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Newly hired Virginia Tech football coach James Franklin was on-site for the Hokies’ game against Miami on Saturday, Nov. 22, and made a brief appearance with the ESPN broadcast crew.

Franklin, wearing a Virginia Tech hoodie, explained his decision to the job.

“I think the first thing is, they were very aggressive from the beginning,” Franklin, who was fired by Penn State in October, told ESPN. “They had a plan in place, it wasn’t like, ‘let’s work through this together.’ they already had a plan in place, which I think was very helpful in the process.

REQUIRED READING: Virginia Tech hires James Franklin as Hokies football coach

Franklin led the Nittany Lions to the College Football Playoff semifinals last season and entered 2025 with huge expectations with numerous returning starters. However, Penn State lost three consecutive games to Oregon, UCLA and Northwestern before Franklin was fired in October.

Franklin is now tasked with revitalizing Virginia Tech, which has won more than seven games just twice since 2018.

Legendary coach Frank Beamer, the best coach in Virginia Tech history, also gave Franklin his blessing, signifying his confidence in the Hokies’ next leader.

“I got a ton of respect for what he has been able to do across his career, but obviously specifically here at Virginia Tech. So I wanted to call him to pay respect, number one. He built this program. Everybody loves him and his family. … I called Frank Beamer, I said, ‘Coach, about to make this decision. Before I do, I want your blessing to be sure you’d comfortable with me taking over your program.’”

Franklin hasn’t coached, and won’t coach a Virginia Tech game until 2026, but he accomplished an important first step since being officially introduced Nov. 19.

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — The first-ever climate assessment for the state of Virginia is sounding the alarm for the Commonwealth’s coastal regions.

The study out of George Mason University claims that sea levels are rising at a moderate rate currently, but could accelerate greatly in just the next few decades.

“What we expect in the future, particularly after 2050, is an acceleration in that rise due to warming in the global climate system,” said Dr. Jessica Whitehead, director of Old Dominion University’s Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience and a co-author on the recent Virginia climate assessment. “Then we expect that acceleration to growth higher rates per year.”

It’s a rising issue in the future that will affect the children of today.

“Somebody who is in our middle school system in Hampton Roads here right now, those kids are the ones who are going to be challenged the most by making sure that we’re able to deal with this rise in the future,” Whitehead said.

Whitehead said the concerning rise in sea levels is due to a multitude of factors, some unique to Hampton Roads.

“Tens of thousands of years ago, we had the impact from a meteor in the region,” Whitehead said. “That is one of the areas where we have land that’s sinking a little bit faster than the land everywhere else. Our drinking water is coming mostly from deep, deep aquifers. But drawing down on that aquifer also leads to the sinking. We’re beginning to lose coastal forests that are becoming saltwater marshes, so they can’t continue to trap sediment and get taller faster than the sea levels rising.”

Whitehead said the rising sea levels will have a direct impact on urban flood mitigation.

“Our stormwater systems were built in some places over 100 years ago,” Whitehead said, “so as the sea level is rising, that sea level is rising into those systems, so they have less capacity to be able to process stormwater.”

The environmental risks are ones that come with economic costs.

“We very often think of this as an environmental issue, and it is, but there’s also economic costs for us,” Whitehead said. “The potential home values that are at risk, that’s in the billions of dollars. Our ports have to be right where the water is. That cargo has to be able to move in and out those ports. These are all things that are at risk. Yes, it’s about the environment, but it’s very much about us, too.”

The good news, as Whitehead puts it, is that Hampton Roads as a region is active in addressing these rising sea levels and risks, but that major projects to fully address the issue will take time, and in some cases, decades.

Know more

If you’d like to see the climate assessment for yourself, see below: