Fuente Mulls Playing Time Adjustments Following Bristol Implosion

Of all of the issues that helped lead to Saturday's lopsided loss to Tennessee inside Bristol Motor Speedway, Justin Fuente sees the team's erratic preparation during the week as the chief culprit.

"There's a lot that goes into that and that's up to us to get fixed," Fuente said Monday. "Through our leadership on the team, through our coaching staff; we have to have better preparation. I wasn't happy with it during the week and I told those kids that, particularly early in the week. I'm optimistic that they'll listen and they've saw the results of that and we'll have a better week this week."

Senior OT Jonathan McLaughlin has been through plenty of practices, good and bad, and he certainly noticed a difference in how the team prepared prior to the mammoth matchup.

"To have a good Saturday, you've got to have a good Tuesday and Wednesday," McLaughlin said. "When we looked back through the film, we saw we didn't have a good Tuesday and Wednesday and that was (the) result on Saturday."

Fuente's bunch looked electric at times Saturday, but certainly had their fair share of sloppy moments with five fumbles on the night. When combined with those lackluster efforts in practice, the head Hokie expects that he'll adjust some rotations to compensate for those deficiencies.

"There's several ways to address all those things, one of them's playing time," Fuente said. "Ultimately, that's the biggest card that coaches have. Sometimes coaches' hands are tied a little bit with that, in terms of depth chart and that sort of stuff, but continuing to teach off of those things and understand why those things happened. When you look back at the film, as there always are in every game, there's a couple of them that we turned in that probably weren't great calls, but we certainly had plenty that we should not have had.

"A large part of that to me is handling your emotions. It's being able to stay in the moment and play the next play, keep a level head and understand that every action we have affects everybody else on the field. We addressed it at length yesterday. It's going to be an ongoing thing, something that we're absolutely going to get fixed, much like taking care of the football."

Yet, this week's depth chart has yet to bear out many changes — Wyatt Teller and Colt Pettit remain tied atop the position rankings for left guard, while Greg Stroman and Adonis Alexander will continue to split reps at CB.

But the biggest change this week is a continuation of one trend that emerged during Saturday night's contest; Kyle Chung has pulled even with last year's starter at center, Eric Gallo.

That move may come as a surprise to some, but it's not one for McLaughlin.

"Kyle's been through a lot of stuff; been through a lot of injuries and stuff," McLaughlin said. "We've all been playing well. Like Coach Fuente said earlier, the 1's and 2's get the same amount of reps in practice. The best five will play."

Chung and the Hokies will have a test on their hands with a stout defense as they open ACC play against Boston College. But how they end up handling the first loss of the Fuente era will certainly be something to watch.

"You can't hang with it," Fuente said. "You can't. You have to move on, good or bad. Great win or gut wrenching defeat, the next game is gonna be on you. In this business, if you can't put it behind you, then you're in for some tough times. We've got a tremendous challenge in front of us on Saturday. If we're all sitting around thinking about what happened last Saturday on Monday or Tuesday, then we're selling ourselves short. The other thing I would say is, to me, is let's evaluate how we played, win or lose, and let's teach off of that. For instance, we won the first week. Not particularly pleased with how we played and let's teach off of those things and try and get them corrected. We lost this last week; obviously plenty of things for us to get corrected.

"I try and look at it from a little bit more of a holistic standpoint of what we need to get fixed to move forward to the next game, whether we won or lost. That doesn't mean that I'm not in the dumps or upset when we lose. I am, because I feel like we should've, we had a great opportunity that we didn't take advantage of. I'm not taking anything away from Tennessee. We just had a great opportunity that, for whatever reason, we just weren't ready to execute at that level. That's a long answer to a short question, but you don't have time to mope. You've gotta pick up and get ready to go to the next one."

For Jerod Evans' first loss in the orange and maroon, he'll be doing what he always does to move past a tough result.

"Pray and talk to my dad," Evans said. "That's how I get over things. It's hard for me. I don't like losing, no competitor likes losing. It's hard for me to get over it, but my dad helps me get over it quicker than usual. I've been through some heartbreaking losses before."

Justin Fuente

OPENING STATEMENT:

"Before we begin, I do want to thank everybody that came to Bristol, particularly our spirit squad, our band, (and) the Corps (of Cadets). I thought that was really cool. I know they put in a lot of hours, long travel to get there and functions and all that kind of stuff. I thought they did a great job. Obviously the game didn't turn out the way we wanted it to. I think in retrospect you can look back and see obviously we made plenty of mistakes in all three phases of the game that we must get corrected in order to try and have success as we move forward. But I think you can also see that when we do things the right way, it looked pretty good. That's on us to get fixed as we move forward. We've got a huge challenge in front of us this week. We open conference play at home. Boston College, much has been made about their defense last year and so far this year. That is all well deserved. Fantastic front seven, great back end. We'll have a tremendous challenge, obviously. They've changed things up a little offensively. It's gonna be a great challenge for us in all three phases. Our kids are looking forward to it. They had a good workout yesterday. We're ready to attack the week."

ON NOT RECOVERING FUMBLES ON OFFENSE:

"First of all, I would say we're fumbling the ball too much. That's a fact. We must, it's not an option, get that fixed. That is the result of several things: one, we have to do a better job technically. Looking at the last two games, we talked about it with the team yesterday, there's some technical things there that we've got to get cleaned up, some emphasis that we've gotta do a better job. And then there's a little bit of toughness and selflessness that goes into holding onto the football. As far as recoveries, I haven't seen guys standing around. I haven't seen that. I've seen guys earnestly trying to get on top of it and guys chasing the ball when the ball's away. We haven't drawn as much focus on the recovery as we have eliminating the opportunity."

ON ESTABLISHING CONSISTENCY ON OFFENSE:

"That's the goal. When you play against somebody the caliber of Tennessee, the athletes that they have, there's going to be some give and take in terms of your execution level. They're gonna do some things that preclude you from executing because they've got their players in good schemes. My issue is with taking care of the football. I think if we can just do that at a much higher rate then our consistency will improve and give us better opportunities to be more consistent. You're right, we've had flashes of looking like it's supposed to. In my opinion, particularly last week, some of our sputtering was mired in taking care of the football."

ON IF TENNESSEE'S DEFENSE OPENED UP SOME THINGS IN THE RUNNING GAME:

"I felt like in general terms — there's exceptions to every rule, every call, all that kind of stuff — but during the game, I felt like in general terms they tried to play a little more two-high early and then played a little more one-high late with some pressure. Eventually we hurt that. We hurt it a couple times and got penalties, so we couldn't really get them out of it when we were sputtering there kind of in the middle because of some of our own execution, some of the penalties set us back. They were on plays where we were hurting them in their one-high stuff. And then eventually we got back to executing and hurting them a little in one-high and then they went back to king of mixing it up back and forth. It was different sections of the game."

ON TRAVON MCMILLIAN'S DAY:

"Well he did (get some rhythm), he had a nice long run. Isaiah (Ford) did a good job with the crashing corner into the boundary, got him pinned. We handled the movement up front, the ball bounced (outside). Jerod (Evans) carried out his fake and held the safety, which gave Travon another half-step around the edge and we hit a long run on them. The thing I would say is that's a perfect synopsis of where we're at. That's a really (well) executed play. And then the first drive of the second half we have another well executed play and we fumble the football. To me, that's the give and take that we're in right now that we've gotta get past in order for us to be the type of team, or have a chance to be, the type of team we wanna be."

ON IF THE CENTER NEEDS TO BE AN ESTABLISHED STARTER TO BUILD A RAPPORT WITH THE QUARTERBACK:

"Well, I'll tell you how we have it all structured. We have the exact same amount of reps for the 1's as the 2's in everything we do on offense. Scout work, we don't scrimmage now, but scrimmage work, all that sort of stuff. As you go through the season, those 2's become your 1's. That's just how it goes. We would like to have, or be in sync with that. I don't know if you asked Jerod when he was up here, but those guys get plenty of reps together. I don't see that as a huge issue. I certainly don't want to be shuttling them in and out every play. That's not ideal."

ON IF THE FASTER TEMPO HAS A CORRELATION WITH FUMBLING:

"I don't think so. When I look at it, I see it as kind of what we've talked about, there's some technique involved and there's some — you've got to be less selfish, more selfless, and a little bit tougher. I think I see this as we've gotta do a better job. You could go back to say if your run, you have a better chance to fumble the football if you run 90 plays as opposed to 60 plays. That's obvious, but I don't see that as a deal. It hasn't been in the past."

ON HOW BENEFICIAL IT IS TO HAVE COACHES ON STAFF WHO KNOW SCOT LOEFFLER:

"Obviously Coach (Bud) Foster and Scot (Loeffler) practiced against each other for three years. There's some familiarity there. There's some familiarity every week in college football the way video is. There are very few secrets. Obviously not every week do you play the guy who was the offensive coordinator the last three years at your school. Obviously he has some familiarity personnel-wise. I would say those two coordinators, being Bud and Lefty, have some familiarity with each other. There's some give and take in that deal."

ON WHAT HE CAN TAKE OUT OF THE FIRST TWO GAMES TO GET READY FOR BOSTON COLLEGE:

"I think we certainly know the things we've gotta address in order to give ourselves a chance to have success. One is we've gotta be a much more disciplined football team. Maybe the most disappointing thing the last two weeks is our lack of discipline. (That's) something we pride ourselves on, I've always tried to have our teams pride ourselves on. That's not to say there won't ever be penalties, but we have been inadequate, to say the least, there. And obviously taking care of the football. I think we have some clear things that we've gotta work on. Maybe a little better working knowledge of the mental state of our team and how they react to situations moving forward."

ON IF HE'S HAPPY WITH THE DEFENSE THROUGH TWO GAMES:

"Yeah, I've been pleased with the way we've played. I think we've put them in some bad spots and (they) continue to try and respond. Played a pretty athletic squad last week that made tackling difficult at times because of who they were. But yeah, I think we continue to get better and continue to improve. I like the way we're going. To me, it's focused on, there's nothing schematically or teaching-wise, it's can we create takeaways, can we take care of the football, and can we be disciplined. If we can do those things then we'll have a chance."

ON GREG STROMAN'S PERFORMANCE:

"He was in great position, gotta make a play on the ball. They're big, fast (receivers). We'd love for Greg to make the plays in the position to make the play, just gotta go up and get the ball on the ground."

ON THE DECISION TO GO WITH STROMAN OVER ADONIS ALEXANDER:

"We trust Greg with all (of) our calls. He's a very dependable guy. Adonis is still getting better. I don't say that in any negative light towards Adonis, but Adonis has to keep improving so we feel comfortable putting him out there more."

ON THE ISSUES WITH MUFFED PUNTS THIS SEASON:

"First of all, we've addressed those situations since we started camp. The one in the Liberty game, our guys did exactly what we asked them to do. Greg identified the short punt. Curtis (Williams) saw him identify it, because we ask them to see the punt returner. That's the only way they know where the ball is. He saw him; as soon as he saw him point, he started to peel off (his block) and it nicked him. So the Liberty one was, they did what we asked them to do. Last week was poor. You've got to see the returner. Greg's trying to point it out and get over there and the returner is the one that tells us where the ball is, because obviously you can't block your man looking for the ball. Got to be better there."

Jonathan McLaughlin

ON IF KYLE CHUNG HAS STOOD OUT WHEN HEALTHY:

"Most definitely. I think all the young guys have potential. We need everybody ready to play, not just one person."

ON IF HE FELT THE LINE TOOK A STEP FORWARD AGAINST TENNESSEE:

"Most definitely. We did some good things and also did some bad things, but the worst thing of it all, we lost the game. We wanted to win the game. We have to take a step forward and get ready for Boston College."

ON HOW HE PLANS TO HELP GET THE MORALE OF THE LINE UP THIS WEEK:

"At this point, you don't have a choice. They need to know that it's time to go. This is ACC play and with the leaders on this team, we're gonna do a great job on Tuesday getting everybody ready, getting the energy up for practice. That's where it starts, Tuesday and Wednesday practice. Not on Saturday, but Tuesday and Wednesdays. When everybody knows that, then we'll have a good chance."

ON WHAT STOOD OUT TO HIM PLAYING FOR SCOT LOEFFLER:

"He was a great coach. Anytime you have a coach in this league in the ACC, he's gonna be a high quality coach. Loeffler's now at Boston College and we now have Coach Corn (Brad Cornelsen). New year, new coach."

ON WHAT IS DIFFERENT BETWEEN LOEFFLER AND CORNELSEN:

"They're both great coaches, I'll say that. They both coach in the ACC, so they've got good profiles."