion Brown, who is unranked by 247 and ON3 but a top-120-rated player by ESPN.
Tight end is where Franklin’s system may be most popular within the CFF community. In part because the bar for TE relevancy is very low in the CFF world, any team that features them as receivers will always be on the radar. Players like Ty Warren (led the team in receiving in 2024), Theo Johnson (scored seven TDs along with Warren in 2023), and even to some degree Brenton Strange, who scored five times in 2022, will loom large in drafters’ minds this offseason when evaluating Luke Reynolds, the early favourite for TE1 duties.
There aren’t really any obvious names in the TE room to compete with Reynolds, but Benji Gosnell was one of the TEs on the team that saw a lot of snaps last year. ◾
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