You are not, obviously...you are a message board poster. But you, my friend, out there reading this drivel, are a rare breed. You understand. You read this and other VT related sites every day. You get that VT has achieved unprecedented heights under Frank Beamer... a man that took a program that had only earned, historically, a pair of bowl games and top 25 rankings, to one that seemingly always had top 25/top10/major bowl game implications. We were the shit for quite a while, my friends, and have had to, cough, merely deal with junior bowl games lately.
If you are Fuente, do you ride the current goodwill and modest expectations, and hope to build the program to new heights slowly? Do you put inordinate amount of game planning/trickeration into, say, shocking Notre Dame for national exposure? Are you audacious or conservative? Do you try to focus on each game as they come, or circle the calendar for a win with maximum ink? Do you think, "Whatever I do, I have to keep the bowl game streak alive", or do you just say, "I'm going to do things my way, tear the whole thing down, and start from scratch come hell or high water?"
It has to be hell walking into this job. How would you handle it?
Comments
Good questions. I would try to exceed expectations. I play as conservative of a game as possible against LU, then completely flip the script to mind-fuck the Vols in Bristol to give them one of the most sore and embarrassing losses known to that region of the country. I mutilate ND. I am audacious. Or conservative. If you're the opposition, you'll NEVER know. I focus on each game AND circle the calendar as WIN. I keep that bowl streak alive. Except, as the new HC, I make that bowl streak my bitch.
As Fuente, I keep proving that what I do wins. I do what i did at Memphis but in a larger scale, with a bigger platform. If I do that I don't need to worry about inking shocking wins, because my system will give me those. I keep on a defensive genius to give me even better chances at the w's. Won some conference championships, bowl games, maybe get into playoffs.
Then I decide if I want to stay or go to a blue blood.
Then I decide if I want to stay or go to a blue blood.Then I stay for 20+ years and make us a true blue blood, with multiple national championships and legendary status.
whoops. good catch!
You play to win the game. Every game. Anything else is a gimmick not even worth consideration by a serious head coach. That's what made those comments about "exhibition games" or whatever so disappointing and evident that Beamers time had come to an end.
Thanks for shattering my dreams...jackass.
Fuente doesn't have the luxury of time. Whit isn't going to sit idly by and wait out a slow rebuild, especially as the fans and boosters get antsy. At the very least if we don't make the ACC title game within 4 or 5 years, I could see the program looking to move in another direction.
Apathy was already setting in at the end of the Beamer era. There is hype now, but a season or two of 6 win football under Fuente and things could devolve fast. He needs to take what we have and make it a winning program. That's what he was brought in to do.
It's not apathy at the end of the Beamer era, it's exhaustion. I've been jumping up and down for over twenty years and I want one year where we achieve something more than foreplay. I think a climax is long overdue. I love Beamer as much as anyone, but sometimes you just wish you could win the lottery once as improbable as it is.
oldcorps, did you happen to pick up a prescription today??? lol
Win. Every. Game.
Sounds like a musical, "climb every mountain, win every game". Sorry, bourbon makes me musical. :--)
Think you have to key off certain key matchups that will tell just whether we have the talent the "kool aid" fans think we do, or if we lack the talent the "we been sleepin" fans think we have.
From there you adjust based on what you have to play with. The great thing is we have pretty good default plans, pretty good default coaches to execute against them. Bad thing is we don't know how much talent and how much matchup problems we have.
I'd love to say that we are going to go balls to the wall, but I think I'd have to honestly think we are 5% talent and 5% folksy. We need to convert the 5% folksy to talent, which I think Fuente will do. But we need to find another 5 percent in order to find the matchup differences we're going to need against T, ND.
Gotta give the guy a few years. He is recruiting matchup nightmares. These kids will get the ball and be able to show. Its gonna happen, but its gonna take a bit.
You devote more thought to your replies than you moniker would imply.
Like any good leader in a big job, you have to do multiple things at the same time. I plan and prepare to win every week, I put my best product on the field and do everything possible to win the next game. I also build a program very deliberately by working my system to bring in new talent and maximize the potential of those we already have. I also pay attention to building my coaching team, new people, new personalities require constant communication and hard focus on the common goal. I also pay attention to the politics and build important relationships at the University and in the community. Resources flow through shared understandings and common goals. It's a big job, no doubt, with lots of moving parts so I also pay attention to my family, as they are my source of energy and the grounding of my values and I need that first and foremost to be successful. Good luck coach you seem like the kind of guy to pull this off, I see why Whit herd you now.
I already know how to ride, but I just got a bigger, stronger, faster horse and a pretty favorable post position...I ride to win the race with all the confidence in the world.
Well put. As the British say, here here.
Or as we say to the French:
1) you make sure VT continues to beat uva - especially this first year
2) do whatever it takes to win 6 to keep the bowl streak going in your first year
3) make sure your offense looks considerably better than the opponent's in the bc game
4) plan for any major tear down / rebuild in year 2/3 when the fan base has embraced you and you have a year or 2 with your own recruits and coaches.
Going 4-8 this year with a loss to bronco is going to leave a lot of people questioning if CJF is out of his league. I think he needs to ease into it this year and then do whatever he wants starting Dec 2017.
I look at how close we were in 5 of our losses last year and think to myself, if we only had an offense that ran a play that the defense didn't know was coming before the OFFENSE did! I think we will have that this year. These kids put upswing Leftys BS for 3 years and were in the game at the end most of the time. For what Fuente is getting paid, I expect to come in no less than second in the Coastal with the talent we currently have. I am one that thinks 2017 will be worse than this year because of key personnel losses (Ford, hodges, TMac, probably Teller.) We are sucking wind on OL for 2017 and 2018 unless we pull in some studs this year.
I don't think McMillian has a chance to leave unless he picks up where he left off last year and some. If McMillian plays well enough to leave early for the draft (let's say to be projected top 4ish rounds), I'd expect VT to make it to Charlotte. I could definitely see the rest moving on if they put up good numbers.
1...2...3... "YOU ARE FUENTE!"
But, if "I AM FUENTE!" (that is fun to say), I'd keep what was working (Foster), install my "system" as soon as I could, and win as many as possible. To do any different would be dishonest and not sustainable.
This year there is not time to do anything other than teach the system, and bring blue collar mentality back. I believe that is more than enough to get a bowl and the extra practice time, which is minimum for this year. Next year, when most of the starters know the play book and are accustomed to the pace, is when you have time to work in a special bag of tricks to pull of that one win that makes a statement and proves we can win it all to the fans and recruits. Bring up the level of recruits for a few years doing that, and the definition of the big win gradually gets to the ACC championship and/or playoffs.
Go for broke, on first year expectations we have everything to win and nothing to loose, so try everything in the book. Just like life, you only have one, so try to make it memorable, and if not memorable, at least fun.
Have to have marquee wins. Have to beat rivals consistently. Can't lose to lesser teams. Have to find that guy (or a few guys) that turns a solid team into a contender.
There is no reason to not go for broke against TN. I really think our defense can hang with them. I want to see the O challenge that TN D. Pound that rock then jet sweep to Ford or Phillips or McClease even!
The defense really hasn't shown recently that they can be trusted. I'd like to gain that trust back first before assuming anything.
Dude, we're so damn spoiled...
TRUST (noun) an unhealthy reliability of the Hokies to force one phase of their team (Defense) to both shutdown and outscore the other team (minimal help can be obtained for scoring from the Special Teams and Punt-Waiting, although the points scored on Punt-Waiting must come on the exceptional efforts of freakish athletes or on broken plays only, as the only stated purpose of Punt-Waiting is "Ball Control")
BALL CONTROL (noun) one man's job security. When applied directly to the forehead, may last for up to two decades
ARR-FENSE (noun) some fuckin' mythical unicorn/fifth-element shit, I dunno. We just got a truckload of it. Perhaps treated best like a shiny new firecracker; light the fuse, stand back... See what it does
Our defense would look a lot better if it was bolstering up an offense that could consistently score points and gain yards. You can only be behind the 8-ball so many times before it crashes down on you.
TOP favored the offense in recent years despite our offensive ineptitude.
Yes and no. Overall, yes it favored us... barely. We won TOP in 7 of the 12 games we played. In those 7 games, we had a record of 5-2. In the games we lost TOP, we went 1-4, with the one win coming against LOLUVa. And in these games, just eyeballing it, but I'm going to say 2/3 to 3/4 of the drives we had on offense did not pick up a first down.
So yes, having an offense that could consistently pick up yards and score points would be a massive improvement over the ineptitude we've seen over the last decade or so.
When you you use up the clock on every play trying to get the right personnel in the right spot, it uses a lot more time than you opponent uses running a play every 20 seconds. That metric is not as valuable as it used to be - I now prefer number of plays. Of course TOP tends to skew to the winner any time one team gets way up and starts milking the clock, but they were winning before they ran up the TOP.
Here's the thing, though.... we suuuuhuuuuuuuucked at churning clock last year. When we won TOP in a game, we tended to win it outright, and late in the games, the numbers started skewing back to the opponent because our 3 and outs barely lasted 80 seconds on average (and believe me, there are a lot of 3 and outs). And in the games we lost, late in those games, the scoring drives more times than not happened fairly quick, generally in just around 2 minutes. And when they weren't scoring, our defense was getting them off the field pretty fast. I don't have the time to do an in-depth look right now, but it doesn't really appear that there is any noticeable swing one way or another late in the games we played last year, and the games we won or lost TOP was true to the overall flow of the game.
Counterpoint -- what does the TOP for Oregon and Baylor look like over the last four years?
Example 1 -- a team goes three and out. However, all three are running or short passing plays that used up the majority of the play clock. 4 plays, 2 minutes, 0 points.
Example 2 - a team makes a 50 yard completion on first down, plays hurry up, gets a 20 yard running play for a touchdown. 2 plays, 40 seconds, 7 points.
I remember being excited about the Loeffler hire due to the "system" he embraced and it sounded like having a system would be a great improvement.
It's a complicated system, though and he didn't have the long-term guys in place to make it function right. It seems like when Motley came in against OSU, it was clear we weren't getting the 1 year timeout we needed to bring the backup up to the level we had our starter at.
On the other hand Bud seems to come up with a pretty effective defense no matter what kids he has to work with. The "QBs always running on us" criticism is legit. Ruffin McNeil knew it and they suited up the sacrificial backup QB and beat us with him.
Still, if you're going to have to give up a weakness to the other teams offense, abusing their QB would be the one you'd pick. It's surprising nobody's QB gets injured against us, but it's really a desperation option unless you're GT or Clemson.
The airplane ride Matt Johns got when he slowed up in front Stroman is kinda what I'm talking about- reasons the opposing offense is actually in a tight spot when a kid the size of the kicker has to go do the RBs job.
We're frustrated with QBs running free on our fairly green defense, but there's a lot worse situations to be in with those 11 kids on a football field. Some weren't quite ready to contribute, but with the manageable assignments they had they kept the other offense fairly predictable.
I can't begin to offer an explanation for the Bowl game
If I'm Fuente, then there's only one thing to do
I do everything that Fuente has done thus far. I spend the entire off-season talking about how thin the depth is, how it is going to take time to build, and I keep everything under wraps by providing no access. There is no reason to build the team up externally, regardless of how true the aforementioned may be, and give opponents any more reason to respect us. I want UT, ND, and UNC marking us as chalk on their calendars.
Come September, I try to pull a Tom Herman.
I become the first team to ever go 15-0 and win the national championship. Pretty simple really.
My priorities would be:
1) Get to the ACCCG. This establishes a credibility in "big boy football."
2) Pick up a W against either Tennessee or ND as your hallmark win. Can also be substituted for a W in the ACCCG.
3) Land a 5* recruit. Just one. Prove you can recruit. Get some national attention and use that momentum for 2017.
4) Hang an alltime high of points on UVA. Make sure Bronco knows his place.
your last one is my favorite
I'm sure by the time that game comes around Fuente will understand fully that the most important game on our schedule every year is the in-state rival. He should set out to make a point. If we beat them down 77-0 I really don't care how the rest of the season goes
I think it may actually be one of the most important ones. UVA has been down for a while but there's a bit of buzz and hope. If we turn this into the 3rd coach to fail in recent memory, high schools have to take notice of that. Claiming your territory is important and an all out UVA collapse would be great.
not sure why beating a terrible in state team is our biggest game of the year. It's an expectation nothing more.
I'd much rather put an end to Miami's beatdowns of us or get a win up at Pitt for once.
Because a loss now, with two new coaches in state, shifts the whole narrative of the rivalry and brings wind back under UVA's wings. It was an expectation under Beamer. You need to reestablish everything as a new coach.
Agree one hundred percent. We have our foot on their throats and we absolutely cannot afford to let them catch a breath. Not all of our victories have been beat downs, but they have been victories, and most Hokies really want that streak to continue, regardless of how the rest of the season shakes out.
how did beating them for this long in a row help us? It's thinking too small IMO to say beating UVA is our biggest game. Beating Tenn or ND would do much more for us from a national perspective and our recruiting footprint needs to expand not just focus on VA.
i'd rather be 10-3 with a loss to UVA than 7-6 with a win over UVA. Anyday.
conversely, losing to Virginia would be far more damaging to us in the national perspective than losing to Tenn or ND.
Winning against Virginia is important. No question.
agree losing to UVA is worse than losing to ND or Tenn (we're expected to lose), but nationally no one cares about UVA.
winning every game is important, but beating a bad team isn't nearly as important for a program as beating a nationally relevant team.
but NOT losing to UVA is more important than NOT losing to ND or Tenn. I agree that beating a good team will do more for VT than beating UVA will but it is more important not to lose to UVA than it is to beat Tenn or ND
Agree with the first part, disagree with the 2nd. Beating a nationally relevant team is more important IMO than losing to a cellar dweller even if it's an in-state rival. I don't think Bronco is going to become a recruiting powerhouse unless VA suddenly has an all Mormon top 10.
If we hadn't lost 5 UVAesque games in 2014 we would have had a lot more going for us coming off of the OSU win.
The last part of your comment proves the point that you're disagreeing with. Beating Tennessee and Notre Dame, but ending up at 2-10 is not going to do anything for VT other than a few minutes of "WTF" on Gameday the following week.
While UVA itself may not be nationally relevant, our streak against our main in-state rival is. The last few years on Gameday, when they start talking about rivalries and dominating streaks, VT (and Beamer) were near the top of that list, if not at the top.
We don't have the 10-win streak anymore, we don't have a string of conference championships, and we don't have the winningest active head coach. Hell, we don't even have a streak against Duke. What we do have is a bowl streak (which really only means that we've kept ourselves at or above .500 for 20-some years), and the Decade of Dominance + 2. And what that streak against UVA proves is that they can't even beat us in our bad years.
but beating uva and going 2-10 means more? Tenn is also at the beginning of the year which you could hopefully capitalize on the recruiting trail early and often.
again what has our win streak over uva gotten us? Have we dominated in state recruiting because of it? Last I checked it doesn't appear to have helped with much other than us being able to make fun of UVA even more.
see, what irks me about this argument is that it's not an apples-apples comparison.
You need to compare going 2-10 and beating UVA vs going 2-10 and losing to UVA. I would MUCH rather go 2-10 and beat UVA than go 2-10 with a loss to them.
Certainly I would prefer to go 10-2 than 2-10 but that's not what we're talking about here. I would consider 2-10 to be a significant step backwards, which I'm arguing is more important to avoid. To me, losing to UVA is symbolic of a step backwards (or, a monumental leap forwards for them) whereas beating Tenn/ND would be a pretty big step forward for us. No body expects us to beat those two teams. Everybody (even most of UVA) expects us to beat UVA. If we lose games we're supposed to they're not as egregious as losing games we're supposed to win. In Fuente's first year, especially going against another first year coach at UVA, it is more important not to go backwards than it is to go forwards. Beat UVA. That should be near the top of his list of goals for the season. Beating Tenn/ND would be a nice bonus but it won't shake his foundation the way losing to the instate rival with a new coach would. If Bronco wins the first match-up that will breathe new life into the UVA program and make Fuente's building job more difficult. Losing to Tenn/ND are essentially insignificant occurrences in that regard.
Do I want to beat Tenn/ND? HELL YES I DO!!! Do I think it's more important in Fuente's first year to beat them than UVA? Absolutely not. Year 3? Maybe. By then, UVA might actually be respectable, hopefully Fuente will have established himself in his new position, and we should be ready for that next step. At that point I believe it could be argued that beating the big dogs becomes more important. But we're just not at that point yet. Stop the ship from sinking before trying to win the race.
In year one beating UVA is in line with shoring up the leaks and stopping the ship from sinking. Year 3 we can focus on beating the big dogs and winning the race.
What has beating UVA gotten us? No one seems to want to answer that question. Did we dominate in state recruiting because of it? Understand no one wants to lose to them, but it's not a pitch that anyone cares about apparently other than VT fans/students.
I don't want to lose to them either I just think calling them our biggest game is a joke.
I never once called it our biggest game. I said it's the most important one to win.
Tenn is most definitely our biggest game. ND would be a close second. But at this stage it is more important not to lose to UVA than it is to win against Tenn and ND. In 3 years, when Fuente is established, winning the Big games will be more important. But right now in the climate that we're in currently it is more important to avoid taking steps backwards than it is to take steps forward. You have to walk before you run.
Traditional rivalries die hard in the hearts of we older fans. VMI was our main rival when I first attended VT, but I was in the Corps at the time and it was, indeed, a real rivalry. In those days, UVA wasn't on my radar as a rival, although I already disliked the school for many reasons I'll not bother with here. Suffice it to say, it is about who we, as fans, dislike and want to beat more than any metric or statistic or hypothetical scenario you can present us. Since you don't feel that way, please leave us to decide for ourselves who we love to hate and just stop trying to twist our arms to your perceptions. I don't really think we all think UVA is always our biggest game of a given year, but it is one we just don't want to lose, period. You don't have to agree with it, or even try to understand it, but no, it is no joke. The dislike is deep seated and I, for one, absolutely revel in it.
In 2007, it got us into the ACC CG. In 2012, 2014, and 2015, it got us a bowl game.
In two of those years, it kept the same prize away from UVA.
A lot of clout within the state that our coaches have completely squandered with their inability to recruit. And its held UVa back, which is a good thing, because if they get any momentum over us, their ability to recruit in elite players within the state could snowball fast, at our complete detriment. Trust me, you do not want to see the VT-UVa status quo change, especially right now.
Intra-division, Intra-Conference, In-state rival, They might not be the biggest name on the schedule, but its absolutely the one game that is annually circled as a 'you cannot lose this game'. I remember that 2003 game when Schaub kicked our ass. I do not want to experience that again. And that one didn't even have conference title implications.
Add to that the fact that most UVers refused to acknowledge the rivalry for many years, insisting that their rivals were in conference, not OOC like we used to be. With that excuse rudely pulled from their arsenal, all that is left for them is to quietly seethe in frustration. Believe you me, they are really hoping for an end to the streak as much as we are hoping for a continuation.
got us into a bowl game last couple of seasons.
It's always better to be the big fish in the pond. I think that is the basic point. Don't lose that game because then it opens up a lot of questions, and validation for stupid shit like #HOOSRISING and gives fuel to douchebags that run programs like the thoroughbreds.
Be the big fish. Keep being the big fish. Start there.
Okay, let's return to the top of this thread. I stated 1) ACCCG, 2) Beat ND or UT, 3) recruits, 4) Beat UVA. I'm not arguing for a 2-10 season. We will need significantly more wins to get to an ACCCG. You're picking on the point that I mentioned last, and making it your primary argument. Let's return to step 1 and go from there.
gee I thought everyone had "2-10 season" at the top of their christmas wishlist /s
We clearly disagree and we'll just have to agree on that.
I just think it's more important not to take a step backwards than it is to take a step forwards. Obviously I would rather take a step forward than maintain the status quo but maintaining the status quo is better than losing ground.
So, we are addressing different things here. The UT and ND games are for national spotlight. The UVA game is for control of Virginia. I'm sure you remember that UVA, despite sucking down Zima and various cheeses at tailgates (which is an abomination to man, have a damn burger or brat for Beamer's sake), have been able to recruit some serious talent even with mediocre records. To me, a singular slip up tilts the narrative in Virginia for the 2018, 2019, and 2020 class that serious in state players should consider UVA over VT.
History doesn't matter in state when there are two new coaches. In all honesty, we got a lot of our recruits because Beamer was a legend to them. Fuente doesn't have that going. He was hot for a few year at Memphis and now it's put up or shut up time. New coaches can't rest on laurels. His bowl streak with VT is at 0. He hasn't won any ACCCG with VT. He's never beat UVA (unless we count the Memphis - BYU game because they won twice that night, the game and the brawl).
McGurk asked what I would do if I was Fuente. I responded what I would do. I don't think a Natty would be reasonable to say I would get immediately. I'm not going to avoid it, but if I win the ACC, I'm at least in the conversation to take my boys to the CFBPO.
I'd rather keep any and all momentum away from Virginia for as long as we can. We think recruiting in Virginia is hard now, just allow UVa to roll off a win or two over us and then see how difficult it becomes. Their recruiting pockets run much, much deeper than ours.
I think when it comes to recruiting, it's nice to be able to say you've won the state since...2003 (what's this 2010 people keep bringing up?) However, there's so much that goes on in recruiting that there will always be another angle LOLUVa can take to try to lure
chumpsrecruits. While I can't say how much weight it carries to say that generations of LOLUVa students have come and gone without knowing what it means to beat us in football, it's not something I want to give up either.The purpose of the thread is for us to say "You are Fuente", and I'm just not seeing that nearly enough.
You are Fuente. There I said it :)
And I am Spartacus!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8h_v_our_Q
True enough, but then again, talking about beating loluva is always in style.
Undeniable wisdom, my fellow senior Hokie.