Fuente promoted Adam Lechtenberg, former director of player development, to assistant head coach/executive director of player development.
"Adam has earned the opportunity to take on a larger role with our program," Tech coach Justin Fuente said in a release from Tech's athletic department. "I implicitly trust his judgment and skills as a talent evaluator. He shares my vision for the program and understands what we need to accomplish on a daily basis. Adam also knows the type of people and the traits of players who will help our team improve. I also have a tremendous appreciation for all the positives he brings to our coaching staff as a teacher and innovator. This expanded role allows us to take full advantage of Adam's many skills as our program continues to evolve."
Also, former player Justin Hamilton is taking Lechtenberg's old position.
http://www.hokiesports.com/football/recaps/20180130aaa.html
[Mod Update: Link to original HokieSports release. Update to more descriptive thread subject.]
Comments
Congrats coach! Best of luck to you!
Now....lets talk about that haircut...
That Hair Cuttery will get after ya.
Friar Tuck approves.
You tag line looks like an inappropriate caption. Just saying....
I burst out laughing at this
Hahaha. I didn't even notice that; nice catch.
This looks like a Modern Barber Shop special-are they still around?
That guy is gonna own the Raiders one day.
Time will tell whether or not it's a good hire. It's certainly not a splashy move though. The former matters much more than the latter.
I'm also interested to know why an in-house hire took as much time as it did to announce.
Maybe (and this is just my best guess), this was their fall back plan and they were trying to get somebody else that didn't pan out?
He's been with Fuente since Memphis. I wonder if they missed on some other coaches they were looking at and he was the Plan B. Looks like he is responsible for Tennessee, Alabama, and JUCOs.
I guess this means we will be taking all the good bama recruits now
It's certainly anti-climactic.
Who knows what was/is happening behind the scenes, but it's fair to say that waiting this long for an in-house promotion will be viewed as... underwhelming.
Beamer/Weaver were often KILLED for this "type" of hire. We'll see, interesting to see fan reaction.
Yes, but it isn't a Head Coach hire. You can "settle", if they did, on a 10th coach hire. You can't settle on a Head Coach or Offensive Co-coordinator either.
To me he is the kind of guy who won't be in the way. He knows what Coach wants and will see that it happens. While the other nine are busy on the field during the season, he can slip away and be that face-to-face Hokie presence with recruits and high school coaches.
If that's the case, then he DEFINITELY NEEDS A NEW HAIRCUT......unless he's recruiting The Three Stooges.
trying to sort out the salary structures would be my guess.
While I am glad to see real football news (it was starting to feel like the off season on TKP), I don't know enough about Adam to have a qualified opinion of this hire. Link talks about recruiting, so I assume Fuente thinks he's good at more than just talent recognition. Certainly hope this is more than a reward hire, and is someone who can help us move forward in recruiting.
This is going to disappoint the fans who thought some flashy up and coming coach was going to come to Tech for little to no raise.
You're correct, but that's the opposite end of the spectrum. The only on-the-field coaching/recruiting experience listed on his HokieSports bio is a two-year stint as the co-offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach at Central Connecticut State. I figured a hire in Tech's sweet spot would have been a coach with not necessarily Power Five experience, but on-the-field coaching/recruiting experience with a G5 program.
He spent 2016 at UT-Martin and recruited the same territory he's being assigned to now.
You are correct. Reading comprehension will get after ya. Even still, I believe UT Martin is FCS and the original point is valid.
True it is still valid. I just try to find the positive in it and wanted to make sure he got credit for that extra year of coaching!
This is pretty disappointing to me. No P5 coaching experience, no P5 recruiting experience, and not sure why we waited this long to announce when it was an internal hire. Maybe most worrisome is how other programs are bulking up their staffs with legit coaches, and we're doing this.
What P5 coach who was already a ninth coach was going to come to Tech to be the Tenth coach for same or less money?
When is a good time to remind people to join the Hokie Club? And why it matters?
I've given up, and with the new tax laws it's going to drop even lower.
Edit: To clarify I've given up on trying to get people to join the Hokie Club and why they should.
Our staff is paid fairly competitively given their level of experience. If we're paying a Safety coach with no P5 experience $308k, we can't complain that we don't have the money to make hires.
UNC hired Tommy Thigpen - a P5 coach since 2003, who has experience in the SEC and is very regularly on lists of Top 25 recruiters nationally. This is UNC. Not even a big time player in the CFB landscape.
Compare these two hires and please legitimize ours vs. theirs. We're going to have to stop making excuses and getting overly apologetic toward VT an all things recruiting if we want to win more than 9 games a year.
UNC brings in more money. It all comes back to money in the end.
I disagree. Money and decision making.
As I stated below, I think we could have made a more effective hire for less money - regardless of what this guy is going to make. That is concerning.
This is quite the claim. Have you done any research of what other schools are paying their new 10th coach? Can you name a more qualified recent hire who has received less or equal pay?
You could get a GA out of an established program, coming from a coach with a strong recruiting pedigree for $100k. That is not too rich for us, and a disservice to our fans to even suggest it.
If we're paying this guy anything over $80k, based on his experience alone, I think we could have done better.
So your hoping they picked up this great recruiters skills not by showing they have their own? Fuente trusts this guy to get the player Fuente wants. Your just looking for someone connected to a Big name.
Identifying talent isn't an issue with this staff. Getting players to come to Blacksburg is. This hire does absolutely NOTHING to address the outstanding issue we have with putting the best product on the field. This hire has no experience getting guys to commit, nor does he have experience in a program where getting guys to commit is the #1 or #2 priority, after winning a National Championship.
We had the opportunity to reach out, maybe learn a thing or two, get an outside opinion or some fresh ideas from someone who might be good at getting guys to commit. But we did not do that. We went the exact opposite, were lazy, and hired a guy who's only experience has been in the exact same ship Fu and half this staff have been in.
Asking and expecting us to make the best available hire does not mean we need a 'flashy name' or to spend $300k. We need to be as effective as possible, which I don't think we are. That's it.
I actually think Fuente has improved recruiting quite a bit since he got on campus and if he keeps improving the on-filed product, he will certainly recruit better in the near future.
Maybe this indicates Fuente doesn't think there is a problem in that regard.
Maybe, but that is subjective at this point. Beamer consistently recruited in the 20's his last 20 years as coach.
I think your judging this too harshly and/or without complete information. This could very well be someone who has shown promise, and Fuente wanted to promote him in hopes to keep him around. I also don't understand the value of hiring an outsider just to get 'new blood' into the program.
Edit to address your above comment:
I think you bring up a fair point above in bold. My only counter argument is that Fuente is in the process of building something and is proving that he and his staff can recruit. Schools/coaches don't just jump from recruiting top 35 classes to top 10; it's a process. Fuente's recruiting class ranking is rising each year. I understand that there are three(?) critical 4-star recruits we still want to land. It's possible that Lechtenberg has been a part of their recruiting thus far, and a promotion might help. It's also possible that there were 'better' options out there that we may/may not have attempted to land.
I just don't believe that (1) promoting from within is always lazy or (2) that an outside opinion is required.
technically Lechtenberg is a "former GA from a successful P5 program" he GA'd at TCU
TCU became a P5 in 2012. Lechtenburg was a GA there from 2007-09 when they were G5 and in the Mountian West.
Clearly Whit thought otherwise. That's a pretty assertive statement considering we don't know what led to Fu and Co. hiring this guy. If the 10th coach hire is going to make that big of a difference we were screwed from the start.
Also in the article - had they announced the time previously?
meanwhile UNC hired P5 talent who coached at Tennessee and Auburn and was 2013 Recruiter of the year.... I'm sure that dude has been in Dax's ear lately.. time will tell but not impressed
Who did they hire? 2013 recruiter of the year sounds absurd to be headed to UNC. Sometimes those recruiter of the year guys get bad reps for being shady though and end up bouncing around a lot.
Tommy Thigpen is NOT a shady guy. He's a very legit hire, and I mentioned this specifically in my post above. Even freaking UNC is making moves and we're still hiring buddies from Memphis.
Both Duke and UNC bring in more money and have more donors than we do. But nobody wants to acknowledge that.
So we can't pull a GA from a Bama, UGA, LSU, or OSU? We couldn't nab a proven G5 recruiter?
It's not just money.
I agree, money is huge on facilities and head coaching fronts. Not being able to scrape together another $75K-$100K for a solid assistant is not the money issue we are dealing with. We could've given a GA $150K a year and they would come running.
So they can show us how to setup bagmen to pay for our players services?
because its a lazy hire.. if we paid this guy anything over 60k then its even a bigger slap in the face.. You're telling me we can't find a G5 position coach or GA whose snagged some decent recruits and give him 100k to come in?
this guy has 0 coaching and 0 recruiting experience outside of finding walk ons at Memphis... this is supposed to help us how?
What GA is going to have recruiting experience? This uproar is getting out of hand. Is it a splashy amazing hire, no. Could it work with the system Fuente has yes. You want flashy amazing hires get everyone you know to join the Hokie Club.
That poses an interesting question, would Fuente have made a splashier hire if he had unlimited resources? I'm inclined to believe maybe. Fuente is a comfort zone guy. He's demonstrated multiple of times he's going to hire people he trusts, where more often than not trust was built with throughout a prior working relationship. Perhaps there was an assistant out there he was familiar with, trusted, but was outside the price range.
However, I don't think it's correct to conclude that given a pile of money, he would've thrown it at the biggest names on/off the market. It's not how he operates, which may or may not be good/bad.
So far, this theory is working well for the Avett Brothers.
I agree. Fuente has hired in his comfort zone on every assistant position so far. Even if we backed up the Brinks truck, I still don't think we would have gotten very aggressive with the hire. Very akin to CFB, for better or for worse.
Asking for a GA from a blue blood or a G5 coach with experienced is 'wanting a flashy amazing hire?'
WTF?
Converse of that..what recruiting magic is a GA bringing to VT's staff? An SEC GA is going to teach James Shibest new recruiting tricks? I doubt it. A G5 assistant from Ga Southern, or Ga State is going to give VT a huge recruiting boost or teach Foster new blitz schemes? nope.
A GA who worked under Urban, Kirby Smart, or Saban knows what you need to effectively recruit. Those guys all have approaches to recruiting that far exceed "..well it's Alabama..the name recruits itself." Just listen to some of their assistant coaches (or GAs) speak on the matter. Recruiting and our approach to recruiting has been the single weakest part of our program for years. Why not use this opportunity to freshen things up, try to bring on someone who may be able to teach the whole staff something? Bud doesn't need 'someone to teach him new blitz schemes.' He needs someone to teach him to get a guy to sign on the dotted line.
I said GA bc $100-120K would get one of those guys in the door. The truth is we DON'T need to go spend $300k on a 10th coach to improve things around here. The 'we don't have the money to hire someone to help us' is such a bullshit argument.
$150k would likely get us a position coach and solid recruiter from a G5 program. We've got the money for that. Make that hire.
Can anyone really look at this hire and say VT football is better off today than we were yesterday? I don't necessarily think so, but maybe? I don't know for sure, but I do think we could have made a reasonably priced hire that would have answered that question a lot more definitively.
VT has no problems- none- getting 3 stars to sign on the dotted line. A 26 year old GA is not going to close on Dax Hollifield- which is VT's issue in recruiting.
If you think our goal should be getting 3* players and additional, outside resources won't help our chances sign players and we're good with who we've got in-house, I don't believe we're going to agree on this topic at all, which is fine.
When UNC, NCST, and other mid tier programs, not even including the big dogs, are bulking their staffs to give them a much better shot at signing elite players, I'm not sure how you can step back and look at this hire and be okay with it.
We agree that recruiting needs to improve. We disagree that a GA level staffer is going to address the core issue with VT's recruiting, which is closing on Top 100 type players. We get visits and sometimes even commits from those guys plenty, but we don't sign many of them. This 10th assistant position does not address that AT ALL.
What about a GA who worked for Gary Patterson? (cuz that's what Lechtenberg did)
You want a GA who has zero experience because of name association period. Yes your looking for splash to say "Tech got its new coach from the Saban system or from OSU"
Isn't the whole point of the 10th coach that teams now have an additional recruiter? I thought GA's couldn't recruit?
should've spaced things better.. G5 position coach who snagged recruits or a GA from P5 school.. this is a mickey mouse hire
All support staffers can recruit on campus, write letters/call/text etc. they just can't go on the road
Their numbers will drop tho.. bc of the tax plan... ya know
I hear Thigpen is also an excellent test-taker, so this hire makes all the sense in the world to me.
Tommy Thigpen.. Was at Auburn ST+ LB Coach from 09-12 and then Tennessee 13-17 as LB coach.
Probably relevant to note he's a UNC alum as well.
And UNC Alum...which is key..I'm sure he took an alumni discount or just wanted to coach at "home". That is a key to the Thigpen hire.
nm
I think we're making way to much out of this hire. If we're going to close the deal on the recruitment of some 4-star or 5-star talent, it's probably not going to come from your 10th coach anyhow. However, I see that 10th coach doing a lot behind the scenes to make the recruiting machine work as smoothly as possible, and although this is not a flashy hire, Fuente and Co. must feel that the work he has done up to this point warranted a promotion.
The hiring from within thing promotes and rewards loyalty, which leads to continuity and was something Frank valued, and Justin appears to also value. It is not a bad thing if it's done correctly.
That Sesame Street character haircut tho...
In all seriousness...welcome aboard, Coach!
This is terrible. At least hire a support staffer from a school with excellent recruiting to bring in new ideas and approaches as opposed to hiring yet another former Memphis employee.
Fuente is big on talent evaluators, and that's exactly what he thinks Lechtenberg is (as he stated.) It's likely not going to be a popular move with the fanbase at first, but hopefully it pays off down the road.
But he already was a talent evaluator. All this does is let him go on the road to recruit.
Exactly, and that's the type of guy Fuente wants on the trail. Not saying I agree or disagree with it, it's just what he believes in.
I would have rather hired an experienced GA from Bama, UGA, or OSU...someone who's worked under a coach the likes of Saban or Urban, who can bring in some fresh ideas.
A support staffer from the days at Memphis seems like such a lazy hire.
Why would a GA from Alabama have any fresh ideas that would apply to the Hokies? If I'm an Alabama GA, I'm going into John John's living room with my national trophies, and list of first round NFL draft picks. Outside of the box thinking probably isn't real necessary.
This has nothing to do with recruiting strategies. When recruits come to campus they are there for multiple days. Even if they are just there 4 hours a trophy room tour takes about 2 minutes. They have all seen trophies. There are different strategies whether it involves mailings/activities for junior days/ how to make sure a number of prospects are hit/ how to keep coaches informed on recruits. There is a ton more to recruiting even for alabama than "here are my trophies"
Given our decision, I would've preferred to have hired Reamon. But hey, I don't make 3-4M a year to make decisions. I just sit on my couch and b*tch.
Damn that might be my new TKP tagline.
Quote me and it's yours.
Thanks, ChemE.
You've gotta use the line before it too, that's what makes it so good!
Yeah, not excited by the hire at all. I'm with the group who would have rather sniped someone off of a blue blood's support staff, but I fully expected this thread to be a full on shit show today.
All of the replies have been rational, whether they agree or disagree. If you want to see a shitshow, just go on VT Scoop (hint: don't go on it.)
Oh believe me, I know TKP is the best for many reasons, one is that our shitshows are so tame compared to the other boards much more prone to meltdowns.
It just seems strange to me that all of the things that Fuente stated about him as things he values and responsibilities he will oversee are things he could still do in his current position, like evaluate talent, manage scholarships, daily operations, etc. He didn't say "he has the qualities that make up a great recruiter", or "he has strong ties to HS coaches in Tennessee and Alabama", or "he would be a valuable coach on the sidelines making in-game adjustments."
Seems like a loyalty hire to me. Oh well, in
BeamerFuente I trust.This. We could've taken the probably $50-75K raise he got and given a support staffer with ties to Georgia, a place where we are picking up recruiting and has 40 4 star recruits in 2019, and given him $120Kish.
Admittedly, I am not thrilled. While I appreciate the importance of good working relationships on a staff and rewarding someone who is good at their job, I think he could have been rewarded by giving him a significant raise and keeping him as the recruiting coordinator. I wanted to see a P5 position coach with ties into the Charlotte/Rock Hill recruiting area. Coach L doesn't change the dynamic there, and while Justin Hamilton is a really smart good dude from my neck of the woods, his track record (his defenses were pretty horrible as a defensive coordinator at UVA-Wise and then being a position coach at perpetually bad VMI) doesn't give me warm and fuzzies.
I hope I am wrong.
The Justin Hamilton hire has me more curious than the Lechtenberg hire. It seems to be more of a fundraising move to draw in former players. I am excited for the former Greenwave and hope he delivers like Kevin Jones and Jarett Ferguson.
Also, has loluva announced their 10th spot yet?
Flat out bad hire. Some of the other names I had heard were way more encouraging (still not home runs mind you) but this may be the most disappointed I've been in this staff to date. Obviously you can't make a final determination yet, but hiring someone that was with Fu at TCU, Memphis, and VT and does not have any coaching or recruiting experience at this level is not what a high level D1 program should be doing. Hope I'm wrong.
Humor me and tell me what those other names were...
Lane Kiffin.
That's Joey Freshwater, sir.
Didn't hear anything substantial enough to feel comfortable saying it here. Mostly comments like "I think it it'll be someone in the mold of..." A few lower-level, young assistants at other schools in the region mostly. Our budget limits us to this kind of hire, but hiring someone from within baffles me.
Well apparently Hokie Club isn't robust enough to even begin considering VT a 'high level D1 program' so we should be happy we get what we get.
This made the thread for me. Thank you.
Someone didn't pan out. There's no way this was Fuente's first choice, especially when you consider the coach could be added on January 9th. Just can't see it taking them three weeks to make a decision to promote a coach if he's your first choice.
Duh, we weren't about to honor our offer to KJ Henry's dad after his kid signed with Clemson.
Should've brought back Lawson's dad.
I can understand making the 10th assistant an entry-level slot, but I seriously expected us to bring in someone with FBS experience who had proven themselves as a recruiter on the road, and someone oriented towards defense.
Lechtenberg's coaching experience is strictly offensive side (2 years as Co-OC & QB Coach, 1 year as Passing Game Coordinator & WR Coach) and strictly FCS. And he's not even associated with a specific position with his new duties.... instead we get a 2nd Assistant Head Coach
This really goes against conventional wisdom in a lot of ways. He must have made a great impression with his on-campus recruiting abilities.
Someone is a proven FBS recruiter is already on a staff as the 9th coach unless they were just fired. Why would they take what amounts to a demotion as the 10th coach for same or less money?
I mean jumping from the Sunbelt/Mountain West/AAC/MAC to ACC seems like a solid career move
But FBS assistants are leaving other schools to join new schools as their 10th coach. UNC, NC State and Maryland all hired coaches away from FBS schools so I think it is reasonable to expect us to do the same....especially when I think most would agree we have a better football program than those schools.
NC ST hired a about to be fired GT dc, Maryland hired a Marshal coach along with an FCS OL coach.
Those sound like objectively better hires than an internal promotion.
So which of those three should Tech have hired and what is he going to coach or are you dumping a current defensive coach? What can the Marshal DC and the about to be shown the door DC at GT going to bring to a Bud Foster defensive unit? Now people are just reaching. That FCS o Line coach used to coach here and didn't get kept with current staff. You might know his name, Stinespring.
I don't think anyone is saying we should have hired one of those coaches. Your initial argument was that we couldn't hire an FBS coach because they wouldn't take a demotion. I merely pointed out that other lesser schools are convincing coaches to do that, so not unrealistic for us to expect the same.
I think his underlying point is that we did not want another position coach - Fuente wanted someone to focus only on recruiting. This is a harder sell to someone trying to move up in the coaching ranks, as it is a less traditional position. You might move up a level, but you are moving down on the position coach to coordinator to HC ladder. Would someone about to lose their job somewhere else take it over being unemployed like in the situations above, maybe, if there were not other offers to be a position coach. But that assumes you wanted someone who was about to get canned elsewhere over someone you knew would work well with the current staff. Not saying I like the hire, but I see his point.
Being fired isn't a coach taking a new job and spurining his current employer it's his option to have a job next season, going from Marshall to Maryland or Stinespring going from JMU are promotions. The only legit example is UNC and that guy played there and coached there in the past. They are also paying him a lot more than 175,000 ALOT more.
#1 the 10th coach doesn't have to be the lowest on the pay scale / totem pole.
#2 G5 -> P5 generally means a raise
Are "proven" P/G5 recruiters guys taking these 10th positions? Yes, Thigpen example was given- but he is a UNC alum and one example. VT's recruiting "issue" isn't guys on staff that can identify and lay ground work for players anyway. VT's "issue" in recruiting is closing on guys like Henry and Dax- which this 10th coach is not doing, Fuente is doing. VT's program is at a point where it sells itself to 3 star players. We have never had an issue finding and signing those guys- which is what a 10th coach would be doing. Fuente is the one closing on the big time recruits.
I think reputation/prestige closes way more than a coach does, but maybe that's just me. Let's say Fuente and Saban trade places. I think Alabama still out-recruits Tech at least until we are consistently a NC contender
the fact that it's not a position coach is why we aren't going to attract a more experienced coach. I can buy going outside the coaching tree, but the kind of experience I would want to bring in isn't typically going to be the "nothing" coach.
my dream of the Grimm Reaper being the 10th Coach is dashed.....perhaps this is more in turn to focus more on the offense. He's background is pretty on the offensive side. Hopefully its a good move.
I hope that you all are forced to eat crow on this one. you want a splash hire for a 10th coaching position or someone with some kind of experience but hell. if we hired frank beamer from murray state right now most of you would be on here with pitch forks and torches. how do you become an "up and coming" coach with out coming up? knowing from personal experience being a good coach is NOT enough to get you to the top of the mountain you need to have connects too. I don't think for one second that if fuente and co didn't fully believe that this guy could do his job and do it well that they would have hired him. and ive found out more often than not in the coaching world that if a situation isn't working out that it doesn't take to long to move on from that situation, no one in college football is sitting on bad coaches for long periods of time. lets support this man and see what he can do before we burn him at the stake for things which he has not yet even had a chance to do or not do. sorry for the lil rant but as a coach trying to move up in the ranks and not having any ties to a big program only connects ive heard a lot of what you guys are saying (obviously on a much smaller scale) but id like to think if I keep doing what im doing the way im doing it I will one day be as blessed to hear just as many gripes about being hired at my first big time program that he is and then I can get to work at proving everyone why I was a good hire in the first place whether you knew my name and where I came from or not.
Nothing against the guy at all, but with his resume he should be looking for G5 assistant positions where he can develop himself into a more well-rounded coach and demonstrate he's got the skills and abilities to be an assistant coach at a top25 FBS program. And with our program's pedigree we should be looking for proven FBS assistants who have demonstrated that well-rounded skill set.
His background is talent evaluation, which is an important skill for an assistant coach, but actually coaching football and actually recruiting prospects are extremely important as well. Just seems like me that Lechtenberg is a guy who has the necessary experience with 1/3 of an assistant coach's duties. And the way his hiring was announced it sounds like the coaching portion of his duties will be somewhat limited. So we're picking up a guy who is going to be learning on the job how to recruit on the road at a FBS/P5/Top25 level (pick your goal for our recruiting prowess) as well learning how to coach at a P5/top25 level.
On paper we are rolling the dice with this hire when we didn't really need to. That all being said, Fuente is very familiar with him and is in a good position to judge whether or not he has what it takes to make the leap, so I'm certainly not condemning the hire, just pointing out how... surprising it is.
His background is talent evaluation, which is an important skill for an assistant coach, but actually coaching football and actually recruiting prospects are extremely important as well. Just seems like me that Lechtenberg is a guy who has the necessary experience with 1/3 of an assistant coach's duties. And the way his hiring was announced it sounds like the coaching portion of his duties will be somewhat limited. So we're picking up a guy who is going to be learning on the job how to recruit on the road at a FBS/P5/Top25 level (pick your goal for our recruiting prowess) as well learning how to coach at a P5/top25 level.
while his experience may not be at the level we would like it to be at he does have experience. and lets be honest. unless youre falling from the saban, meyer, stoops, or someone of that nature tree youre not likely to have your first gigs be good ones, he started at the bottom and he broke through.
Lechtenberg served as an assistant at both Wayne State and Truman State before joining up with Fuente at TCU in 2007. Lechtenberg worked under Fuente as an offensive gradate assistant until 2009, before taking the offensive coordinator position at Central Connecticut State
I hope he can keep on moving on up. dabo shot up through the ranks pretty fast and out of no where. im not saying hes a dabo but id like to hope that one day they will speak about fuente in the same sentence as the other guys I mentioned above and that people that started at the bottom of his coaching tree will hold the same resonance as the ones from someone like sabans of the world. often times in life you will find that what you have in your experiences portion of your resume is not equal with your skills portion of your resume.
Nobody hopes he is wrong more than I hope I am wrong. And, you want to have a staff that operates well as a unit. At the same time, this was an opportunity to gain some traction in some important footholds. I am not as worried about the 757 because I am very confident about the job Zohn has already done there. I would have like to have seen an improved pipeline to either Washington DC/southern Maryland private schools (just in this class, I am very impressed with Cam Goode, DeJuan Ellis, and Jermain Waller, and those three are not top level recruits in this recruiting sector) or in the Charlotte/Rock Hill area. I feel really good about Shibest in the Greensboro to Raleigh sector. But Charlotte is so close and accessible, yet we have a major challenge in chipping away at the branding of UNC north of the state line, and an even tougher road to beat out Clemson for kids from the Rock Hill area. Hopefully Eli Adams is a start, yet even in this class, two of his teammates are going to Clemson. It will take work.
Nobody, NOBODY will be more happy than me if I am wrong. But, this doesn't make me feel great initially.
I think his primary territory is JUCO
Keep in mind that just because a person isn't well known doesn't mean they aren't extraordinary at their job. Glass half full outlook: if Fuente willingly elevated a staffer versus making some kind of splash, he must be pretty impressive in Fuente's eyes.
Edit: the negativity is embarrassing. Who really thinks the TENTH coach on a staff is going to change a program's trajectory?
Unreal
Well for those who don't like this your really not going to like that we have a Co-DC now and that Fuente got a raise.
I can like the fact that we're locking down Fuente more and also disagree with the 10th coach hire. It's not one or the other.
So you don't like his decision making when it comes to hiring his employees but you want him to to a contract extension and raise?
Yes.
Yes... I can go through the list of hundreds of people in leadership positions (coaches, employers, clients, co-workers, politics, etc) who make mostly good decisions, with the occasional one I disagree with.
It's reasonable to be disappointed with the 10th coach hire, but be on board with the majority of Fuente's decisions.
But would you give them raises and extensions when making what many on here and social media seems to be a world ending mistake. I don't understand the logic of, I'm so glad Fuente is getting an extension and raise with man Fuente can't hire good assistant coaches, needs to fire Cornelson and can't win the big games. All these are criticisms I've seen abound even on here. So I'll ask again. How can people be so unhappy with the key decesions the HC is making but also be happy he is getting a raise and extension?
You can be happy with a person's complete body of work and still be critical of some of their decisions.
Everyone agrees French's opinion of cheese is terrible, but OVERALL he does damn good shit for TKP. So, we keep giving him legs.
But if part of French's job was to review cheese would you give him a raise based on his opinions of cheese? Those are three very big parts of Fuente's job that more than a few people are very disappointed with.
You mean that isn't part of his job?
He means that a huge part of Fuente's job is to review cheese. It's surprising, but it is indeed true.
And now he's promoting a cheese with very little age or experience to a job that should be held by a slightly better cheese (manchego, anyone?).
I'd like to believe Fuente knows his cheese and we will all learn to like it, even French.
Couterpoint - You could also think of it as a young Wisconsin cheddar or French Camembert that at first smells a little funny when young and then turns into pure gold.
I like it. Still, it's absolutely insane that Fuente gets paid so much money to evaluate cheese.
I know, I thought it was crazy too! But I don't think you can underestimate the value that cheese evaluation brings to a football program. It's one of those thankless, yet necessary skillsets required to be successful.
I just remembered that you think all mac and cheeses are created equal, and since all we ever do here on TKP is shoot the breeze and talk about stuff, I should disregard all of your other opinions too?
My correct opinions about food maybe. That's why you don't ask a plumber to perform your colonoscopy. You grade and reward people for doing their job not another job. People have said they don't think Fuente is doin well in three important parts of his job but they support him getting a raise and extension at said job. In my mind that doesn't equate. For example if you think he has made some weird individual play calls but still support the wage and contract change I would understand that, that's a small issue. But when someone calls out his hiring of a key position, his ability to win certain games and his keeping of certain staff on payroll I'm not sure how much good outweighs what you think bad he is doing.
I see the serial downvoter who is too afraid to actually discuss an issue is back. Glad to have you anymous downvoter. I've got about 50,000 more legs to give in this fight.
I offset whatever downvote that was, but like always, something something don't fret about a downvote
My issue isn't my downvotes. It's bulkshit where someone trolls TKP and downvotes opinions they don't like, I see it happening more and more as we grow. Alum gets hit a lot, among others. It doesn't effect us as much but again a new poster gives his opinion and whomever the anonymous are run them off. It's a disappointment on what I consider a friendly almost extended family community on here.
bulkshit: when KennyHokie posts in recruit threats
I'll never understand why iPhones autocorrect some swear words but not others.
Lol this is hilarious. I didn't downvote you, but the fact that you're bitching about it all the while assuming the person downvoting you *isn't* the one arguing you makes it awesome.
Also, when you say "my correct opinions" you will probably be downvoted.
Because it was a joke about food. I didn't say all my correct opinions.
Cheese is the worst.
GO BACK TO YOUR MOVIE THREAD, FRENCH!
When Lechtenberg was notified of his promotion
New Contract details for coaches, Fuente gets raise, Galen Scott to Co-DC.
Fuente gets a raise
Galen Scott is now co-DC but won't call plays.
The new guy is making $175,000 *ducks*
175k is indicative of what Fu thinks about him. Wouldn't be surprised if he's gone next year.
Further, I cannot believe we spend over 600k a year on our DB coaches. Having separate Corner and safety coaches is insanity. It doesn't matter if we are DBU. That's an irresponsible use of limited financial resources. We need to let one of those guys move on and use that money elsewhere. I'd like a better RB coach or a shiny new OC but we new the latter will never happen...
Love Shibest, but he is paid like a G5 head coach to coach TE's- which are really RB/HB in Fuente's system and special teams. The current salary breakdown has always been puzzling to me.
He's paid like a G5 head coach to run one of the best special teams units in FBS. I thought we were supposed to value that here.
Not saying he is overpaid, just saying that he makes significantly more than other position coaches on the team and that the pool breakdown is "interesting"
You by definition said Shibest is over paid
Shibest is not a "position coach" he's a Coordinator with position coach duties, just like Cornelsen and Foster. Fuente values special teams, and you'd think a fan base accustomed to BeamerBall would value it too.
And you can easily make an argument that Shibest (and Wiles) have been their best recruiters since the transition.
I don't think any of us are qualified to tell Coach Fu how he needs to break-up coaching responsibilities. I'm sure if he and/or Bud didn't think they needed separate corner and safety coaches, they wouldn't have them. I'm sure each of their respective responsibilities go beyond coaching just the corner and safety positions.
Theres a 7/3 split between top-10 teams that had one secondary coach and separate coaches for corners/safeties. While I'm not going to tell Fuente how to do his job, head coaches for 7 of the top 10 teams in the country think its unnecessary to have separate coaches for corners and safeties. Given our limited resources, I genuinely think that money would be better spent elsewhere.
Alabama - one secondary coach
Georgia - one secondary coach
Oklahoma - one secondary coach
Clemson - separate coaches for corners/safeties
Ohio State - separate coach for corners/safeties
UCF - one secondary coach
Wisconsin - one secondary coach
Penn State - separate coach for corners/safeties
TCU - one secondary coach
Auburn - one secondary coach
Coach Scott historically had coached linebackers before coming to VT. Originally it was announced that he was going to assist Coach Foster with the LBs then that shifted to being Safeties coach.
Think it was a way for Fu to hold onto one of his guys, personally.
Well, yeah. Same goes for Shibest, Cornelsen, Vice and Wiggins. Scott was Fuente's DC at Memphis and of course he was going to keep him over Cornell Brown who was coaching 1 position and not lighting the recruiting trail on fire either.
Also, we can't roll with just 3 defensive coaches, so one level is going to get doubled up. How would you split responsibilities among the 4?
Because when I look at the ratios of players on the roster and ratios typically on the field, DL and DB have the most people to coach and develop. With the advent of spread offenses and common usage of Nickel coverages there are even more DB's to coach up these days. Meanwhile Charley Wiles has been locking down the DL for years, doing a great job - does he really need any help?
DL - 4 positions (12-16 players)
LB - 2-3 positions (7-10 players)
DB - 4-5 positions (14-18 players)
Here's my rationale for splitting safeties and corners
- There are more DBs on the field than any other grouping
- Virginia Tech is known as DBU which is a marketing and recruiting edge that can be sharpened by devoting more developmental resources in that area
- Charley Wiles has been coaching DL for 20+ years, pretty much solo - why mess with a good thing
- Bud Foster has been coaching LB's for 20+ years, pretty much solo - why mess with a good thing
- We are starting off 2 new defensive coaches in Fosters system, why dump 4-5 positions on one as DB coach while the other coaches 1 as OLB Coach? By splitting their load equally, they can not only both develop their players but also develop themselves in Foster's system.
- Traditionally we split our 5 DB for decades anyway, with Cav coaching Whips + Rovers and Whammy/Torrian coaching CB's + FS
positions assigned*:
Wiles: 4 (End x2, Tackle x2)
Foster: 2 (Mike, Backer)
Scott: 2.5 (Free, Rover, Whip)
Mitchell: 2.5 (Corner x2, Nickel)
In Beamer's last couple seasons Cornell Brown was coaching 'Outside Linebackers and helping with DEs' So he was coaching 1 position that was on the field half the time, and helping coach another 2 spots. That's a pretty limited role, even more limited than Mitchell and Scott splitting the DBs these days. At the time Fuente was hired, he was happy to keep Foster and his defensive staff, with the exception of bringing Scott in. To minimize disruption, Scott was penciled in as taking over Cornell's role and learning directly from Foster, because well Torrian Gray had been coaching DBs for years, and why mess with a good thing? But then Torrian left and it made more sense to assign Scott to a position he could have more impact on, while lightening the load of new hire Mitchell who also would be learning the system as well as coaching players.
*Foster may coach whips these days, I'm not sure about how that breaks out. Either way you split it out, there are 7 positions roughly equally divided among Foster, Scott and Mitchell.
And 2 of those 3 are consistently in the playoffs....
And 1 of those 3 made it this year and got waxed. We can go back and forth all day long - I will never agree with having separate secondary coaches.
Interesting choice to go here alone
BTW, TCU also splits the secondary as well. So it just in the secondary that you have issues with two coaches?
Oklahoma and TCU split WRs.
Oklahoma splits the Dline as well.
If you through the top 10 you will find the coaching staffs broken up in all sorts of different ways. Some have a dedicated coach for special teams some don't, some have coaches with no position assigned others don't. I don't think there is some magical formula for the breakdown of a coaching staff that results in success.
Some key notes from that article:
Scott's gonna be busy next year. Scott is being groomed to be Foster's successor as an insurance policy if Foster leaves (or retires). This has been apparent before, but this move makes this more apparent to me. Fuente doesn't want all the work into this plan to date being a waste and having to start all over again.
Our Football HC is in good company. The sky is not falling.
Glad that Fu got a raise and agree that their does seem to be some overlap in positions like DB's and the TE/HB role.
But overall I think this entire fanbase forgets that college football is like any other job in the world, and that there is something called "cost of living". Living in the NRV, I can make half as my friends in DC but still have more money in my bank account at the end of the year. I would argue that Fuente making 4 million a year puts him in the top 10/] in the country if you put coaches salaries in a "cost of living" analysis. Same goes for the assistants, even with having a nice house and car in Blacksburg. Even if we can pay on par at every position with the blue bloods, the dollar goes alot further in a place like Blacksburg than it does in Miami or USCw or Maryland. Some places are comparable, but as a person looking for a job I take that into account and hope any other person would too. Now that's not without mentioning that Blacksburg isn't for everyone no matter how much we offer based on being a rural college town.
Would you mind starting this as a new thread. For my money, it's very much deserving of one.
Joe, I definitely can do some more statistical research on it. While the NRV isn't not the cheapest place to live in SWVA, definitely night and day between NOVA and other metropolitan areas. Heard from folks in the program that Fuente knows he has plenty of money and isn't a driving factor in his contract decisions, but I'm sure Whit wants to lock him down in the day and age of ever increasing competitive salary landscape for coaching.
Definitely my bad, I actually had a new thread made for it, linked the article and everything and balked at the last second because it was a Bitter article. I know it's not a big deal but for some reason I backed out of the page and just posted it here. In the future, I will just make the new thread.
Yeah this is underwhelming, but so were people when we hired Fuente. I reserve judgement before and will see how this pans out.
Pretty sure a lot of people were happy about hiring Fuente . He was one of the best up and coming names .
A lot weren't. Wanted Herman, Morris, heck even some even said Rich Rod. Thought Fuente was too small a hire.
Ehhh, he was pretty universally agreed upon as the best coaching hire that year. Some might have preferred another coach but to compare fuentes hire to our new 10th coaches "underwhelming-ness" is more than quite a stretch. Doubt this would be considered in a top 25 "10th coaching hire" list if it existed.
After he won 10 games he was. Not before.
Link
I recall reading multiple articles like this during the offseason before fuente coached a game. Dated feb 2016. So again, I dont see anyone placing the hire we're currently discussing in the top 25 and obviously not close to #1 if such a grade scale/list were to be compiled. Do you?
Current excitement level...
I'm going to take a glass half full approach here...
Hiring from within your recruiting department to your coaching department as far as I can tell will free up additional resources for recruiting personnel. Lechtenberg as an "on field coach" can now recruit on the road, and we can hopefully bring in more talent in recruiting with his salary having moved out. Given the fact that we already had specialized position coaches for each position group, I'm not concerned with his lack of coaching experience and he's making less than all the other assistants anyway. Simply seems to me like we are able to up our recruiting budget by making this move, when a tenth on field coach would likely have little impact on the field anyway.
The 10th coach for VT and 90% of other teams was going to be for someone to essentially recruit full time.
We hired someone who's never coached, nor recruited.
Everybody has to start somewhere. I am willing to give him and the big whistle who hired him the benefit of the doubt before complaining about the hire.
3/4 of our coaching staff is learning on the job. This shouldn't be the place to learn to cut your teeth. See a top 25 program with aspirations to be a top 15-10 program. We can command more experience.
I do like that he doesn't have coaching duties.
Guy is going to live out of a suitcase
Wow at this thread...
I'm super grateful someone hired me and gave me a chance to prove myself back in the day when I had little experience.
This hire may be a home run, it may be a flop, or it may be somewhere in the middle, but it probably isn't a program changer either way. I hope the guy kills it.
I think most, including myself, agree with giving someone the shot to prove themselves. The problem I think a lot of people have with this staff (and justifiably so to a certain degree) is that we have a staff full of coaches who are honestly still proving themselves in big-time football recruiting. I think many viewed this hire as an opportunity to reach outside of the Memphis/VT comfort zone to bring in some recruiting experience in a key territory for us.
I hope it all works out and we develop into a top-level recruiting staff. But we have a lot of learning on the job going on in that department right now. We have excellent talent evaluators and developers, but that's not the issue. The issue is convincing that talent that VT is where they need to enroll.
Who is the hot shot recruiter that another school hired for 170k or less. Give us some names.
Evened you out. The shadowy downvoter is on a spree lol.
Yep and they have downvoted you for pointing it out. Sorry to get it splashed on you too.
Seriously, this thread was brutal to sift through. It's times like this I hope recruits/coaches/players don't actually read TKP. Not that I felt anyone was out of line of necessarily, but it seems a little excessive how pissed everyone is about a guy getting a promotion.
I'm having trouble understanding the value added by this guy (at least on paper).
Proven Recruiter? Nope
Position Guru? Nope
NFL Ties? Nope
P5 Experience? Not really
G5 Experience? Not really
Part of a NC winning coaching tree? Nope (but hopefully someday soon)
Strong ties to typical recruiting grounds? Nope
I mean hell, I can see more value (on paper) in hiring a dynamite 757 HS coach than this guy.
Isn't there new rules about hiring high school coaches and then Recruiting those high schools?
I think the rule is that you can't recruit players from that high school for two years.
Have to agree that this is not an exciting hire but congrats on the promotion coach. I do wish all the "positive petes" here could understand that questioning and even critisizing our coaches and their decisions does not mean we hate them/that they should be fired/that we wish ill of them. Isn't constructive criticism how the majority of people improve?
I don't think the coaches need constructive criticism from fans. If the coaches/Whit felt this was the best hire, it's pretty silly of us to argue.
Do you feel this way about all people in charge? Elected officials, or bosses for example?
That's a ridiculous comparison but I will bite. This would be equivalent to an intern telling the CEO of a fortune 500 company who to hire as a director of marketing. While everybody is free to an opinion, there are others more qualified to lean on for advice.
Well, i dont expect fuente to read article's comments section for advice on coaching decisions, but I also expect he would not be surprised to see/hear that his decisions are discussed/scrutinized/critisized (same goes for elected officials, bosses, cops, teachers and everyone else these days). Thats what fans do, especially during the offseason. Were not mindless robots who simply accept everything that the coaches do as the ultimate correct decision. And again, just because we dont doesnt mean we think they should be fired.
I think fans, especially donors, have the right to question a coach's decision, similarly to how shareholders can question a CEO's decision. I also think there's a difference between saying "We expected A, but you gave us B, why did you give us B?" and saying "This is concerning, you don't know how to hire."
It's kind of like the final call against GT - We didn't like the play call on 3rd/4th & 1, but Fuente said they chose that play call because they had the offense's best player in single coverage against a freshman DB. It didn't work out, but it was logical and a reasonable strategy. Similarly, Fuente could come out and justify this hire, preferably with a little more support than what was listed in the press release - less "I trust this guy, I think he will do well" and more "He's proven that he can do X, Y and Z, which is exactly what we need right now"
I think we are actually very much in agreement. I would even take it a step further and say i dont expect nor in this case do I think Fuente SHOULD further explain his hire. He made his decision and it is what it is. For the record I also think there is a massive difference in the way you discuss a decision. Statements like "hes an idiot, hes really dumb, he sucks" are much different than ,"i dont think he did this right." However most "positive petes" dont seem to see it that way. But anyone whos married knows its often how yoi say something, not what you say.
meh, not worried about the 10th coach hire one single bit. Splashy? No. Do I think it matters? Nope. having hired and managed so many people, there are many reasons to have someone that does not readily appear to have much of an upside. I once kept a guy on staff that nobody liked because he was an asshole and told him to his face: "You're kind of an asshole and nobody wants to work for you. But that's ok because I want you to fight for me with shitty clients." And he loved that role. I needed someone to do it and he fit what I needed.
What can Coach Lechtenberg do? No idea. But maybe he can keep the ship afloat better than most because he's been with Fuente for so long, and that affords Fuente more time to do things that are going to be more impactive. Maybe Fuente feels he owes the guy a start in the Biz because he's slogged it out for the past 6 years or whatever. I'm cool with it. he's not going to make or break it for us one way or the other.
Nailed it.
Boom!
Well said Fernley. Again, the sky is not falling.
TSL had an interesting take on the hire, framing it basically as a 100% recruiting / talent evaluation job that is an expanded version of what the Director of Player Personnel used to do from campus. Now Lechtenberg can go on the road and see prospects live, meet them, evaluate them in person, spend more time recruiting, players, parents and coaches, etc. And since he isn't actually coaching a position he has a lot more leeway to travel without impacting practice or game day coaching.
Apparently this is a similar approach to what Alabama and Clemson are doing with their 10th Assistant.
Reactions here are pretty sad. Seems like a hire of someone who is ingrained in the culture here and deserved his promotion from the work he's done since last May. I won't pretend to know who this guy is or what he's done, but some of the reactions in this thread are embarrassing.
If nothing else, this shows loyalty to his staff. We can't complain about the results, as the proof is on the field and in the recruiting classes, which have only gotten better.
May not be splashy, but Fuente gets the concept of "This is Home."