As James Franklin reboots his coaching career atop the Virginia Tech program, the former Vanderbilt and Penn State leader is filling his inaugural Hokies staff with plenty of veteran coaches with previous head coaching experience.
Franklin, fired last October by Penn State and a 128-game winner in his collegiate head coaching career, previously added ex-head coaches Danny Rocco, Warren Ruggiero and Brent Pry -- the man he replaced at Virginia Tech -- to his initial staff in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Now, FootballScoop has learned, Franklin has added a fourth staff member with previous NCAA head coaching experience.
Multiple sources tell FootballScoop that Franklin has hired Josh Conklin to his Virginia Tech defensive staff.
Per sources, Conklin is expected to serve as a senior defensive analyst for the Hokies, who have turned to Pry -- Franklin's former defensive coordinator at Penn State -- to run the unit.
Conklin brings with him both the aforementioned head coaching experience as well as previous work in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
A two-time Southern Conference champion during his four-plus seasons at the helm of Football Championship Subdivision program Wofford, Conklin also had an extended stint at ACC resident Pitt, where he served as Pat Narduzzi's defensive coordinator and was a Broyles Award candidate.
Most recently, Conklin served on Deion Sanders's Colorado Buffaloes staff during the 2025 season; he was a defensive analyst under Colorado coordinator Robert Livingston.
A Wyoming native and former Dakota State linebacker, Conklin has additional coaching experience in the Southeastern Conference at the University of Tennessee in 2012, as well as a successful stint as defensive coordinator at Florida International University (FIU) and, earlier this decade, a two-year as special teams coordinator at Arkansas State under Butch Jones; there, Conklin helped the Red Wolves reach back-to-back bowl games.
Conklin has deep experience coaching in the defensive back-end; he was safeties coach at Tennessee, worked extensively with the secondary at Pitt, FIU and Arkansas State and also contributed in that realm in Coach Prime's Colorado program.
Franklin was hired atop the Virginia Tech program in early-November 2025, out of work just weeks after he was dismissed from Penn State amidst a 3-3 start to a season that began with consensus top-five national rankings and College Football Playoff Championship aspirations.
Since his hiring, Franklin has helped the Hokies sign the nation's No. 18 NCAA Transfer Portal class, per the industry-standard 247Sports Composite. Tech also surged under Franklin to the nation's No. 24 class of prep recruits last month, per 247Sports.
The Hokies are scheduled to open the Franklin era on Sept. 5, 2026, against FCS resident Virginia Military Institute (VMI), Rocco's former program that hired Ashley Ingram from NCAA Division II program Carson-Newman as its next head coach. Following another home game the ensuing week against Old Dominion, Virginia Tech travels Sept. 19 to Maryland -- the program that once named Franklin its head-coach-in-waiting but then saw him get the head job at Vanderbilt instead.