Virginia
What is Virginia Tech’s Ceiling in 2026 If Everything Falls Into Place?
Eight months ago, Virginia Tech football hit its lowest point in recent memory. Not a close loss, not a bad beat. The Hokies got handled at home by Old Dominion, 45-26, and the head coach was fired three games into the season. They finished 3-9. Their recruiting class sat in the 120s nationally. The program felt stuck.
Then James Franklin walked through the door, and things started moving fast.
The former Penn State coach went 104-45 in 12 seasons in State College, cracked 10 wins in six of them, and took the Nittany Lions to the College Football Playoff in 2024. He signed a five-year, $41.75 million deal in November, pulled the recruiting class from the 120s to a top-30 class by signing day, and built what ESPN ranked as the 15th-best transfer portal class in the country.
So what does the ceiling look like if everything actually clicks?
There is no ceiling conversation without Ethan Grunkemeyer. The redshirt sophomore transferred from Penn State in January, and his story is worth understanding. When Drew Allar went down with an ankle injury last fall, Penn State handed the keys to a 20-year-old backup who had never started a college game. Grunkemeyer did not blink. He completed 69.1 percent of his passes for 1,339 yards, eight touchdowns, and four interceptions, posting a 75.0 QBR. Over the final four games, he threw six touchdowns and zero interceptions and closed the year with a 22-10 win over Clemson in the Pinstripe Bowl.
He is not walking into a new offense. He reunited in Blacksburg with offensive coordinator Ty Howle and quarterbacks coach Danny O’Brien, the same staff he had at Penn State.CBS Sports ranked him sixth among ACC quarterbacks in March. What makes Grunkemeyer interesting is not the stat line. It is the end of his 2025 season, when the moment got big, and he got better. Virginia Tech needs that guy.
The piece that could make this offense genuinely hard to defend is tight end Luke Reynolds. The Penn State transfer was the No. 4 tight end in the portal per 247Sports. At 6-foot-4 and 250 pounds, with a 4.5 40-yard dash and a 38-inch vertical, he is a seam-stretching mismatch at a position Virginia Tech has not had much of. He led all receivers in the spring game with five catches for 69 yards. Howle spent years developing tight ends in the Penn State system, most recently coaching Tyler Warren, who went No. 14 overall to the Indianapolis Colts in the 2025 NFL Draft. Reynolds has the tools to become the best player on this offense by October.
The other thing worth knowing is that despite going 3-9 last year, the Hokies averaged 182.4 rushing yards per game and ranked third in the ACC on the ground. The running game was already there. The problem was everything else. If the passing game catches up, this offense has teeth.
Then there is the strange but logical decision to bring back Brent Pry, the same coach who was fired in September, now as defensive coordinator. Pry held that same role under Franklin at Penn State from 2016 to 2021. He knows the system, knows what Franklin wants from a defense and knows how to build one inside this staff structure. The roster needed work and got some, with additions at edge rusher, linebacker and in the secondary. None of them are household names yet, but Pry has the pedigree to turn them into quality college football players.
The schedule sets up the Hokies for a strong start. Virginia Tech opens with VMI and Old Dominion at home, then travels to Maryland in a non-conference road test before opening ACC play at Boston College on Sept. 26.
What is the ceiling for Virginia Tech?
Nine wins and a major bowl game is the realistic ceiling for year one. It requires Grunkemeyer to take command of the offense, Reynolds to be what the spring game suggested and Pry to piece together a defense faster than most rebuilds allow. None of that is guaranteed. But none of it is far-fetched, either.
Franklin took Vanderbilt from back-to-back 2-10 seasons to nine wins in his second year. He went from 7-6 in his first two seasons at Penn State to 11-3 in his third. He is not a guy who needs forever to make something work.
Blacksburg has not had a reason to believe in a while. It has one now.
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(WSET) — More than a million Virginians are expected to hit the road for Memorial Day weekend — despite rising gas prices.
Right now, the state average is around $4.30 a gallon. That’s 50 percent higher than it was three months ago, before the war in Iran.
Right now, it will cost you $4.29 a gallon to fill up at the 76 on Langhorne Road. And prices could keep climbing, potentially making this the most expensive summer at the pump in years.
GasBuddy says the national average could hit $4.48 a gallon by Memorial Day, a big jump from $3.14 this time last year.
Prices may keep rising, averaging around $4.80 a gallon throughout the summer.
SEE ALSO: Veto halts bipartisan push to lower medication prices in Virginia
Despite this, experts say many Virginians are still willing to hit the road for the holiday weekend. They are just finding alternative ways to save.
Patrick De Haan, petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, said, “If you’re driving long distances, going 65 miles an hour instead of 75 can boost your fuel efficiency 10 to 25%. The equivalent of getting two gallons for free when you fill up.”
Unfortunately, there is no guarantee when these prices will drop. That is why experts say you should plan ahead and shop around. You can also save by filling up earlier in the week.
Instead of being supportive of the child’s educational endeavors or simply not responding, Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx chose this moment to respond with vitriol.
Trump and Iran’s mixed messages on end of war negotiations
President Donald Trump continues to say that negotiations to end the war are happening, while Iran officials deny any talks.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-North Carolina, taught a child a very important lesson. You’re never too young to learn that politicians will fail you.
Foxx made headlines in May when she responded to a 10-year-old Greensboro student named Christian Mango, who wrote to the congresswoman proposing a $5,000 tax credit for people buying electric vehicles. Christian sent the letter as part of a school project where the kids were challenged to write persuasive essays on topics of their choosing.
Instead of being supportive of the child’s educational endeavors or simply not responding, Foxx chose this moment to respond with vitriol, according to a letter dated May 1 that Christian’s mother, Emily, shared on social media.
“Please ask your teacher to explain propaganda to you,” Foxx wrote. “While I will never be able to know, my guess is that your teachers will not give you a good educational experience and help you learn to think, as they are too interested in indoctrinating you. How sad.”
This would be a wild response to receive as any constituent – let alone one who’s still in elementary school. Foxx – a former educator and the former chair of the Committee on Education and the Workforce – should know that the best answer to someone you disagree with is no response. Especially if the person you disagree with is a 10-year-old.
But beyond the embarrassing decision to respond in such a hateful way, there’s irony in Foxx’s response. She is clearly unable to see that the real “propaganda” in this country is coming from the mouth of President Donald Trump and members of the Republican Party. If there is anybody who knows what propaganda looks like, it’s the Republicans.
What is propaganda anyway? Here’s what Republicans have been up to.
In the interest of educating all of us, I decided to look up the term “propaganda” in the dictionary. According to Merriam-Webster, “propaganda” is “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumors for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person.”
What does that look like? Well, it looks like everything we’ve seen out of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party for the last decade.
“Propaganda” is Trump’s insistence that he is always right. It’s him putting his name and face on everything. It’s him lying about an election being stolen for years. It’s harming media institutions that call lies into question, calling them the “enemy of the American people.”
It is disparaging immigrants as the source of the country’s problems. It’s using extremist rhetoric in White House communications. It’s posting an AI image depicting yourself as Jesus.
It’s lying to Americans about an economy that is clearly flatlining, that you claim is the best it’s ever been. It’s making promises you can’t deliver on. It’s claiming that tariffs will save the country while costs are simultaneously pushed onto consumers. It’s claiming huge trade deals with China without elaborating on the details. It’s saying gas prices are down when they’re not. This is all propaganda, and it’s affecting the day-to-day lives of Americans who take him at his word.
The GOP has mastered propaganda. They have convinced their supporters that they are the sole saviors of the nation, that they are the only ones who can make America great again, while they’re aggressively making it worse. Meanwhile, educators in this country have to deal with attacks on their profession while making a dismal salary and teaching children that their voices can make a difference.
North Carolina deserves better than Virginia Foxx
Christian’s mother was rightfully angry about the letter in her Instagram post.
“This is a totally inappropriate response to one of her youngest constituents,” Mango wrote. “Clearly she is out of touch. I’m embarrassed that she represents NC.”
Unfortunately, the congresswoman has a history of embarrassing remarks and controversies. She once said that Matthew Shepard’s death was a “hoax,” for which she later apologized. She used a racial epithet on the House floor in 2009. In the aftermath of the Capitol storming on January 6, 2021, Foxx was fined $5,000 for failing to go through metal detectors to get to the House floor. She’s been a loose cannon, and this incident is not out of character.
I’ve long wondered what it would take for Foxx to lose re-election in North Carolina’s fifth district. It seems that, like Trump, no reprehensible comment or behavior is enough to warrant her ouster from Congress. But the people here deserve better than a politician who talks down to anyone she disagrees with. Lord knows they deserve better than someone who chooses to have beef with a fourth grader instead of doing literally anything else that would improve the quality of life in the state.
I hope this incident peels back the curtain and shows Foxx’s constituents who she really is. I just doubt it’ll make much of a difference.
In the meantime, I’m sure Christian and his mother will find comfort in the fact that Republicans are making sure kids everywhere learn exactly what propaganda is.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on Bluesky: @sarapequeno.bsky.social
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