https://www.dailypress.com/sports/dp-spt-fuente-hokies-spring-football-0...
During our interactions, Fuente riffed on social media, smart phones and his sports fan bucket list. He thanked fans for their loyalty and for allowing him a normal family life. He acknowledged his "Game of Thrones" addiction.
But those were just pleasant diversions. The subject at hand was Tech football: 2018, '19 and beyond.
The Hokies went 6-7 last year, Fuente's third as their head coach, dropped five games by at least two touchdowns and were often lost on defense. Absent improbable late comebacks versus North Carolina and Virginia, they would have finished 3-8, rendering an early December game against Marshall to attain bowl eligibility unnecessary.
Sort of a behind the scenes look at Coach Fuente.
Comments
That was an okay read. I like that he opened up just a bit. Team chemistry is in my opinion the number one aspect of whether a football team will be good or not before talent and coaching get involved.
Fuente is a decent person and a good football coach.
The real question, of course, is can he make adjustments that will show improvement in game results? In particular, we need the defense to get back to looking like a VT defense.
I'd rather have them playing like a VT defense, looks dont really matter in football.
If they play like a VT defense, it will look like it.
Yeah but that is just a side effect.
The side effect is other teams scoring fewer points.
:)
From the outside
lookingplaying in, this is a dumb discussion haha.That's where I excel!
This is what it will look like:
Brandon Flowers
The maroon jersey vs USM at beginning of clip are perfect. bring those back please
Fuente was hired to elevate what Beamer built/did and not remain status quo. Everyone from Whit to Fuente to Foster said this. The expectations are not to go 8-4 and tie for second in the coastal. He was brought in here to elevate the talent level, elevate the play on the field, certainly elevate the offense/culture of offense. win championships. And yes, I am fully aware he won the coastal with Jerod Evans, and a bunch of Beamer guys that are now in the NFL. Jury is squarely out, IMO.
edit: misread DCWilsons comment
Maybe I'm wrong or just reading your reply wrong, but what do you think 'the jury is out' means?
Fuente was co-offensive coordinator at TCU- for 2 seasons. Those aren't his "wins" they are Gary Patterson's.
So you don't blame Foster or Corneslon for any of Tech's losses?
Nah man, Bud gets a pass.
Different argument. "Wins" are a stat contributed to head coaches, typically. You don't see Bud's career W/L record in his bio on Hokie Sports for example. Does Charlie Weis (4) have more Super Bowl wins than Joe Gibbs (3)? Nope. Charlie Weis has zero super bowl wins as a head coach- which is all that matters.
Wonder what Fosters next contract will be?
I think we should name the DC position after him. This way he and all future DCs will be know as Bud Foster. We wont have a defensive coordinator just a Bud Foster.
What an absolutely ridiculous comment. Wish I had thought of it first!
Seriously, if I was in charge I'd give this more than a cursory thought.
Stanford's OC is called the "Andrew Luck Director of Offense" so there's a precedence.
Yeah, I did kind of steal the idea from them.
As far as I can tell Tech has zero coaching position in any sport endowed and only a handful of endowed scholarships at all.
So you're saying that it's perfect to make Bud's position the first?
Yes. Go for it.
Yeah, but, it's going to be hard enough to follow Bud Foster as DC at Virginia Tech. How much harder is it going to be with his name slapped on your position?
Even for Bud.
Let's see how the defense does this year, shall we?
We won't have a DC,only a Bud Foster so no pressure there!
"The Bud Foster Minister of Defense"
Forget my comment above. This wins.
Ah like Caesar. I support this.
This reminded me of this tweet and I love it.
Interesting to see the twitter video with Fuente, and now this. Wonder if the football team is going to put more effort into media/outreach, or if this is just a coincidence.
Anyways, I get the impression that Fuente is trying to learn from mistakes last season. Good quality to have in a leader. We'll see how it pays off.
I've thought a lot about Fuente's seemingly warmer demeanor as well...
Could it be that he felt he couldn't trust the teams over the past couple of years to say/act the way he wanted a team to act so he restricted access?
After all the "changes" over the last twelve months, the team is now almost completely his recruits (with his values/style). Maybe now he's more trusting of what will come out of players/coaches mouths and he's ready to loosen up.
Word on the street is that came out in the team meeting after all the transfers. The players wanted Fuente to be more approachable and the team to have more of a presence on social media. Now we have mic'd up and scaring players. I think saw that on twitter somewhere. Meanwhile Clemson is having televised spring games with IRT interviews of Dabo, and UGA has ESPN media types acting as refs during theirs. It's a start I guess.
From that article and us all knowing Bud went thru a divorce. Imagine having a sore knee that needed major surgery and legal issues nagging you every day for over a year. We're all human. That would drain all of us. Im not blaming the defensive issues 100% on bud, but that has to pull focus away from his normal 800% focus on VT football defense performance. That is now in the rear view mirror allowing him to refocus to his normal expectations and player development.
And a potential new contract! That w JHam's hiring. I'm liking this. I like it a lot!!!
and us all knowing Bud went thru a divorce
Uhhh... Was I the only one who didn't know that? What a really terrible string of events for Bud and his family. Dang...
Sort of, there were lots of rumors about stuff in Bud's personal life, but I didn't know it was a divorce until after the season. Basically when he got re married.
Yea typically one has to precede the other
Good to know, my wife tells me I'm not allowed to get divorced so never looked into the order
He got remarried that quickly? Or the divorce was years ago but was a drawn out process?
He's able to woo women the way he can destroy opposing offenses
Making 50k short of a million a year probably doesn't hurt either.
LBH, he's making half that now. No way he had a prenup.
Is that what Galen was angling for?
In Virginia you have to be separated for 1 year before you can finalize the divorce, so if you are both really done, then you have a year to date waiting on the divorce to finalize.
At least you know the procedure, even if your wife won't let you do it. ;)
😁
And that's if it's amicable.
The 1 year part is for sure correct. My wife and I started dating about 6 months into that process from her first marriage and she HATED having to wait to finalize things. I do think that only applies if you have children under a certain age though (hers were both under 6 at the time). I think you can expedite some of that timeline if it is an amicable decision and no kids are involved.
My brother-in-law went through it recently. It was only 6 months separated for them before the divorce was finalized. No kids and married less than a year...
They were married less than a year and they couldn't get an annullment? If you don't mind me asking, what state was this?
Virginia. I am no expert, but I believe the threshold is 6 months or there are some kind of special circumstances to be eligible for an annulment
I knew about the divorce a year ago but had no clue he got re-married.
His new wife is an elected official in a nearby city.
The crazy thing is that he turned down the Pittsburgh HC job because of his ex-wife.
Texas A&M DC job as well IIRC
Yes, Radford. Bud no longer lives at Claytor Lake, and now resides in the city of Radford.
I knew that, was just trying to give them some privacy.
I appreciate that. Bud doesn't seem to be hiding it, and it is quite well known to people who live in Radford. He has a visible presence. Still, I admire you wanting to be discrete. I apologize if it seemed that I overstepped a boundary.
Oh damn, didn't know this. Poor guy has his personal life on high profile. Hope he and his family are doing well.
Fuente's got the eye of the tiger 🐅
From Andy Bitter's state of the program. This really stands out to me.
I'm not concerned as much with the quality of incoming recruits; I'm more concerned with roster balance.
I'll openly admit that I was one of Fuente's biggest critics last season. His game managing, lack of adjustments, and seemingly out of control locker room were all things I pointed to in the heat of the moment while we were losing. In hindsight, it was really just the coaching turnover finally running its course. He inherited a unique situation in Blacksburg with all the returning talent and made the most of it. Then the attrition that is so common with coaching changes hit. He has been recruiting well as far as our standards go, has changed some of the ways he does things thing offseason, and a lot of the unreliable players as far as discipline goes are gone.
I'm going into this season in full support of Fuente. I'm still skeptical about Cornelsen, and if he doesn't show improvement this year, Fuente needs to do the right thing. Regardless, Fuente is building a team that is on par with what he had in 2016, maybe slightly better. If he can replicate those results and continue to improve, I'm going to look like an idiot from last season.
It's super hard to make adjustments when everyone is a freshman and sophomore. We have seen Fuente make half time adjustments and in his first two seasons he seemed to excel at them. But last seasons we played great in the first half and teams picked on us in the 2nd. This was 100% opposite of the complaints about our slow starts to games in 2017.