Pry

It’s not often that a head football coach at the Power-4 level gets fired and is on the staff the following year as an assistant.

But that’s exactly where Altoona native Brent Pry finds himself after being let go as Virginia Tech’s head coach in September and now is back as the Hokies’ defensive coordinator under James Franklin, his friend and former boss.

You can say misery loves company, but neither are miserable.

In fact, Pry is happy to reunite with Franklin as the DC and linebackers coach.

And he feels he’ll enjoy the freedom from all the head coach’s off-field responsibilities.

Now he can focus on Xs and Os, which is more his strength.

“Absolutely,” he told Virginia Tech media last week in his first availability since being fired/rehired. “I missed it in year one and year two. I thought I’d be in that defensive room more than I was able to. And then you’re not in there enough to feel you can impact it. This has been really refreshing. It’s a completely different job task, and I like it a ton more.”

His alignment with Franklin has eased the transition.

“Working with James for so many years was a real positive,” Pry said. “He knows me, and I know him. By the end of day one, working with James again felt really good and comfortable.”

After an 0-3 start to his fourth season and a 16-24 record overall, Pry was dismissed only to see Franklin suffer the same fate a month later.

The two had coached together for 11 seasons at Vanderbilt and PSU.

Franklin quickly made it clear he intended to return to coaching, and the opportunity at Tech — despite potentially succeeding his once right-hand man — made sense in an ACC that is more schedule-friendly than either the Big Ten or SEC.

“We talked a bunch — a little bit when I got let go and more frequently when he got let go, and the discussions often came back to Virginia Tech,” Pry said. “It took a little bit of soul searching to be at peace with it.”

Pry, 55, thought he could be comfortable but needed to make sure those closest to him – wife Amy, three children and Franklin — were, too.

“I wanted to be able to walk back in the building and be myself – be positive and be appreciative, and we got to that place,” he said. “As he (Franklin) was here, working through things, and learning about my experience and learning what people thought about me, he pictured it being positive and celebrated, even in a situation as unique as this.”

Pry, who was born in Altoona and still has relatives here, knows he’s been humbled, and Franklin wanted to be sure he could accept that.

“The humility that you have to have to walk back into this building as not the head coach, I think, is significant,” he said. “To walk by that office, or I call him into the office and have a meeting with him … I don’t know a lot of people that could’ve done that. I don’t know of too many examples in the history of college football where that has happened.”

In the end, though, Pry decided he could accept it. He said “I love Virginia Tech,” and added his family “loves Blacksburg and Blacksburg High.”

He will be reunited with some former Nittany Lion assistants, such as defensive line coach Sean Spencer, whom he teamed with to lead a PSU defense that averaged 40 sacks five straight years (2015-2019).

Before he committed, Franklin wanted to clear the idea of Pry’s return with the Hokies’ upperclassmen along with the school’s brass, which showed him the door with two-plus years (and an estimated $10 million) remaining on his contract.

“I also had conversations with the administration about how they felt about it,” Franklin said. “Would they be OK with it? One of the best things was that we had a team meeting, and I brought him in, and the entire room gave him a standing ovation, which is pretty cool. It was a pretty cool moment for him and for me.”

For those who know and worked with Brent Pry, this kind of a soft landing is nice to see.

Rudel can be reached at nrudel@altoonamirror.com.