​CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — New Virginia Tech coach James Franklin knows the Hokies’ proud history going back to the Frank Beamer era.Annual bowl bids. A trip to the national championship game. Special teams play so reliably good that it spawned the name “Beamer Ball,” and the beaten-up metal lunch pail symbolizing a blue-collar defensive ethic.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“You guys all remember that Virginia Tech,” Franklin said Thursday, “but none of the current players do.”That explains why Franklin’s arrival as the big-name hire after a dozen years at Penn State is about more than trying to win a few more games on crisp autumn weekends in Blacksburg. Rather, it’s an admission that the school must elevate its sports profile after years of seismic changes to NCAA rules and conference alignments. That includes raising more money and investing more in athletics in what the school has described as a “reset” to meet that moment, down to the recent hiring of athletic director Brian White and the ongoing search for a new university president.As always, the spotlight is on football with its revenue-driving role in college sports.“Even before the job was open, Virginia Tech I think had realized that what we had been doing for the last nine or 10 years hadn’t worked,” Franklin said during the Atlantic Coast Conference’s preseason football media days. “And there needs to be a commitment.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“And I think this a problem at a lot of places: does your expectations match your commitment?”Trouble seemingly arrived last fall with an 0-3 start that led to the September firing of Brent Pry as coach. Yet the issues go back further, back to the gradual slide that began in the latter part of Beamer’s 29-year tenure followed by the inability of successor Justin Fuente to sustain the kind of success needed for national relevance.Yet as the Hokies ousted Pry, they also pointed to a need to reshape their athletics operations to complete with the ACC’s best in a strategy soon called “Invest To Win.”AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAnd changes kept coming:— By the end of September, the school’s Board of Visitors had approved spending an additional $229 million on athletics over four years.— By December, the school announced an anonymous gift commitment of $20 million, coming weeks after Franklin’s hiring.— In early June, school announced the creation of the “Hokie Ventures” nonprofit corporation to support athletics with investment and revenue generation, followed by the announcement of a $75 million gift with the majority earmarked for athletics.— And late last month, the school hired White away from Florida Atlantic as its new AD.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“In our world, it’s a national conversation: ‘Man, Virginia Tech, they’re putting all their chips in,’” White said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. “That’s something you want to be a part of.”Th