This is a topic that I have never really given any thought to, because frankly Beamer has been the coach of the Hokies since I was 4 years old, but I was curious about the coaching situation heading into the bowl game.
With Fuente being officially announced as the next coach and already operating in that capacity (staff decisions, reaching out to recruits, etc), what effect does this have on the coaching and preparation for the bowl game?
Obviously Beamer is going to be on the sideline to coach his last game, but all of those extra practices leading up to it, who's system is going to be practiced? Seems to me it does little to no good to practice for a month an offensive system that is going to be scrapped when the game clock hits all zereos.
As I said, I have never given the matter any thought for obvious reasons, and havn't paid attention to similar situations at other schools.
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It also wouldn't make sense to change a year long process for just one game. If I remember correctly everything is being coaches the same and Fuente is just gonna be there to observe with little to 0 input
Thanks. To me that seemed like the most likely scenario but I wasn't sure.
There's another thread that describes this, and has a nice Venn diagram.
New coaching staff recruiting, old coaching staff coaching (and if they're on both, doing both). Fuente said he'd like to do some observing at practice, if he has time, but his main focus will be recruiting and player evaluation.
Per NCAA rules, the new coaching staff is not allowed to coach players until the old staff vacates. So your options are to practice the system in place and try to win the bowl game, kick out the current coaches and have the new coaches try to implement their system before the bowl game or have the old coaches make an attempt to start implementing Fuente's offense in the short time they have before the bowl. Only one of those is viable. Bowl practices this year are going to be just that: practices for the bowl game (and some general player development that always happens with practicing). This is not one of those years where the coach can use the extra practices to get a jump on next year.
As far as Fuente is concerned, he isn't inheriting this team until after the bowl and he can't start coaching up the players for real until spring ball.
First off, the defensive scheme isn't going to change much. And it is full of a bunch of young guys who can definitely benefit from the additional practice.
And while systems can matter, football is still mostly about blocking, running, passing, catching, covering, tackling better than the opponent. Practice is better than no practice - regardless of system.