Virginia Tech Post-Game Quotes That Matter From James Franklin After Old Dominion Win

BLACKSBURG — Virginia Tech football swooped past Old Dominion 44-21 Saturday afternoon to move to 2-0 for the first time since 2021. Here are the five most pertinent quotes from head coach James Franklin after the Hokies' 23-point victory.

A good afternoon in Lane 🙌#LetsGoHokies | @PenFed pic.twitter.com/p10ellJLdt
— Virginia Tech Football (@HokiesFB) September 12, 2026

No. 1: Quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer shined in Saturday's victory, and Franklin delivered praise on the signal-caller.

Starting quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer was 27-of-35 for 296 yards and two touchdowns, though he was sacked three times. The junior's 310-yard effort was the first time in his career that he passed the 300-yard mark and it was the most passing yards in a single game for a Virginia Tech quarterback since Ryan Willis' 344 against Boston College on August 31, 2019 (35-28 loss). Grunkemeyer's 327-yard total was tied for the 14th-most in a single game for the program since at least 1987.

"I think the combination of Grunk, [Que'Sean Brown and Luke Reynolds] is problematic," Franklin said. "... We've got to continue to build on that."

No. 2: Virginia Tech's defense was swarming.

In the first half of the Hokies' victory, Virginia Tech accrued eight tackles for loss, forced four fumbles and notched five sacks. In total, the Hokies secured seven sacks of Old Dominion starter Quinn Henicle and they stymied the Monarchs' run game, holding ODU to only 39 rushing yards discounting a 76-yard rush from Henicle in the fourth quarter.

"If you look at the stats when our starters were on the field, I think they're going to be pretty impressive, and our whole thing with [defensive coordinator Brent Pry and defensive line coach Sean Spencer] and our time together has been about being disruptive and getting people off schedule and getting them into obvious passing situations," Franklin said. "I think you guys got a chance to see today what we've been talking about, our edge players as well as our D-tackles and how disruptive those guys can be."

Virginia Tech also held Old Dominion to a 4-of-13 clip on third-down efficiency and dominated time of possession, holding the ball for 38:24 to ODU's 21:36 — including 11:01 in the final quarter.

No. 3: Franklin wasn't completely pleased with Saturday's effort.

Virginia Tech was outscored in both the third and fourth quarters, allowing 15 points to Old Dominion while scoring 10 itself. Henicle completed four passes that went for over 30 yards, including a pair of 34-yarders to wide receiver Josh Rodriguez (sophomore under NCAA's new eligibility rules). The Hokies gave up the aforementioned 76-yard rush to Henicle, and they were handed six penalties for a total of 32 yards. Offensive lineman Montavious Cunningham was also ejected after an unsportsmanlike conduct foul.

"[Cunningham] was getting hot earlier in the game, and I already addressed it with him," Franklin said. "There was some stuff back and forth, but but he lost his composure at that moment, and we call we call them selfish penalties. After the whistle, when you've got a personal battle with somebody, and you allow that personal battle to be put in front of the team, now our team is is is going to face adversity because of it. So the thing that bothers me the most is we had addressed it earlier in the game, and then it happened again. So we got to be better in that area for sure."

Franklin mentioned that Cunningham got up in front of the team and apologized afterwards.

"We make mistakes, all of us, myself included." Franklin said. "When you make a mistake, you man up to it, you own it, you take responsibility and you move forward. ... We'll learn from it and move forward."

While the point was moot against the Monarchs — Virginia Tech entered the second half with a 28-point lead — it is a point that will become more prescient as the Hokies take on tougher opponents. Old Dominion ranked No. 90 on ESPN's SP+ metrics entering the game, the third-lowest of Virginia Tech's 2026 opponents — behind only Boston College (No. 98) and VMI (No. 408).

No. 4: Luke Reynolds was an omnipresent fixture Saturday, logging his first triple-digit receiving yards game.

Reynolds finished Saturday's affair with the first triple-digit receiving yards tally of his career, accruing 108 yards on eight catches. Per Tech Sideline's David Cunningham, it was the first 100-yard receiving game for a tight end since James Mitchell in 2020 against North Carolina.

Another Ethan Grunkemeyer -> Luke Reynolds connection, this one for 21 yards. He's got seven receptions for 105 yards today.

Last #Hokies tight end with a 100-yard receiving game: James Mitchell at North Carolina in 2020.
— David Cunningham (@therealdcunna) September 12, 2026

"When you got a tight end on one side and a slot receiver on the other, that's difficult for a defense to stop," Franklin said. "If you got one guy, there's ways schematically to take that guy out, but when you got a guy on either side of formation, that's challenging."

No. 5: Franklin lauded the transfer portal's positives for getting players that chose to be at Virginia Tech.

Over 50 players have entered the Virginia Tec football program for this season; nearly 30 of those were transfers into the program.

Players such as Grunkemeyer, Que'Sean Brown and Jaquez White arrived in Blacksburg with no previous ties to the program, but have quickly been entrusted with significant roles. For Franklin, that appears to be one of the benefits of constructing a roster this way: There isn't much convincing required about the direction of the program when many of the players in the locker room specifically chose to become part of it.

"I think one of the positives [with the portal] is every single player in our locker room and in this team meeting room, they chose to be here," Franklin said. "I think there's power in that because you don't got to do it. You you get to do it. You chose this, right? So the reality is, coaches, we're just holding them to who they say they want to be, and that's our standards, and that's what we we drive them on every single day to try to be the best we possibly can and get better every single day."

Virginia Tech football will next travel to College Park, Md., to take on Maryland on Saturday, Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. ET (TV: either FOX or FS1).

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