The James Franklin era at Virginia Tech started with a massive 73 to 3 victory over VMI on Saturday. The blowout was a stress-free celebration for the Hokies in Blacksburg. However, Franklin still had a major complaint about the officiating crew after the final whistle.
A head coach on the winning side of a 70 point game rarely has complaints. However, Franklin appears to have a completely warranted issue regarding a specific penalty.
"We got a penalty for high-fiving one of our members of the corps," Franklin said. "Not a huge fan. I don’t know why we can’t high-five somebody in the military; it seems somewhat un-American to me."
🇺🇸Virginia Tech’s football coach James Franklin called it “somewhat un-American”.
His running back got flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct after a TD—for high-fiving Corps of Cadets in the front row.
NCAA rules ban delayed or excessive celebrations and require the ball back to…
— NewsForce (@Newsforce) September 6, 2026
Unlike the NFL, college football maintains strict rules against excessive celebrations. Those rules are apparently applied without exception by referees. This remains true even when a player is simply celebrating with military cadets in the front row.
Virginia Tech running back Marcellous Hawkins Jr. was the player penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct. The flag was thrown just after he scored his third touchdown of the game.
Hawkins punched the ball into the end zone with just under 7 minutes left in the third quarter. He then ran over to a large group of cadets and high-fived several of them. That interaction is what ultimately drew the penalty flag from an official in the end zone.
NCAA rules prohibit any delayed or excessive act by a player attempting to focus attention on himself. College players are also required to immediately return the football to an official after scoring. Hawkins held onto the football while celebrating with the cadets, which likely contributed to the penalty.
Despite the penalty that Franklin firmly rejected, it was a dominant Saturday for the Hokies. Virginia Tech racked up 619 total yards on offense. Meanwhile, the defense held VMI to just 83 total yards for the entire game.
The Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets has a rich history that dates back to 1872. The university remains one of the few public schools to maintain an active cadet corps alongside a traditional civilian campus.
Here are the email subject lines capitalized like a book title for your outreach package. The first option is College Football Coach Calls Out Referee Over Penalty On Military High-Five. The second option is Virginia Tech Player Penalized For Celebrating With Military Cadets.
Here is the social media post perfectly formatted for Facebook engagement. Virginia Tech won their recent football game by 70 points, but head coach James Franklin is furious about an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. A referee threw a flag when a Hokies player simply high-fived military cadets in the front row after scoring, which Franklin rightly called out as entirely un-American.