with so much hype about the '21 recruiting class starting to build with all the #TX2VT movement I started thinking.... is there a recruiting ranking that you would be willing to give some slack to the on field performance next year. the Hokie fan base has always been one that yelled to anyone that would hear it "stars don't matter" but we have never really meant it. Its just us hiding our insecurities about the fact that we historically don't have good recruiters, cant recruit, cant beat the big dogs, whatever the reason is.
What if this next class is truly something special and we pull in the #2 recruiting class in the ACC (lets be real aint no one beating out Clemson anytime soon) and a top 15 recruiting class in the country but we finish the season once again with questionable losses and are say 7-6. would you be willing to let Fuente ever get to coach that recruiting class? or would he and likely VT never see those kids in maroon and orange? (if you think the class would stay together after the head man was fired just look at FSU and willie T. they were already bad but still recruiting decently he left and they lost a bunch of highly rated kids) I know from all accounts our current roster going in to next year should be set up to win the coastal. If we fall short on the field, a fan base that has begged for years to have a GREAT recruiting class finally gets one I'm curious to see how much patience everyone would have. (for the sake of the argument lets say the offense is 100% not the reason for the record because I feel like a lot of people would say fire corny and we can keep fu a little longer, its not realistic to fire Jham after 1 year so if the defense bombs next year {and this is all hypothetical, we are going to be just fine on D} )
give me your high and low. recruiting ranking vs losses it would have to take to balance out for you. I think itll be a fun discussion especially since people seem to generally be upset with both losses and recruiting but both seem to be trending upwards. (IMO)
Comments
If we have a legit top 15 recruiting class I would accept a frustrating on field year, but I can't give an exact number of losses. Context is always key in these type of scenarios. The 6-6 in 2014 wasn't as awful as the 6-6 in 2018 where we got blown out, outclassed many times AND one of those losses was ODU. All but one loss in 2014 was by a single score
+1. Also need to account for injury situation. Also depends if this class is 15th due to size, or if we landed 10+ 4-stars
That said, if you go 6-6 with 21 returning starters, most of whom have had at least two years of coaching, you've basically proves to me that you're not capable of coaching an ACC caliber team, regardless of how good the recruits are.
I agree that context means everything. I think people lose sight of what our 8-5 actually means for this year. We had those losses to Boston College and Duke before Hooker started. We lost to Notre Dame by a point. Then we lose to UVA and Kentucky without Caleb Farley. Four of our five losses were by one possession. Two of those fives losses were without Hendon Hooker. Two more were without Farley. One was on the road by a point to Notre Dame. Next year is shaping up to be very special with all the players returning.
The thing is, though, it needs to be special. 2020 should be Fuente's make or break year. He knows who is quarterback is, he has 20 starters returning, he just had a good season to build off of, and he needs a good season to boost recruiting. If he goes into this season like the scared underdog playing not to lose rather than to win as he has done so often, we are going to lose a couple games we shouldn't.
I pointed it out in another thread. We were 45 seconds from 10-3.
We were also a missed FG in overtime and an obscure Penalty on Onside Kick from losing to UNC and threatening to go to Overtime vs. friggin' Furman, so it works both ways.
I think overall this season was a mixed bag, but I think no worse than 9-3 and winning the Coastal are very reasonable expectations for 2020. UNC will probably be the Preseason Media favorite, it will be interesting to see how we matchup against them in the Regular Season.
An onside kick recovery is worth 7 points these days? Guess I missed that rule change.
Furman had managed 3 points in the 2nd half (6 possessions) so it seems odd to concede the TD. Also they would have gone for 2 so I'm honestly surprised you wouldn't just give them the W.
As for UNC, why do you conclude that they should have won because they missed a FG in OT when our kicker missed two? Hell, at least we blocked one of their two missed FG attempts.
The UNC game went to SIX overtimes..is it really that hard to concede that there was some level of luck involved and that we could have lost as easily as we won?
And no, I don't think its off the wall to think Furman could have made a 60 yd drive to score a TD...prior possessions have nothing really to do with the probability of scoring on one individual possession.
The point is, it's a false narrative to make the case that we were 45 seconds away from winning ten games. You could go through any season for almost any team and pick out a handful of plays that may have changed the outcome of the game.
The reality of the situation is we were an 8- 5 team with an incredibly easy schedule. Our play on the field was uneven and both the Offense and Defense had inconsistencies. The expectations are going to be and should be higher in 2020. Next year we need to actually win those 2-3 more games.
He didn't start BC or DUKE and didn't play Notre Dame
Does he? Every year it's been an open competition and with Burmeister coming off his year sitting out, I expect the same next year.
I agree though, next year should be special, but at the same time things like an open QB competition (even though Hooker should be the guy, no question), and a new DC (and a new/adjusted scheme?), new assistants (most/all of whom should be upgrades?) there are enough things to throw a monkey wrench into the works and come out 7-5.
I don't know, maybe I've been burned too many times with the "next year is our year!" mentality with VT football.
I seriously doubt Burmeister starts. Hooker was good this year, and Fuente always seems hesitant to shake up the starting lineup unless he absolutely has to, hence Willis getting the start this year despite Hooker being way better.
Again you are assuming Hooker in week 1 = Hooker in week 5. I believe Hooker was hurt in camp and at the start of the year which put him behind. When he came in the first four games he performed at a much lower level than he did starting week 5.
That's entirely possible, but it was announced fairly early that Willis was the starter. He did have that lingering shoulder issue which could have played a part, but I still think Hooker with a lingering shoulder issue doesn't go out and do what Willis did the first four games.
Pure speculation. You don't know if it was limiting his mobility, catching snaps (was an issue in practice), throwing motion and this accuracy etc.
Bottom-line is that he was hurt and this limited him in practice and made him less effective. If he was clearly the best option because he outperformed in practice and was healthy he would have started. He wasn't and in large part due to injury.
He also had struggled in previous game situations so to play Monday morning qb now is easy. He proved he was a gamer by the coaches waiting until he was healthy to play him. I'm amazed at how everyone is now saying we should have played H2 earlier. The coaches made the change and it saved the team and the season. The rest is speculation without facts.
To be fair, its all speculation at this point, though.
No one really knows how injured or not injured Hooker was. All the "evidence" that exists is chatter about him having issues with snaps in practice and then wearing a shoulder brace.
Fuente has chosen to run the program with an Iron shroud around it regarding information and fan access. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall ever hearing the words "Hooker" and "injury" in the same sentence from Fuente's mouth in the Preseason.
Truth is, nobody but the people in the room know how, when, or under what circumstances Willis was named the starter.
I think it's more than reasonable to have some trepidation about the Staff and their decision-making given that Willis clearly not the best option for this team to win.
This is the problem imo. If we had some insight into Fuente's decision making process, then we could make judgements on the process rather than just the result.
It's like grading math problems - If a student shows work, you can give them partial credit if their thought process is correct. If they only provide their final answer, you can only mark them right or wrong.
This is a bizarre take. Honestly, the "problem" of not having information is really only a problem if we're his bosses or one of us was actually the head coach. We WANT information (a lot of us probably even feel entitled to the information), and feel like we could make better decisions on whether Fuente is a good coach or not. There's all sorts of reasons to NOT give out information. Fans overreacting, giving opposing coaches an edge on knowing what's coming, etc.
Apparently knowing what Fuente's decision process is would somehow make the seasons' results better or worse. In my opinion, Season 1, 10 wins and ACCCG appearance goes a LONG way in telling me what Fuente and Cornelson are capable of. Season 2, 9 wins. Season 3, yeah it sucked, but look at how many Freshmen played, which is a rebuilding scenario. Season 4, jump 2 wins to 8, but return 21 starters, which tells me we did pretty well, but were still young and return almost everybody with another year of experience where most other teams will LOSE experience.
Since I like analogies, when you guys who want more information go to your favorite restaurant, do you expect the chef to come out and explain how your meal was prepared and what his thought process was for seasoning it, or are you content to savor the meal?
I know everybody wants to win, but are we SEC fans (as someone else pointed out), who expect a new coach to be winning their conference championships in their 3rd year or you're firing them? Or are we fans who recognize we had a coach, with a DC who stayed way longer than pretty much anybody else in college football, and it might take 4-5 years to rebuild a program? And if you don't think this was a rebuild, I don't know what you call having to win the last game of the season (back when UVA really was a total joke) the 2 years prior to Fuente getting here to be bowl eligible.
I think I failed to provide context to my comment - I'm not suggesting that Fuente owes the fans an explanation for everything he does, nor do I believe fans are entitled to it. I'm just saying that, as fans who love to banter about if a coach made the right decision, is worthy of keeping his job, etc, that it's really difficult for us to (intelligently) defend/discuss Fuente's decisions if we don't know how he arrived at that decision. This is the 'problem' I was referring to above. You may believe that this is not something we should be concerned about as fans, but if that's the case, you probably shouldn't spend your time on this website.
Understanding Fuente's decision process won't change our record, but it will impact how fans/donors feel about the season, (and the program's direction in general) which could impact a fan/donor's giving to the athletic program. For example - I give Fuente the benefit of the doubt for starting RW. I'm sure that RW showed something in practice that convinced the staff he deserved the starting role. However, I think everyone noticed that the offense looked way better with HH at QB - and it wasn't like the offense started improving after 5 weeks of HH - the offense looked better immediately. I can understand how a fan could see this decision (along with last year's locker room issues, scheming blunders against UVA, etc) and question if Fuente can take VT to the next level of college football.
I don't think this analogy is apt. At restaurant, I am just a customer. My relationship is transactional in nature; I'm paying for a one-time meal or experience. My relationship to VT is fundamental to my identity. I probably wear some piece of VT clothing daily. I spend hours each week talking to strangers on the internet about VT football. I don't know of any restaurant or chef who has followers quite like that (maybe Anthony Bourdain or David Chang?).
As an alum, fan, and donor, my relationship to VT is closer to that of a share/stakeholder than that of a consumer (thought I admit that this is not a perfect analogy). VT is the only football team that I'm at all invested in, in any way/shape/form. If I was financially invested in a restaurant, or if I was some other sort of stakeholder (an employee, an investor, a strategic partner, etc) I do think it would be fair for me to ask how/why the chef made the decision (s)he did.
Now, I recognize that my puny donate does not equate me to an investor in a restaurant, nor do I believe that my emotional investment entitles me to any 'special' insight into our program, but, as fans (short for fanatics), we still crave that insight. I am concerned that Fuente's lack of transparency is discouraging some donors from donating, and is eroding the fan base's trust in him, and I think this is a reasonable concern.
Seems to me that the fans who are in that deep are in that deep regardless of how transparent the coach is.
And the casual fans aren't watching close enough to care. What matters to them is whether we're winning.
Maybe I should have specified more. There is a LOT of stuff to analyze beyond what a coach says. People question Cornelson and his play calling all the time. Unfortunately, that's one of the strongest cases for NOT giving thought process, because it would let opposing coaches game plan against us that much more easily. Some of the stuff you have to read into what they're doing.
For instance, I've heard people say they want Cornelson to be more aggressive. Basically dial up the big plays. But if you're trying to win time of possession and keep the opposing offense off the field, what you want to happen is take a lot of chunk plays, getting 3-4 yards at a time, maybe up to 6. But to do that, your offense has to execute well, they HAVE to get those plays each time. You can dial up big plays every once in awhile trying to score in 2-3 plays on each drive. But if you don't convert on those plays, you put the opponent's offense on the field more, giving them more opportunities to score. This was ESPECIALLY important last year when our defense was so bad. Then, the other thing about aggressiveness is what you saw when Logan Thomas was QB. We passed the ball a lot and he turned over the ball a lot. I can't count the number of times he threw an INT inside our own 30, giving the opposing offense a VERY short field to have to try to score on. So I'm okay keeping the ball on the ground more inside our side of the field. And Fuente has been trying to establish the run more.
In other cases, like early this year, we had several very young O-linemen, and even an unplanned change (like they expected Hoffman to be able to play and were honestly surprised that he couldn't). I think they ran a more limited set of plays so the O-line could focus on executing those well.
So basically, I try to analyze things through the lens of figuring out what they're most likely trying to accomplish, and if they're successful at it. But it seems like other people on here look at offense as: if we can score in 2 plays, we should try to do it every time, and damn the consequences if we can't, because we should be able to.
On a side note, people have been talking about what a good back McClease is. I'm not convinced. I think he's doing better this year because our O-Line is doing a lot better - they're opening holes for him. Once he has the holes, he can get through them and go. But when there's not a hole, he doesn't create anything. King made some plays out of nothing, so I'm excited to see what he can do, he just has to gain weight. And if our O-Line opens holes for Herbert, whooo-boy, that will be fun!
If the coaching staff wasn't hesitant at making necessary changes anywhere else, I could see that. There have been plenty of other weird depth chart situations too. I think this staff values continuity a lot. I will gladly eat crow if Burmeister is the starter in August because that means the coaches are breaking up that continuity for someone who is supposedly better than what Hooker was this season, but I will be as shocked as anyone if that's the case.
It wasn't announced early though. Willis wasn't named QB1 until August 22 and we played BC on August 31. In fact, people on this very site were trashing Fuente for not naming Willis the starter sooner.
It's truly crazy how much narratives are changed to fit the current prevailing opinion over time.
My bad. I guess Jackson was announced fairly early. Mistook it for Willis. Tough to keep track when there's an open competition for QB1 every August.
I didn't say Burmeister was going to start. I said I expected an open competition in the spring and summer, as with every year in the past.
What's the earliest Fuente has announced the starting QB? 2 weeks before the first game or something like that, right?
True. Part of me wishes he didn't do that. For someone who seems so fond of continuity, the ongoing QB competition since his hiring is certainly interesting. I think we all knew Evans was going to be the QB in 2016, and the season confirmed that. Same with Jackson in 2017. Jackson vs. Willis in 2018 was a little less clear, but Brenden Hill offered some very wise input to having a game manager rather than a gun slinger. It was pretty obvious Hooker should have been the starter in 2019.
If we are putting an asterisk next to games Hooker didn't start, that's on the head coach. Nothing else. If we would have beaten BC and Duke with Hooker, well shame on Fuente for blowing a chance to win the coastal. Nothing more.
The premise of that argument is that, with Hooker probably starting every game next year barring injury, we should win way more. It's pretty well-documented that Fuente should take the blame for the embarrassment that was our first four games and essentially cost us the Coastal.
This one isn't nearly as important as the Duke/BC without Hooker one. You certainly can't look at a loss and use a missing CB to lessen the blow. This is football. All teams are missing good players every game.
Top 10 class I'm good with 6-6. Top 15 I'm good with 7-5. Top 20 8-4. The norm of 21-30 range, then 9 wins or better.
I'm not looking at a recruiting class next year to move the needle at all. I would like a 2021 class that has the look of a future championship, but I'm most interested in on-field results this upcoming season.
We've seen schools with lower-rated classes (Boise St, UCF, TCU) outperform their rankings up to and including undefeated seasons, and if our coaches can do that as a major conference member, it means that we're in the national championship conversation.
Of course, I don't expect us to beat Clemson on the field or in the recruiting rankings next year, but if we find ourselves in the conversation due to our record and level of play, then I'd be happy with that. If we also happen to sprinkle in a few four star guys in key positions in the next recruiting class, then all the better.
Yeah I don't see a scenario where recruiting rankings factor into Fuentes job security. If we win 8 games, we aren't firing him. That's just a bad decision that either requires bad leadership or enough money to handle buyouts without issues. We have neither.
If we drop to 7 wins, Fuente's position is not going to be secure and the recruits will know that. I can't imagine 7 wins and a high recruiting ranking. That doesn't compute.
If we only win 6, he's gone.
100%
I'm looking at next year's regular season like:
>=11 wins: I knew it all along! Fuente is the man!
10 wins: Back in Black(sburg)!
9 wins: We're getting somewhere
8 wins: Underwhelming.
7 wins: Disappointing. I'll give you one more year.
6 wins: Disastrous. Do you deserve one more year?
< 6 wins: Alright pack it in, we're done here
Succinct accurate list that sums up my expectations
Product on the field > arbitrary star rankings. I said in another thread I wasn't optimistic about next season, but the more I think about it 21/22 returning starters, with a lot of them being multi-year starters now, we should be able to win every game except maybe Penn State (lets face it they're a legit top 10 team). Now thats probably unrealistic, but I expect us to at the very least win 9 + games, and not get blown out in any of our losses. Honestly I'm pretty done with Fuente if that doesn't happen, this will be the most talented team he's had since the 2016 squad.
I agree with your post, but will add
.84-level players aren't going to win the ACC. We must start recruiting better players, too.
oh yea, totally agree we should be recruiting better too, but product on the field should be weighted more IMO, definitely in a year where we have 21/22 starters coming back
Recruiting class be damned, that many returning starters, I will very disappointed if next year doesn't result in a trip to Charlotte the first weekend in December, 10-2-ish as the floor going in. Semi hot take, don't care. Figure it out, gentlemen.
Edit: that being said, I really would love a super duper recruiting class lol
In addition, there are now 4 classes of Fuente's guys. The RS-seniors were the only class that was not originally recruited by Fuente (they were signed by Fuente). We have players with lots of experience, we have seniors again (first time in 2 years). We could sign a top 5 class and I'd be disappointed if we aren't in Charlotte in early December. Now injuries play into that, but I feel like we have more depth than every at just about every position.
Like someone said, its about how we get there. If we're 4-8 because every scholarship qb tore their ACL then I think thats a bit different than going 6-6 and losing all 6 games by 30 points each.
Please don't say things like this, even if it's hypothetical. 🤕
No injuries pls
No, it's hyp-a-thetical.
Interesting post, but cant really answer your questions. Never been a fan of 'following' recruiting and have always felt here at VT you need to have great coaching for the players we do get. With that all being said, we will always need that elite player(s). True game changers. We havent really had them since our string of talented RBs and Tyrod, IMO. Defensive side of the ball, I would throw a few names in there too...
----> Hears to hope that next years team is similar to 2004, and that the 2021 recruiting class is one that we remember for years to come.
With a roster with this much experience, playing in the coastal, I don't want to accept less than 9-3 regardless of recruiting class, but 8-4 would be fine I think with no blowout losses or head scratching losses. 7-5 would be unacceptable unless it is a truly a special class with >40% blue chips in a normal size class.
There really is no excuse for us not to win 9 games next year. We have blue chip recruits in many positions, all with 2 years+ experience.
As many has already said, this time is setup to win the coastal next year. Even with Jham's new defense, this team should be good enough to win most of their games. That should help position the team to have an even better class for 2022. At this point, Fu can now call this HIS football team (with Bud and Charley still here, it still kinda felt like this was Beamer's team) so we're going to see what he does with it...
Eh... You play to win the games, not to win the LOIs.
Recruiting is a vitally important component of a program, but only because it's such a big part of winning games. If you're scoring flashy recruits but not winning games, then you're just Miami. And no one should want to be Miami.
We had the talent this year to win the worst P-5 division in college football (the Coastal). So even if we pulled in the #1 recruiting class in the country and didn't win the Coastal next year, I would have little to no faith in the ability of Fuente and his staff to develop talent regardless of the star power.
If not next year, when?
My concern with this argument is you can make that argument most any season. And except for this class we have been. There will always be a what if scenario. We can't keep using them to pardon the coaching staff. It's going to be year five. It's time to win some games.
With the exception of 2018, Fuente's VT teams have averaged 9 wins per year.
But that doesn't fit the narrative, does it? When we were winning 10 games a year there for a few years, people still were bitching because we weren't filling that empty trophy case. We seem to be a fan base with a strong need to gripe, even when we're winning.
Why would you just ignore 25% of his on-field results?
Why would you ignore 75% of them?
No one is doing that though, so your post is nonsensical.
What does that say about yours?
Edit: What, people don't see that the inverse of that comment is the same as the comment, just from the other perspective?
You disappoint me.
With the exception of 2016, Fuente's VT teams have averaged 5 losses per year.
See how that's a completely ridiculous way to judge our program?
So no excuses next year, unless the excuse is really good.
For this particular class and upcoming season, I wouldn't take less than 8 wins and even that would be treading water. Fuente can recruit all he wants but he has to prove he can coach them once they get there, and he's got good recruiting classes on campus already to work with, so if he can't make it work with them, why should I trust him to handle a top 15 class on the field?
Looking at next years schedule I'm personally looking at 2 games as possible losses. At UNC and vs PSU are gonna be tough games. I feel like with 20 returning starters the other games should be wins.
I also thought this year was going to be a 10-2 season so really what do I know...
I withhold expectations, pending the weather report.
It's a hard no from me. Honestly Year 4 — 8-5 record, a blowout loss to Duke, nearly too late quarterback switch, poor recruiting class, fun-ass run in the middle, loss to UVA, No. 60 SP+ offense — was totally underwhelming.
I don't expect Virginia Tech to routinely beat Clemson, especially during their recent historic run, but dang, the Hokies should not scrap against the Dukes, Wake Forests, and Boston Colleges of the world. Yeah, OK, a close game against an inferior program each season. But the Hokies used to punch down, now they're in that weight class. The bar has been lowered. Five years is ample time to prove whether or not Fuente is the right person to lead the program and raise it back up. Given the plethora of returning starters and talent, an extremely winnable division, in 2020 it's time for Fuente to win 10 games, get to Charlotte, earn a premier bowl and win a marquee game along the way.
100%. If a 10 win season doesn't happen next year, I think we can assume the best Fuente can do is 8 wins a season in a horrible division.
Well, 2016 was 10 wins and 2017 was 9 wins, so I'm not sure how 8 wins is the ceiling.
See, we ignore those seasons on this site. Something something Beamer's players something something can't develop QBs something something fire Cornelsen.
Yeah once Fuente wins 10 games with the guys he recruited, then come talk to me.
Well, considering that 2016 was his first year here and other than Evans, that recruiting class was Beamer's. And most of the relationships for 2017 were made before he got to campus, so he maybe got SOME guys in the 2017 class, then 2018 was his first class. If you want to win 10 games with his recruits, since most of them are sophomores right now, you're saying you think a coach can win 10 games with primarily sophomores and freshmen. If you give the coach until some of the players are juniors or even seniors, you have to wait a year or two more.
We have 20/21 returning starters (depending on McClease returning), then 12 more the year after that. If you want to see 10 wins from his recruits, you gotta be patient.
Nonsense.... total... the best players decide and sign very late. The long "relationship" thing is horseshit.
So you think Fuente could come in here for his first recruiting cycle, offered the best players late with no relationship and a new coach and we should have gotten those recruits? THAT is horseshit. New coaches at schools whose reputation has started to wane probably NEED those longer relationships. If we were FSU, Miami, Alabama, LSU, or someone like that, yeah, sure, you can offer one of those "best" players late and expect to be in the running.
You know what programs talk about 3 and 4 year recruiting relationships with HS players? Teams that don't recruit well. That's who. UNC- they are a national football power right? how about Maryland? yeah...it's a talking point for mediocre recruiting teams.
I'm pretty sure those programs have 3 and 4 year relationships with players.
Michigan and Memphis offered elementary school kids this year.
Mack Brown was in the TV booth 3 years ago. If he was recruiting for UNC then, we should report him to the NCAA. Locksley was recruiting for Bama 3 years ago. It's an excuse. Sure, ideally your head coach is recruiting for your school for 25 years... in the real world, the guys that can recruit players, can recruit them late in the process.
Mack Brown wasn't, but UNC was.
Recruiting relationships are partly with the head coach as the closer, but more with other people associated with a program and the program itself.
I'm not talking 3 or 4 year relationships. I'm talking longer than 2-3 months. When Fuente got here, they were recruiting for 2017. For the "best" players as you put it, when do you think they were offered by the Ohio State's, Alabama's, Clemson's, etc? And along comes VA tech with an offer.
the 2017 class is 100% his. This is not 1975 where assistants are driving hours to see recruits and look at reel to reel film here. 2016- yeah, that was late in the cycle- but 2017 is 100% his.
Not sure WHY we ignore those seasons. Also, I think winning 9 games with Josh Jackson as QB is pretty impressive. In case anybody was wondering, Maryland won 3 games this season with him as QB.
2017 is ignored because Foster's defense, which was stocked with Beamer/Foster recruits, carried the team. Fuente's offense didn't look great that year.
EDIT: to provide some numbers, the 2017 VT offense was ranked 71 in offensive SP+. Maryland's offense ranked 77th in SP+ this year.
They may have been Beamer and Foster recruits, but Beamer and Foster were 5-6 the last two games of 2014 and 2015 with those recruits, winning the last games of the season against UVA in both cases, and winning crap bowl games to get to 7-6.
2017 Fuente took Beamer recruits and won 9 games with the QB who led Maryland to a 3 win 77th SP+ ranking. Yeah, maybe Foster's defense was good, but you still gotta score more points than your opponent. And if you don't give Fuente credit, who DO you give credit for winning 9 games?
The point is, if UMD had the #9 best defense (like VT did in 2017) they would have been a top 25 team this year, with JJ at the helm.
The stats say that our defense was responsible for the majority of our success in 2017. If you want to attribute the majority of our success that year to Fuente, then you either (a) believe Fuente was involved with the defense, or (b) question the validity of the stats (you think the offense was better than 71st in the country, you think the defense was worse than 9th in the country, you think special teams was better than 61st in the country, etc).
To address point (a) - Fuente has said that he's pretty hands off on the defense. Furthermore, the defense schematically resembled previous Bud Foster defenses.
To address point (b) - SP+ is pretty accurate, and typically predicts games correctly against the spread at rate between 40% and 55% in a given week. A pretty good predictor of a team's success once we hit the half way point in a season. If you have some knowledge that proves the system inaccurate, or you have a better statistical interpretation, I'm all ears, but "2017 Fuente took Beamer recruits and won 9 games with the QB who led Maryland to a 3 win 77th SP+ ranking" doesn't hold water. Remember, there's 21 other players on the field and collectively, they impact the game far more than a QB can.
Counterpoint: UVa offense and Perkins
Without Perkins, UVa loses the Commonwealth Cup again this year, and we're not having this conversation.
No one is arguing that the QB position is not important. You are (1) taking my comment out of the context of the discussion between HokieDoug and I, and (2) conveniently ignoring the word 'collectively,' which is a key part of this discussion.
A QB can absolutely be a 3-10 point swing in a single game, and it's rare that you'll see a single player at any other position impact a game to the same degree. However, if you leave Perkins in the game, but downgrade all other 21 players, you're looking at 15-20 point swing (minimum) per game.
QB is important, but if you're going to argue that the difference between VT's 2017 season and UMD's 2019 season is largely due to Fuente's in game coaching and development of a single player (Josh Jackson), then I don't know what to tell you.
I was just making a one-off point that a QB can be a difference maker.
Carry-on with your discussion.
We may have had a better defense in 2017, but we played Clemson, West Virginia, and Oklahoma State. We scored a lot more points against opponents than Maryland did. I feel like our coaches put JJ in a better position to score than Maryland did. Basically if you go and look at Maryland's opponents this year and how many points they scored against them, our coaching was better with the same QB (on offense). There are a LOT of other moving parts on a football team, just stating my opinion that our coaches got more out of JJ and our offense than maybe should have been expected. The wins were definitely facilitated by the defense, but given how many points Maryland put up against their opponents this year (not many at all), not sure a top-10 defense would have helped.
'Feel' isn't a good way to support your argument here... How many Maryland games did you watch this year? Where are you coming up with this opinion?
UMD played PSU, OSU, Mich, Mich St, and Minnesota this year, and they have the 8th, 1st, 9th, 12th, and 30th best defenses, respectively (per SP+). In 2017, we played two top 30 defenses: Clemson (2nd) and Miami (16th). JJ put up 1 TD, 2 pics, and ~250 yards against Clemson. Against Miami he threw for under 200 yards, 2 pics, and 0 TDs.
I'm not sure if you're over estimating the ACC or under estimating the big 10, but JJ is facing better competition now, and performing similarly in those games.
That's a reasonable opinion to have, and I might agree that our coaches got every ounce of talent out of JJ, but simply saying that JJ went 9-3 at VT and 3-9 at UMD, thus he over achieved as a result of Fuente's coaching is a big leap. The majority of our success that year was due to our defense.
I kind of base it on how the Big 10 performs in the playoffs and bowl games. Recall in 2016, we lost to Clemson 42-35. Ohio State lost to them 31-0. If that's the best the Big 10 had to offer, I don't know what to say and nobody can throw statistics at me to tell me the Big 10 is an awesome conference when their best team gets shut out in the playoffs. Michigan State got shut out by Alabama in the playoffs in the year before.
Maybe the statistic we should use is the Big 10 is the only conference to have 2 different champions shut out in the playoffs.
Yeah, Maryland played Penn State. Penn state also played Pitt. Pitt put up 10 points on them. Rutgers scored 6 against Penn St., and the freaking Buffalo Bulls scored 13. Maryland scored 0 - the only team to be shut out by Penn St.
Michigan State was 7-6, and 4-5 in the Big 10, so if they had the 12th best defense, that's REALLY sad.
Maryland scored 10 against Minnesota. Teams that scored more than that against Minnesota: South Dakota State Jackrabbits (21), Fresno State Bulldogs (35 in OT), Georgia Southern Eagles (32), Northwestern Wildcats (22).
There's my evidence that I 'feel' that the Tech coaches got more out of JJ than Maryland.
Is anyone else legitimately concerned that, somehow, Fuente is going to find some way not to win 10+ games in 2020? Like it should be possible for a decent coach to get this team to 10 wins in 2020 but we also said that about 2019.
I genuinely hope I'm wrong, but I just don't have any confidence that Fuente and his staff can maximize the potential of this squad
I'm not sure WHY people would have thought we should win 10 games in 2019. We won 6 games in 2018, so to say we should win 10 in 2019 would be delusional.
Why is it so hard to imagine that with 20/21 starters (shows how young we've been the past 2 years), we would do better next year. Yeah, we had some losses this year that weren't pretty, 2 of them were before HH was QB, and another (ND) was when he was on the sideline with an injury and we still lost by only 1 point to a 2 loss team that's ranked #15 in the country with our 3rd string QB. And some of the offensive problems were execution, meaning those returning starters have more time to work on those errors. Now, if we can find a way to stop mobile QBs...
Probably because six of them were Furman, ODU, Rhode Island, GT, Duke, and BC...
Your comment makes zero sense. I was talking about wins last year and this year. You listed a bunch of teams, but, of that list, we lost to some of them either last year or this year. If it's a random sample of teams we've beat over the last two years, not sure what that gets you.
If your point is we won against some crap teams last year, that gives more fuel for why I'd think people were delusional about winning 10 games this year. If it's supposed to be teams we beat this year, they're not the right teams we beat (since we lost to at least 2 of them).
My point is that some people expected 10 wins in 2019 because the schedule sucked... there- that's more direct.
I get that. I'm just saying that considering how we played in 2018 to expect to win 10 games in 2019 seems like we set our expectations WAY too high and now are upset that we didn't live up to those (unreasonable) expectations.
I get people want to win. I most certainly want to win. But I remember how horrible our defense was last year. And our offense wasn't great (RW interceptions, forcing plays, poor run performance, etc.). A weak schedule doesn't erase the problems you had the previous year. We lost to freakin ODU. But somehow we can expect to win 10 games? I don't know what you call that, but I call it delusional, or at the very least, unrealistic.
Do I think we can win 10 games again in a season, Hell Yeah! Did I think it would happen this year - nope. I think we're in a great position to do it next year. We'll see how that goes.
*~ Old Dominion
Furman
*~ Rhode Island
*~ Duke
*~ Boston College
~ Wake Forest
*~ Georgia Tech
~ North Carolina
*~ Miami
Virginia
Notre Dame
~ Pittsburgh
~ Kentucky
Teams in Italics are FCS teams
* - Finished .500 or below
~ - Finished .500 or below in Conference Play
Yep, we only played 3 teams over the course of the entire season that finished with a winning record in conference play. 6 teams on our schedule finished the year with a losing record. There's no other way to cut it. Our schedule this year was Charmin soft, and we didn't capitalize. There were absolutely 10 winnable games on this slate, and the fact that we didn't even sniff that number is.... well, its not good.
Games we almost won:
Notre Dame
Kentucky
UVa
Now I know "almost winning" isn't the same as winning, but we were in those games or winning them into the 4th quarter.
This gives me hope for next year, as the subtext of all of this was playing with one of the least experienced teams in FBS. Which sort of explains the struggles during the beginning of the year, as well as the late lapses against quality opponents.
Which is why I'm not throwing in the towel already for next year.
I thought we would win 10, and I don't regret a thing. This team had the talent, and still contend we should have.
Now I will caveat this with saying I am an engineer and I speak English good but holy crap reading this hurt my brain
Yeah, I have a Comm degree. It hurts me, but 904 provides enough insight and quality viewpoints that it's easily forgiven.
yeah wont lie. I struggled writing this. I was having a hard time getting my point on paper. sorry guys. its a better conversation had on a podcast with open dialog and free flowing conversation. I was honestly afraid what I was asking would get lost in what I was typing. I'm not good at this. girls did my homework for me when I was in school.
904 ain't come to play school!
You did a solid enough job getting your point across. You've also clearly stated in the past that you're not the best author in the world. If it was truly incomprehensible, there wouldn't be nearly as many responses.
I might give a little slack for on-field performance based on coaching turnover on D, especially if they make scheme changes. But this team should be better next year across the board with the vast majority of the 2 deep returning. At this writing, the O should be outstanding. VT averaged 36 ppg in Hooker's starts and both kickers are back.
Recruiting factors in to my longer term view. A significant uptick in recruiting coupled with better on field performance would give me high confidence in the leadership and perhaps a contract extension.
With the new coaching staff changes next season, I have no idea how the 2020 season will take place, especially since J. Ham will be calling defensive plays 100% of the time starting in the spring. I have no idea how the offense will fare either, especially with Cornelsen still on staff calling plays, so any hypothetical questions will be met with all kind of answers.
That's why I said the winter and spring workouts greatly interests me the most. The incoming senior class have to set the tone NOW instead of waiting until summer workouts.
While recruits can help change perception, at the end of the day, it is how the players respond to the change in scheme, play calling, and executing their assignment. The coaches have to prepare them and set them loose.
Excuses are gone. This year we lost to BC, Duke, and UVA, we've lost mediocre bowl games for 3 straight years, won't have a player drafted, and signed our worst recruiting class ever, all while having 'his guys' and a baby soft schedule.
Talent has held this team back over the last 7+ years. We need to be landing more talented players to compete for ACC Championships. All the focus has been on this class, so if we can't land a top 20ish class, it will be hard for me to have faith we can consistently stay in the 23-26 range in recruiting, which is likely where we need to be -while doing a good job of developing players - to be competitive.
Similarly, with another schedule that won't be one of the tougher ones nationally, while returning 20+ starter (of 'his guys'), if we can't win 9+ and win the Coastal, I don't know what faith you can put in CJF moving forward to get us where we want.
Jim Harbaugh pulls in recruits and great classes but still can't win a big game or beat his rival.
To be fair UM's rival is perennially a top 5 team.
His bowl game opponents ain't
His bowl game opponent this year is arguably the best program in history.
I think he meant rivalS. Cause his record against MSU isnt great either.
MSU has been to the playoffs in the last few years though...still better than teams we play.
I agree next year there are things to prove. I honestly think VT will prove them. Experience was also holding the team back. They have that now.
Here is how I see next year.
Regular season - win 9+ games and win/contend in the coastal until the end. I could take not winning the coastal if we beat PSU - if not then we need to win the coastal.
Recruiting - 2021 is hugely important (captain obvious) and can't be ignored as the season unfolds, but the season results are more important. I'd be thrilled with a top 20 class with D2.
I'm very interested in the off-season to see how the team develops as VT is never going to acquire talent at a top 5 level, but the Hokies need to be elite developers of talent.
There is a ton of young talent spread across the roster that if developed right (see offensive line and QB) could be giant difference makers.
I honestly see another 8-4 year. Penn St will be tough, and we have to play at Louisville for our crossover next year. Plus I think at UNC decides the division. That game was insanely tough this year and they have a ton coming back along with a great recruiting class. Then throw in another stinker along the way as we typically have, and you're looking at 8-4. I think 9-10 wins in the regular season, winning the division, and a legit shot at a NY6 bowl should be the realistic target for next season, but between lack of execution, poor play at times, and some questionable coaching decisions/game planning that I don't see changing in one offseason, I feel like we will fall short.
Louisville is the scariest team on the schedule for me. they are so athletic. especially at the QB position and schemed be damned sometimes one guy with the ball in his hands every play makes more plays than you. see KY. there is no magical fix for stopping running super athletic QBs it wasn't just a bud foster thing. there was a reason KY won 5 of their last 6. if Louisville even makes a minor improvement on defense they will be a much better football team than I think a lot will expect.
Agreed. That game will look like BC 2019, IMO. We will need 38-40 points to beat them, and will need a clean TO-free well executed game to do it. they are better than Wake was this year, IMO.
I haven't been following recruiting much lately because of the disappointment time and time again with the misses. I am concerned with the development of talent that we do have. Especially on the offense. The receivers had a very poor showing in our bowl game this year after having more time to practice. Maybe just a bad game for them. Who knows? The offensive line and running backs look better post Kill. Hopefully we will see some improvement with Hooker since he is still so young. I would like to hear from JH and see what his plans are philosophy/scheme wise on defense.
We have been hearing that we should give Fuente time to see what his recruits can do. I agree with that. However, time is ticking because this is his roster. The results of this season was extremely disappointing for me because of the easy schedule. We also lost three bowls in a row with this coaching staff. I know some of you will say, but we beat Arkansas in Fuente's first year. My answer is yes, but with Beamer's guys who were developed by his staff. Jerod Evans was key that year and Fuente deserves all of the credit for his initial recruitment (not development), but he couldn't keep him his final year. Fuente needs to be to given another season or two to see what he can do with his people. My biggest concern is if Fuente leaves will he leave the program better than Frank Beamer?
It doesn't matter what the recruiting class is for 2021. In my eyes, Fuente has to win and win well in 2020. None of these squeakers against Furman. No excuses, not even with a new D coordinator. Go out and win the football games, like you should and get to the ACCCG.
If VT doesn't win the Coastal handily next year, then Fuente will have proven himself unripe as a head coach and we need to move on. I tend to like the guy's demeanor and such, but we had a low key shit storm in the off-season last year and lost more than a couple games we shouldn't have this year. That's all on the head coach, in the direct and literal sense.
Shit or get off the pot. We can challenge Clempsun if nothing else next year, just have to get to Charlotte.
So our standard has suddenly become winning the Coastal/10 wins? Or it's a waste of all of our time?
Meet Jack's enraged bile duct.
While I think that's a great goal, the "win it all or fire Fuente" seems a bit unreasonable.
We have officially gaslit ourselves into 8 wins being fine. Holy shit.
Gaslighting is more pretending that 8 wins while transitioning coaches is unacceptable.
Remember that 0-0 game in regulation against Wake Forest? Nobody had a realistic expectation that transitioning from Beamer was going to be without pain.
how little turnover does there need to be before we aren't "transitioning coaches"? I understand now we'll have a new DC, but the scheme won't be drastically different and I think we all agree that at least some of the position coaches needed to go for whatever reason.
does the transition from CBF to CJH just reset what we expect from our defense and from our team as a whole with so many returning starters and coaches on the offensive side? i understand we have to give CJH some leash as he's young and learning on the job, but we're going into Year Five of Fuente -- 2020 is no longer "while transitioning coaches" in the context of this team, and we absolutely "should" be better than 8 regular season wins with the returning productivity and the depth from last year's redshirts hitting the roster as well.
I think we will be better than 8 wins next year, I'm just not in favor of litmus tests, or in favor of blaming the offense when the defense has slipped below what we've come to expect at VT.
JHam is young, but has a lot of confidence from both Fuente and Foster. And we'll also be pulling in additional coaches on the defense. I'd expect improvement next year. Both from new coaches in the mix and from another year of experience across the board.
Bruh...we aren't transitioning coaches anymore lol. Fuente will be in his 5th season next year. That is nonsense.
What? What you're saying here is not what I said in any way.
You said:
My contention is that impatience is the killer of football coaching transitions.
Give Fuente another year or two. I think he's earned that. We'll know plenty by then that we don't know now. Also, we can do that without complaining and being making ourselves miserable during the entire off-season. Fuente is our coach for another year or two no matter what. Why get an ulcer over it?
I'm still fairly optimistic about this program. Was looking miserable mid-season, but they turned it around, and we saw genuine improvement over the season.
I agree Key that just winning the Coastal is a pretty low threshold for VT football success, though it is the obvious starting point. My observation of the past 4 years is that CornFu's offense is potent when a QB who can run it is available. Jackson and Willis we're not great fits due to physical and mental limitations. Evans and a healthy HH have proven the potential for offensive success, and with a solid defense I believe VT should own the ACC outside of Clempson. A dynamic dual threat QB makes all the difference for Confu offense. I am excited to see what improved QB play will produce in the win/loss totals for the next few seasons.
This statement is completely ridiculous in January. What is handily? CJF has the second best overall win percentage of ACC teams since he took over in 2016 at 33-20. This is SEC level madness here where every 4 years if you don't win a conference championship you fire the head coach. If we head down that path we will be mediocre in no time.
This is just as much an overreaction IMO (no offense). If Virginia Tech can't regularly win the Coastal, then something is terribly wrong.
What is regularly? We won it in 2016. Every 4 years or we fire the coach.
I get expectations but these fan ultimatums are uncalled for.
I'm not supporting the ultimatum, necessarily, but it's tone deaf to compare fans critical of Fuente to SEC fans. The SEC is arguably and historically the strongest and most resourced league in college football. The reason it's ridiculous for fans to expect SEC championships every 4 years is because it's really hard to do.
The ACC, however, and the coastal in particular, is arguably and historically the worst league(division) in the P5. Winning the coastal division is a much, much lower bar than winning the SEC. To expect a coach to come to one of the only "football schools" in the division and win the worst division in P5 is far from unreasonable.
Everyone is pointing at returning talent and an easy schedule in 2020 and saying this is "the year" for Fuente. We all said the same thing about 2019 last year. This time next year, after another 7 or 8 win season, people will be looking at "returning talent and an easy schedule" in 2021 as reasons to give Fuente "one more year".
The fact of the matter is that Fuente was hired to bring a competent offense to Blacksburg. He promised Bud that his defense wouldn't have to be perfect any more. After 4 years I haven't been convinced that the offense we hoped for is on the way and he failed to keep his promise to Bud. Bud's defenses have not been perfect and it has absolutely mattered. There are examples of coaches all over the country who produce more progress offensively than Fuente has in tougher divisions. And often in less time too.
I understand why fans are upset and skeptical about if Fuente is ever going to put an offense on the field which can consistently score more than 4 TDs against the worst division in the P5.
He hasn't done it yet. Against the easiest schedules. We're going to keep giving him chances though. And the schedules aren't getting harder. Because we're in the easiest division in the P5.
I like Fuente. I want him to succeed. But he hasn't shown me that he's moving in that direction. I really hope his offense finally takes flight in 2020 (and with the defense in transition we'll need it) but my confidence in that actually happening is quite low. I look around the country and see coaches creating more offense with less talent against tougher opponents and am left wondering why the hell it's so hard to do it in Blacksburg.
I hope this team wins 10+ games in 2020. I think it's absolutely a reasonable expectation. I just don't believe we have the right coaches to do that. So realistically, we're probably about a 7 or 8 win team. That's who we are right now and unless something changes I don't think we're much better than that.
Great post.
He said the defense wouldn't have to be perfect. He didn't say we wouldn't need one.
He's supplied an offense that can score points. To expect them to outrun other offenses is a bit premature, but hopefully it's coming as our offensive players get more experience.
I look forward to seeing the team improve across the board, and don't think now is the time to throw in the towel and quit on Fuente. Why not give him a year or two of playing with the team he's built?
You tout our offense like its elite. Let's not act like we're setting the scoreboard on fire.
2016: 49th in Offensive efficiency
2017: 62nd in offensive efficiency
2018: 46th in offensive efficiency
2019: 57th in offensive efficiency
Are those stats adjusted for SOS? I'm genuinely curious, I don't know. If they are then I still think those numbers cast our coach in a negative light since he was supposed to be an offensive guru. Middle of the pack is not where any respectable P5 offense should be. If they're not adjusted for SOS then they're really much worse than they seem because the teams we've played against are pretty bad.
They are adjusted for SOS
Maybe try re-reading my comment, because nowhere in it did I say our offense was elite this year. That said, they were an improvement over last year, and effective enough to win games.
I maintain that we had a lot of great players with limited experience this year, all on the field at once. And knowing that, they were decent.
I've seen some changes on the offense since Fuente got here that gives me hope that he's making improvements on the team. I'm sorry that some of you guys don't notice those changes.
While I'd have liked a UVa or Kentucky win, I'm still looking forward to next year. If we'd have had an effective defense, we'd have won those games. We'll have new coaches on defense next year. Like I said, I'm expecting improvements across the board.
Ummm... What?
I measure progress by games won, and by what I see on the field.
It's not quite so simplistic as efficiency rankings. Are the teams in the national championship the most efficient, or the ones who won the most games (or actually didn't lose any)?
I'm not really sure what you're alluding to here, but if you're trying to argue the stats like they're arbitrary, they're not. They take into account a host of offensive, game, and opponent variables
But Incase anyone is interested - LSU was #1 in offensive efficiency this year and #12 defensively. Clemson was #4 offensively and #1 defensively
I was sort of curious. Ohio State was the most efficient team overall through week 16. As usual, you chose the stats that supported your conclusion.
The reason Clemson and LSU are in the championship game is because they won more games, or at least didn't lose any.
This is a strange argument. Ohio State may have been more efficient overall but Clemson has the #1 defense and LSU has the #1 offense. They're not in the championship game by mistake. And you could argue that the OSU and Clemson teams are just about as evenly matched as you get in college football. That game they had was incredible! Either team could easily have won that game. Best playoff game yet IMO.
But that's all way beyond the scope of this discussion. We're not ready to be talking about national championships. This team needs to win the worst division in the P5 first. Baby steps.
I was saying that this year's Virginia Tech team was better than last year's. The efficiency stats don't tell the whole story.
They're a good indicator, but in terms of "proving" something, they're just bulletin board fodder. Which is why bulletin board folks pull up only the ones that support their previously-reached conclusion.
So when I suggest that this year's team was better than last year, I fully expect for people search the internet for some stat to prove their conclusion.
But I was just going on what I saw in games. I was encouraged by the improvements and the play of our young players, even if we lost to UVa and Kentucky.
I think you mean to say "this year's team finished the season better than last year's." I don't think anyone would argue that, however, one can still acknowledge that the team is improving, but also believe that it's not improving at the rate that it should, and thus be disappointed with Fuente.
Sometimes you have to settle for reality.
I don't think people realized how much change we needed.
Counterpoint. With the talent on our roster and the quality of the opponents we had in 2019 we believe that an offensive minded coach, considered among the best when he was hired, should be able to field an offense that produces in the top 1/3 of the nation in most offensive statistical categories in year 4. That is not unreasonable. He failed to do so and forgive us for having doubts that he ever will.
There's the rub, really. Yes, I'd have liked more offense. But we had very little experience out on the field, and we were playing teams who had Juniors and Seniors on the field, having been in the system for 3 or 4 years. So I can sort of understand how it may have been an uphill battle. Particularly as a collective.
And then I look at how ND, UVa, and Kentucky walked over our defense at the end of those games. I don't think that's putting too fine a point on it, is it? We need our defense not to allow 4-7 yards per play.
So while I agree that VT was a bit underwhelming this year, there were extenuating circumstances that explain it. And I think that with a year of experience and new coaches on defense, VT will be able to squeeze out a few more wins next year, and I'm reluctant to claim that he can't do that.
Of course we won't know for sure until next year.
I won't argue that our defense hasn't been bad lately. And certainly some of our losses could be blamed pretty fairly on the defense. But that doesn't excuse the lack of progress offensively. Fuente was brought in to install a potent offense. He's behind schedule in that regard. Sure, blame the defense for some of the final results. That's fair. But recognize that the offense is not progressing as one would expect from an offense guru. The defense hasn't been great but it's been serviceable. We're not out here saying Fuente should be in the playoff in year 4. We're simply saying that if our offense was even among the top 1/3, statistically, it would have been enough to mask some of the issues defensively. With the easiest schedule in the P5 a top 40 offense paired with the 39th ranked defense should have produced more wins. It didn't, and even though the defense can and should be blamed for those losses in a vacuum, the utter lack of progress offensively contributed to the defense being in position to fail against bad teams. That's why people are worried about the offense. It was supposed to help the defense and it hasn't lived up to the billing.
What exactly is your timeline? Yes, the offense has not been overwhelming so far (despite going to ACCCG in first year). But I look around at our team, especially the offense, and see lots of good things. We've been bringing in QB talent (I like RW's attitude, but he and JJ weren't getting us high in offensive statistics), we've picked up some good RB talent (King and Gary), and have supplemented with transfer talent. We have been bringing in a lot of talent at receiver, and we've got 4 star guys on the O-line (I don't remember doing that even when Beamer was around - maybe before I started paying attention to recruiting, but we always seemed to raid the D-line for O-linemen). Oh yeah, and we have some really good TEs. The challenge is, most of them are still sophomores or younger. So, back to my point, what's your timeline? It seems to me like next year and the year after have all the right pieces to get to where you think we should be.
I think 4 years is a reasonable amount of time for a coach with Fuente's billing to field a top 40 offense. Even if we move the goal posts and say 6 years is how long we should wait I still think it would be fair to expect seeing tangible progress year over year. 2016 was good but let's not forget that Evans was a unique talent and he had Ford, Phillips and Hodges to throw to. And our defense was nearly elite in 2016 too. Our offense hasn't been close to as dangerous since then and our defense has suffered major losses which has resulted in a very real decline. But the defense in 2019 improved dramatically from the 2018 version. Why aren't we seeing similar improvements offensively? How are you not concerned about that? The defense demonstrated real progress after losing a ton of talent and taking a considerable step back. The offense has been sputtering along in the middle of the pack with no sign of real progress since 2016. That 2016 offense is looking more and more like the outlier than a sign of what might be in store in the future.
People are concerned about that and I don't blame them. It's a legitimate concern. Our defense went from 101st in 2018 to 39th in 2018. That's coaching! They had all the exact issues with depth and experience as the offense. Yet, somehow, our offensive coaches managed to go backwards from 40-something in 2018 to 57th in 2019. Like, how are people not worried about that?
"Reasonable amount of time" got nothing to do with it. The question is can Fuente take us to the next level. I'd suggest we don't know yet.
Much of the concern on offense this year and last was a matter of player ability and experience. We saw improvement almost by the week this year. The talent was there, but not the experience.
On defense, we had the same coaches that we've had for the last 30 years.
So, I'm willing to give the offense a little bit of time, and on defense, I'm looking forward to seeing how the new staff can coach and recruit.
This kinda blows my mind. We saw immediate improvement with a QB change. I'll concede that. But continuous improvement each week? I disagree.
The mental gymnastics you're doing in defense of Fuente is incredible.
I think he's failed to deliver a competent offense. Furthermore, he's failed to demonstrate measurable progress to that end. Maybe it'll all come together in 2020 or 2021 but I just don't see evidence that it will.
We scored 30 points on Kentucky. What other team did that?
We scored 20 points on Notre Dame. What other teams did that?
We scored 30 points on Virginia. What other teams did that?
Mental gymnastics? No sir. I don't think so. It's just that I'm not so blinded by my conclusion that I'm willing to ignore what this team was able to do by the end of the season. The offense was able to score against some decent defenses. We just weren't able to stop them from scoring.
Doesn't matter, though. We'll all see together what this team can do next year. I'm just not willing to root for VT to fail because I've already drawn a conclusion. No sir, not me. I'm willing to give Fuente the benefit of the doubt. I'm sorry you can't do that.
5/13 scored at least 20 on ND. The last 6 opponents scored at least 27 points against UVA, including Liberty. Those aren't really like Kentucky, where we really were one of only two teams to do such a time.
30 points > 27 points.
They all show we had a competent offense against some pretty good defenses.
Which one of those games did we win?.....oh....yeah.
More so, to call our Offense "competent" in the first half of the UVa game is bordering on irrational. Had the offense been even semi-competent in any period other than the 3rd Quarter, we would have won comfortably.
Agianst ND, we ran a battering-ram offense with QP. We achieved a grand total of 235 Offensive yards. Our Defense scored 7 points, the offense scored only 13....one point less than....drumroll....New Mexico did against ND. Nothing about this suggests a strong or competent offensive performance.
The facts simply don't support the opinions that you continually float and then present as if they are hard evidence.
I'm not rooting for VT to fail. I want them to go 15-0 every year. But I'm also realistic. We don't have a team that can do that at the moment. And what concerns me is that our coaches haven't proven to me that they're headed in that direction. I genuinely hope these coaches put it together and win games that a decent team should win against a mediocre schedule. And do so consistently. But I won't bet on that happening because I just don't believe, based on the 4 years of evidence we have, that these coaches can manage that. We shall see.
Holy shit dude, come on.
I took the stats from LSU and Clemson because you literally said
You're manipulating this entire conversation and then trying to accuse others of doing so.
Ohio State has the most efficiency overall, but they aren't in the National Championship. This is the problem with using that kind of stat. It's an indicator, but doesn't tell the whole story.
The better team is ultimately the one who wins the most games, and the most important ones.
1) I can't believe I am continuing to respond to this. It is beyond nonsense at this point
2) OSU was an ELITE team this year, of course they were one of the most efficient programs. They arguably should be playing for the National Championship
3) Based on your response, a 'wins/losses' stat that may be more up your alley are the Committee or AP rankings. Spoiler Alert - we're not close to showing up on that list, and haven't been for the last 3 years, regardless of how gangbusters our offense has been going.
I just said our team this year was better than our team last year.
That's where we started, and you went and tried to find some statistics to prove that my opinion was ridiculous/invalid/nonsensical. Then I gave an example that "better" can be in the eye of the beholder, and may refer to wins/losses or other criteria than FEI efficiency.
I wasn't making a point about OSU other than they were THE most efficient team, but lost a game that knocked them out of the Championship game. They're not the best team. It's just an example.
You said the offense was better than last year. I said it wasn't, statistically, and then provided one of, if not the best indicators of comparative offensive success, to give quantitative back up my response.
No one said it was "ridiculous/invalid/nonsensical"
Additionally, no one ever said 'Offensive Efficiency' was a measure of 'who is the best team' - it isn't the intent of the statistic. You're doing that on your own and arguing with no one.
What I said was this:
Then you guys went all tag team to "prove" that the offense took a step back this year. The fact is that statistical efficiency isn't the only measure.
But the real point is that you can feel free to bail on Fuente. I don't care! You can bash him all summer long. But when he wins more games next year than he won this year, and i think he will, please get off my lawn.
The 2018 offense was also a victim of a historically bad Tech defense and i think that skews the opinion a little bit. If we had the 2018 defense with this years offense, I'm not sure it looks a whole lot different. 2018s problem was inconsistency. 3rd quarter we'd disappear offensively and all the sudden you'd look up on the scoreboard and we're down by multiple scores. The yardage for that team came sporadically. Thats where i think the eye test comes in. I personally feel like our offense was more consistent during the course of the games this year, especially with Hooker, but it could just seem that way because we were competitive in every game besides Duke. There were still too many times during critical stretches that our offense would disappear or we'd get ultra conservative. That's where my frustrations stem from.
Certainly understandable, and I agree.
Well measuring by games won ignores two entire phases of the game. It's not really fair to look at W-L records and say that the offense got better or worse. And the eyeball test is subjective. No argument. But objectively, our offense was actually worse. Objectively, our defense improved. In fact the defense improved 62 spots while the offense regressed 11. So the net improvement suggests that the team overall would look better and have a better record.
I haven't looked but I'll bet that the teams in the championship rank in the top 10 in one or both categories and top 20 in the other. But that's kind of putting the cart before the horse. Let's get our offense into the top 40 first and go from there. I would expect a coach paid millions to bring an offense to Blacksburg to be able to field an offense in the top 1/3rd of college football against the easiest division in the P5. Ideally in year 3, hopefully by year 4 and most definitely by year 5. Years 3 and 4 he missed the mark so I doubt he'll hit in year 5 but here's to hoping.
Although I disagree with VTKey, It's worth noting that the stats from Outoftowner do include the first four games with Willis, and weigh every outcome equally. One could make the argument that the first games were bad indicators of this team's abilities. I posted about this a couple weeks ago - our SP+ ranking jumps from 41 to 24 (going into bowl season) if you assign more weight to the previous 8 games than the first four.
That said, this does NOT mean that when evaluating Fuente's success as a head coach, I believe it is okay to ignore those first 4 games of the year.
This is a good point. It's encouraging that our offense was so much better with Hooker. At the same time, why did it take 4 miserable weeks for the coaches to figure that out? Why aren't the coaches able to coach to the strengths of players they have?
Based on what we've seen with Evans, Jackson, Willis and Hooker it appears that this offense can only be successful with a certain type of QB with a very specific set of skills. That's just not sustainable. Sure, every offensive coordinator in the country wants to have a dynamic athlete at the QB position but there are only so many of those to go around. I want to have coaches who can still get production out of the players they have; coaches who don't rely so heavily on a very specific type of athlete to play the most important position on the field. A good coach, IMO, would structure the scheme, game plan and play calling around the strengths of the guys he has to work with. An okay coach can win with a very specific type of player. That's okay as long as they can consistently get those types of recruits for their schemes. A bad coach needs really dynamic athletes to bail them out with pure athleticism, heart and determination.
I think Tyrod Taylor was successful in spite of coaching. He was the dynamic athlete who could will this offense down the field despite bad coaching. Brad Cornelson, IMO, is somewhere between bad and okay. He desperately needs a dynamic athlete to run his offense effectively. We've seen that with Evans and Hooker. But when he's working with a less athletic QB, like Jackson or Willis, the offense just looks terrible. Is it too much to ask for a good coach who can mold his scheme, game plan and play calling to the strengths of the guys at his disposal? I don't think that's too much to ask considering our head coach was touted as an offensive guru who could do just those things. The QB whisperer who got Andy Dalton and Paxton Lynch drafted in the NFL.
Sure, the improvements offensively once Hooker was installed are encouraging but that also comes with a red flag. It's not a good sign, IMO, that one player change makes such a drastic difference. To me, the story is more about Hooker's ability than any coaching.
This is a very reasonable question/criticism IMO. Was Hooker injured during the start of the season? Was he injured over the summer, which delayed his development? Was RW looking really good in practice, and just not able to translate to a game? Was there a 'tie' between HH and RW, and the coaches gave the benefit of the doubt to the returning QB? Because Fuente didn't tell the fan base, we all assume (somewhat unfairly) that he made a poor decision based on the knowledge that was available to him. Goes back to my comment above about how Fuente's lack of transparency is alienating fans and eroding his support.
I actually do think it's sustainable. We've recruited 4 QB's in 5 years who fit this mold (JE, HH, QP, DD in the upcoming class).
Are you sure about that? Evans' body wore down during the season and was probably why he decided to bolt for the Draft. Jackson was tasked to manage the offense until he got hurt and was supplanted by Willis, and left when he was offended the coach asked him to compete for the starting job. Willis was a turnover machine who tries to do too much and wasn't an ideal fit for the spread/read-heavy offense. Put Willis into a pro-style offense, and I can see him thriving. Hooker was the ideal fit for what Fuente and Corn envisioned. Defenses respected his ability to make them bite on play-fake and Hooker made some of them pay for it. That leaves us with Patterson. What type of quarterback is he? He's a bulldozer, no doubt, but a spread offense? If he was running the Tebow package, then I can see it, but my biggest issue is that Corn doesn't trust Patterson to uncork the ball unless absolutely have to.
So, in my estimation, Hooker is the most likely fit for the offense, and who knows what Burmeister will bring to the table. Based on what Foster said about him, I envision a tight battle between Hooker and Burmeister until September.
This has been my biggest frustration with VT's offense for as long as I've been a fan. As a coach, you got to recognize what your players can do within your system, and tweak with the playbook to enhance their strength and try to mask their weakness. However, we can't just trust the job to one person - the quarterback - because there's 10 other players who have to execute. I know fans get sick of hearing about execution, but as a player and starter, you were named starter because the coaches expect you to be able to execute and were able to separate yourself from your peer. The offensive line have to know their blocking scheme and protection calls. Tight ends have to know when to chip and when to release. Wide receivers need to simply get better at catching the football instead of shaking in their cleats at hearing footsteps. We haven't had a running back with the power and vision since Ryan Williams (let's be honest - David Wilson tries to out-athlete the defense and Michigan was having none of it) left.
I don't blame Fuente for preaching ball security, but at what point does it become a handcuff to the point it makes your quarterback gun-shy or make your running back lose confidence when you bench him for one fumble?
However, this line:
...is part of the reason I am sour on Fuente's reputation. It doesn't seem well-deserved anymore.
This confuses me. Our offensive statistics may be worse, but we won more games this year. Statistics need context as well. Say one year you play a bunch of crap defenses, the next year you play the top ten defenses. If your offensive statistics drop, is it because your offense was worse, or because you played better defenses? Or is it both? You don't know. In addition, the statistics are for a year as a whole, but don't tell you if the team improved through the year.
So yes, our offensive statistics were worse this year, but we had 4 games with Willis as QB, and one with QP. That skews things. Overall, you have to acknowledge that HH played better offense than RW. Things improved. Our O-line improved, we were opening some good holes for our RBs. QB threw way fewer interceptions and completed more passes. And some of the ones he didn't complete weren't his fault. Dropped catches can be improved, whether through practice or fresh faces. We have a lot of good receivers, we picked up some good RBs. Our O-line was young but improved through the year and we get Hoffman next year.
Winning more games with subpar statistical performances kind of happens when you enter the year with the easiest strength of schedule in the entirety of the Power 5
We probably aren't a bowl team this year if we played in a tougher conference or loaded up with tougher OOC opponents rather than ODU, Furman, and Rhode Island, let alone had to play Clemson in cross divisional play.
Agree - this is why SP+ is such a useful stat - It's adjusted for SOS and Tempo, estimates success rate for a specific play, and then extrapolates that across an entire distribution of plays.
Agree with Doug that we improved over the course of the season, and that there were a lot of 'fixable' mistakes made - at the end of the day, the question is 'can this staff fix the fixable mistakes.' Maybe you believe yes, maybe no. I'm somewhere in the middle personally.
The efficiency stats and SP+ do take opponents, SOS, and the ability of opponents of that into account, which is why they're a good metric (nothing is perfect) to gauge YoY changes/improvement.
The statistics may take SOS into account, but that's not the same as playing really good defenses. The so-called air-raid offenses seem to make a point of just trying to score more points than the opponent and counting more on your offense. Playing a 10 or 11 win team in a P5 conference with that philosophy and losing (your offense is almost certain to put up points and get yards) is different than playing a team, also with 10 or 11 wins, with a great defense but only decent offense and losing (your offense won't do well). In both cases, those teams you played may have made your SOS more challenging, but your offensive statistics will play out differently from different types of opponents.
And, as pointed out, the stats don't take into account changes we made to QBs, which means if other teams made adjustments somewhere along the way, those aren't taken into account.
I'm a number cruncher, and like them, but sometimes you have to take a step back and look at what you get out and see if it makes sense. Our offense may be worse this year, statistically, but watching the games, especially down the stretch this year, I don't feel like they were worse than last year.
and there you have it -- you're placing more emphasis on eye test in recent games whereas the numbers see us struggling against ODU and ding us accordingly.
also a lot of the efficiency stats account for opponent's performance and not just their record -- your offense doesn't share the field with their offense, it shares the field with their defense. this seems like poor communication about what the stats entail leading to a poor understanding of what the stat is intending to communicate
I have to say, I thought we looked a LOT better at the end of the year than the beginning.
I mean, Hooker > Willis AND the entire team looked better after they had some more experience.
of course, but nobody should insinuate that they disagree with the numbers after having discarded some of the games the numbers are taking into account. At that point you're not talking about the same thing the numbers are. that seems to be the case here.
Correct. Those numbers don't demonstrate (or prove incorrect) the point we were making. Which is the problem with dropping them into the conversation.
Yes it is... SP+ use 5 key factors: Yards per play, PPP, PPP+, Success Rate, and third down rate. It then compares how successful each offense is a maximizing these factors on a given snap to how successful a defense is at stopping each of these factors on a given play. That calculation is then extrapolated across all of the plays in a given game.
Here's more reading on how SP+ works
According to FEI Bud's 2019 defense ranked 39th. Not perfect, but very much still existent. Good enough to win 10 games against the easiest schedule in the P5 if paired with at least a top 40 offense. Is that really so much to ask?
I'm not here to point fingers at anyone.
I'm expecting improvements on both offense and defense next year, and optimistic how they'll do.
Well I hope you get what you're hoping for. I hope for it too! I'm just much less confident that those improvements will manifest
Edit: BTW, ima try to cancel out your serial dvs. That shit annoys me, even tho I know it doesn't matter
Thanks. I appreciate that. I have some serial downvoters.
We want the same thing, we just have different perspectives on it.
Completely ridiculous? What's your take? What is acceptable to you? I don't care about JF's record compared to the the likes of Willie Taggart, Paul Johnson, Larry Fedora, Steve Addazio and a long list of inconsequential football names. We're better than Duke? Is that what you're shooting at?
How long have you been watching VT football?
If this team can't win the coastal title by 2 games or more, or at least have it decided before the last week of the regular season, with all of the returning production, the guy is not getting done what he was brought here to do.
I didn't say we had to win the ACC, I said we had to win the coastal which is not a very high bar. We almost managed to do that this year despite what looked like a lot of program and game mismanagement. Next year, this team needs to kick ass and at this point, if they can't, when WILL they? Are we waiting for Dematrius Davis to show up?
Winning the coastal by 2 games or more seems like a tall ask considering we have done that like once, depending on if you count us beating UVA in a winner take all in 2011.
We finished 3rd in SP+ in the coastal this year, possibly 4th after bowl game adjustments. Miami, UNC, and Pitt all bring a lot back. I think we win the coastal but it's going to be harder than just saying "the coastal sucks and we should win easily."
I think it's a reasonable goal, but to say "win the division, or you're fired" is a bit arrogant, even in a weak division.
My take is this:
I want to win a division title, but I don't make it a job requirement where if the coach fails he is fired.
Also since VT can only deal each team in the division one loss, it has no ability to force winning the division title before the last week of the season.
And for the record, I have been watch VT football since before Beamer was hired. 2-8-1 was a bad team. We haven't had a bad team since then.
Also, the excuses not to win the Coastal at this point are rapidly evaporating...
1. We are returning the vast majority of our Starters (even if there is some attrition this will still be true)
2. We have found a QB in HH who appears to have the skillset to fit this offense
3. Everybody in the Program going forward is a Fuente recruit
4. There is no dominant team in the Coastal, UNC will probably be favored in the Preaseason, Pitt will not be a walkover, Miami may be better..but that's about it
5. While we have a new DC, the scheme will presumably be similar..i.e. not trying to change completely to something like a 3-4.
I think winning the Coastal is a definite goal for 2020. Anything less I believe will reflect poorly on Fuente's potential going forward. This is his team, composed completely of his guys now and this Division is wide-open for the taking.
It's not an unreasonable goal.
It's an unreasonable ultimatum, though.
Not after 5-6 years
If I was Whit, I wouldn't have this ultimatum written down at this point. However, I would not be surprised to know that winning the division lands in the 'Meets Expectations' range next year for Fuente, and NOT winning lands in the "Needs Improvement" range. If we were in the SEC West, 8 wins is pretty solid. In the Coastal, that is underachieving over time and in 4 years, Fuente is averaging just over 8 wins per year - solid from the viewpoint of a big transition (especially adding a division title and great championship game in Y1), but not acceptable moving forward, all other things being equal.
All that said, we're going to win the division next year and give Clemson the best ACCCG the've had since 2016. I am looking forward to that.
I'm with you.
We do expect improvement.
It's painfully obvious we need more talent in the program- unless 7-5 is your expectation. We need more talent. The boogie man of excuses doesn't win football games. Lamenting Settle and Edmunds declaring for the draft 3 years later doesn't win football games. Kentucky had one good offensive player, and we didn't have enough talent on defense to stop him. So yes, Fuente bringing in more talent is a good thing. In fact, it's a must unless you have low expectations. If he signs a legit top 15 class that is not 75% WRs, the expectation should be what it always should have been- win more than 7-8 games. No excuses.
Idk if I would say they have one good offensive player. They have a killer Oline.
It's unlikely we will ever again have as easy of a schedule that we had this year. 2 FCS teams, we played in a historically bad division and we avoided all the programs with a pulse in the cross divisional play. We needed to win 7 to be bowl eligible and we scraped by to win 8. We got smacked by BC, allowed Furman to stay in the game way too long, got boatraced by Duke, lost to Virginia, and couldn't slow down the most one dimensional offense in football in Kentucky. And the excuses are "well of it weren't for this injury over here" and "no, see Wake was actually good". Nah, our schedule was a steaming pile and we fell face first into it.
I have little positive expectations going into next year. Our recruiting has provided us no depth in key positions. Oh, Farley would have definitely been great to have the last couple games, but not sucking ass on the recruiting trail so we could have a capable backup would be better. But that's who we are. Our recruiting provideszero quality depth so any injury is going to cripple our big picture goals. That problem only got worse with this recruiting class.
So yeah, it doesn't matter what bar anyone sets. The bar was low this year, we didn't meet it with a cakewalk of a schedule, we've voided the Commonwealth Cup and the narrative shifted again to take the heat off a staff that probably deserves it by now.
The Coastal Division is a dumpster fire and it's unacceptable that we have allowed us to settle into being a part of it. This program should be better than where it is. And of we don't start distancing ourselves from the pack in the next 12 months, I have zero faith that Fuente will ever be able to do so. So far, he's proven nothing more than a mediocre head coach in a bad league who had some success early on but didn't know how to handle opposing P5 defensive staffs adjusting to counter the game he wants to play.
The only reason for this is because of the way the results fell. If we would've started our better but finished worse it would be completely different. For example, imagine beating Duke and Boston College but losing to Pitt and Wake. I'd be willing to bet more folks would be putting the heat on the staff. It just looks better because we had a good streak there in the middle.
Great post. Dead on. Raise expectations or you are literally BC, Duke, Nc State, UVA. Simple.
Raise expectations or you are literally BC, Duke, Nc State, UVA. Simple.
This is Va Tech's conundrum. Fans only real expectations for the past few years have been to beat UVA. We are in a crappy conference, and mostly pick up weak opponents for out of conference games. Tech is a mediocre team because of who we play. Hell, Kentucky was No 8 in the SEC? The ACC is Clemson and a bunch of crappy teams. Our expectations are set low, and we will continue to be low without an identity. We still don't have one- we know what Kentucky's was- run the football and play hard defense-, and they plowed over us. We don't know who we are as a team. Beamer knew his team's identity- power I football, strong defense and special teams. What is Fuente's team identity??
What is Fuente's team identity??
expected outcomes
Kneeing the ball before half with time left on the clock.
The ultimate in expected outcomes
It's plastered all over everything and it's no secret "Hard, Smart, Tough". Translated that is physical football with few mental mistakes. he wan'ts to set up his passing game with inside zone running and play tough defense.
Yup. I was going to say something along these lines if it hadn't been said. Sad it took me all the way to the bottom of the page to read it.
I've heard "next year is the year" pretty much every year with Fuente at the helm. There are no excuses next season. Some fans will claim that there are excuses because of a new DC and position coach changes, but I don't care. Those are Fuente's guys, these are Fuente's recruits, this is Fuente's last chance.
VT needs to win 10 game, make it to Charlotte next year, and be competitive in a NY6 bowl, or I am completely out on this coach and his staff. I don't care if that's a hot take to some.
10 games or he's gone, eh? How many teams win 10 games a year in the major conferences, weak or strong? Are we becoming unreasonable as a fan base? I want it all, just like everyone else here, and I was also into VT football before Beamer came along and went 2-8-1 in a major rebuilding effort, so maybe it's easier for me to roll with the punches a bit more than someone who wasn't around or even born yet.
I didn't say he should be gone if he doesn't win 10 games, I just won't be a supporter of him as VT's head coach any more.
And comparing Beamer going 2-8-1 back in 1992 to now, when the landscape of college football is completely different and Virginia Tech has proven they can be a powerhouse team, is just pointless.
Oh, sorry. Somehow I got confused by your post, I guess, but maybe your withdrawal of support seemed to me to be saying just that.
I wasn't at all trying to compare the 1992 season to now. Not at all, in any way shape or form, to be perfectly clear. Just saying that maybe my long association with VT football informs and influences what I consider to be a reasonable and maybe even realistic way of dealing with not being the best football program we would like to be from year to year. Pointless? That's a condescending remark. If you didn't get the point, though, I accept that I must not have worded my post well enough. I'll try to do better in the future.
Is it unreasonable to expect VT to be a top ~25 team almost every year (4ish out of 5)? I don't think so. Given that these are my expectations, the team needs to average 9-10 wins per year to meet them. I understand that we're rebuilding right now, but I refuse to believe that VT was in such bad shape when Fuente took over that a 3 year rebuild was necessary. If this program is not rebuilt by next season, that indicates that Fuente (and staff) is incapable of acquiring, developing, and/or deploying talent, in which case he is not the right coach for VT.
This was the season that our coaches had circled for a while. We had a cake schedule, we avoided Clemson, FSU, UofL, and NCSU in cross divisional play. We were going to finally be a team that had some experience across the board who would be starting to flex that experience on others, and the rest of the Coastal was a complete and utter mess.
And not only did we fail to make our stamp on this year, we watched as UNC and GT set up upper tier recruiting staffs, UVa won the Coastal and played in a bowl tier we haven't seen in 8 years, and our own program reached levels of national embarrassment that guys like Herbie put out a video literally saying "oh my god, its so bad" and "we feel for you, Hokies fans".
They've used up their last bit of leniency. They need to show serious results-driven improvement next year or we need to be looking for a new coaching staff next December. They don't recruit well enough to get the benefit of the doubt for fielding a team that sputters in games. And lets not pretend the in-game coaching has been lights out, either. Couldn't stop two one dimensional offenses in back to back games to end the year. Against UVa, we were opposed by a defense that was severely weakened in the secondary due to injuries, and we never put forth an effort to attack it (something that both Clemson and Florida picked on again and again during their wins). And in not doing so, it cost us both a divisional title as well as an opportunity to play in a NY6 bowl. An opportunity that has proven difficult to grasp in this conference, and we just were not ready for it.
Once again, I'm not confident the stars will align again like they did for us this year, and we absolutely blew it. And because of it, even if we see ourselves in that kind of situation again, I have zero faith in our coaching staff to make the best of it. I really think they are in over their heads in this level. Which is saying something in this division in this conference.
This is an interesting question, but I think it would have been a much better discussion right after the 2016 or 2017 season. Given that Fuente has (hopefully) already bottomed out in his rebuild, it's a little difficult to still be playing for the Future.
I don't subscribe to the black or white thinking of you have to win X or you are fired. I think the context of the situation matters. However, the context here (as it stands today) is that we will have the most talented team in the coastal (arguable vs. UNC), a good schedule, experience, options at QB and other positives that VT didn't have the last two tears (excluding the schedule comment).
We do need more talent and you can't ignore recruiting momentum even if the program on the field isn't progressing as fast as a fan would like.
I agree with DC in that if we recruit a high level class (D line and CB being a focus) that isn't WR only in terms of high-ranking recruits then that can't be ignored.
I will say this though - I like the position Vt is in overall. My biggest concern is D line. You have to develop and recruit some play-makers - especially at D end or you will lose a game or two you shouldn't. The offense will be in a great position and I think the RB room will be upgraded and that in combination with the O-line getting a year older and QB having more experience makes the ceiling and expectations for the offense much higher.
On Offense, I keep seeing people site full-year stats and I think that is out of context. To get a perspective on the offense's efficiency and expectations for next year you have to look at the stats from the final 9 Games - different team. Argue all you want about the first 4 and why, but my point is that is over and the offense will look like the team from the last 9 games with another year and new RB's. That alone should win two more games - period.
Why the actual fuck was this downvoted? This is a good post.
The downvote is note an 'I disagree' button.
Downvote me for complaining if you want. I don't give a shit anymore. I'm tired of seeing this. Downvoting for opinions is a CG violation and it happens all the time now.
Or it could've just been a fat finger...
Must be a lot of fat finger havers on this website, because it's been happening considerably more often.
Happens to me every post, so someone with fat fingers must hang on my every comment.
Got fat fingered again it seems. Thank you for continuing to prove my point.
fyi i've been offsetting all the -1s i've been seeing
It seems to me that a lot of negativity here comes from not realizing just how bad our team was near the end of Beamer's tenure. We needed a rebuild. Badly. It was going to take some time. Beamer's idea of a football team was a stellar quarterback, a kicker, and a stout defense. Supplement with an RB if you can. Don't get me wrong, this was a formula that worked. Got us through the coastal division. Even won the ACC a few times when the traditional powers were sucking wind. Got us to the national championship once when we got a superstar QB.
I think Fuente knew this, and this is why he sometimes seems nonplussed by the team's failures. I think he understands the process he signed up for.
But if you really want a good program, it's my feeling that you have to show a little patience. You have to actually realize that we weren't that good. We could summon up all our forces and on a perfect night knock of a traditional power, and then lose the next five games. Or, we could win the five games and lose to the powerhouse. We celebrated when we tied Wake Forest 0-0 in regulation.
For me, it's worth trying it Fuente's way. VT will either going to get better or he'll be gone. I think he knows this. But I think the "10 wins next year or bust" train is sort of silly. If Fuente wins 9 games next year, he isn't going anywhere. It's as simple as that.
So if you guys want to have this conversation every day this off season, I'm game. Even if I'm the only one who feels this way.
I think it was always a bigger turnaround than some people are willing to admit. Repeating the same formula was never going to get us where we need to be. Fuente's direction is slower and steadier than we like. But it's also going in a direction. If it takes more time than we wanted, I'm still willing to go along for the ride.
This is the time to trust the process. We'll know within a year or two if it's going to work. VT football has never been an instant success. It has always been a matter of winning the race with a long term vision.
Ok so now we've reached the point where we need to torch the reputation of Beamer and Foster in order to circle the wagons around Fuente....
Yikes
In college football the actions of today show up in a few years. Beamer was in decline from a recruiting perspective. So both can be true, Beamer had quality recruits on the roster AND a rebuild was in order.
The transition is over now. It is Fuente's team. But it does no good to already assume he will not succeed or setting arbitrary win/loss lines that would determine his fate without judging actual circumstance.
We've had 4 years to judge his performance, and right now we're stuck spinning tires in the mud of the hands-down worst division in the Power 5. We went into this year with the easiest P5 schedule, avoided pretty much anyone with a pulse in the Atlantic, rounded out our OOC schedule with powerhouses of Old Dominion, Rhode Island, and Furman, and still needed to go on a 4 game tear at the end to get to bowl eligibility. Our performance was so bad at times this year that the hosts of College Gameday released this video:
I've seen more than enough out of this regime that they absolutely must show more next year than they did this season. In fact, at this point, win the division or GTFO. This is the same team that lost to Old Dominion last season and then lost the Commonwealth Cup for the first time in 17 years this year. We needed to win 7 games with this trash schedule in order to reach bowl eligibility and we could only muster 8. Against a schedule that included ODU, Furman, Rhode Island, Duke, Boston College, Wake Forest, a UNC and GT that were breaking in new coaching staffs, and a Miami program that might be the worst coached team in football. I'm tired of the "wait til next year, oh no that will really be the one where it all comes together". Nah, THIS was the year that it should have come together. This was the year that was set up for us to win the division and play in the Orange Bowl again. And both of those things were accomplished by our top rival at the same time that we're sputtering.
Its time for this program to put up or shut up. Prove it or GTFO. Enough of the excuses, its time to produce.
I mean, the season started out a dumpster fire. It really did.
But it did turn around, and I think you have to give the coaching staff some credit for that. Was really inconsistent. We had shutouts against GT and Pitt, only to let UVa and Kentucky run all over us.
The coaches and players have some work to do. Will be interesting to see what happens next season.
Here's what I felt in the first 4 games:
@Boston College, I was lamenting to my father-in-law, what is VT's offensive identity?!
vs ODU, why are you letting ODU hang around?
vs Furman, um, Furman actually led at one point in the game, LOL.
Then Duke happened. YIKES of all yikes.
After that, I was so out of it that when the first interception happened at Miami, I was laying on the couch going, "Oh hum, let's see what the offense do with this." Hooker-led offense proceed to score a touchdown. Then, the second pick happened, and I sat up, suddenly interested in the game. Then by the 3rd offensive touchdown, I was losing my mind.
The Rhode Island game...can't remember how that went. Carrying on...
The now-infamous 6-Overtime Game at Lane Stadium...holy heck! Was that a ride! It could have gone either way, but that was a shot in the arm the program needed.
@Notre Dame...bullshit refereeing in that game with some questionable late flag/whistles...Bud's defense failed to prevent Notre Dame's game-deciding drive...that one hurt.
Beating Wake Forest was awesome and wiped out the bad memory of that horrible day in Winston-Salem that now lives in infamy.
Blanking Georgia Tech and Pitts in back to back weekend was awesome.
The game I was concerned the most was UVA and had been feeling all year long that this was UVA year, and was proven right.
So, I think the team have a lot to build on heading into winter and spring workouts. They need to establish a cultural identity and stick to it. If it is NBA or whatever, fine. STICK TO IT!
No, but you see, Fuente fixed something he was responsible for breaking, so shower him with praise.
"Hey honey, good news- I unclogged the toilet."- Me
"That's great. Uh, why was it clogged in the first place?"- Wife
"The kid flushed 7 rolls of toilet paper at once. But I fixed it, so yay me!"- Me
"Where were you when she was doing all this?"- Wife
"I was in there handing her toilet paper to flush. I get credit though! Hey wait why are you leaving and going to your sister's house?"- Me
Say what you want about the talent at the end of Beamer's years, but they didn't go down without a fight. Even in those 6-6 season's we were losing close games. We seem to be losing be much larger margins now. I think some here are trying to use Beamer as a scapegoat these days since he is an easy target.
I'm not using Beamer as a scapegoat. I presented an accurate picture of where the program was when he left.
This year's team didn't give up, even after the disastrous start to the season. They were out there slugging it out. But as inexperienced players, the wheels came off at the end vs ND, UVa and Kentucky. By the way, if we win any of those games, we're having a different discussion right now. Which sort of shows you just how close we were to actually having an arguably successful season this year.
Well yeah, no shit. If we lose any of the other games we won we would be having an even more doom and gloom discussion. No point is going through hypothetical past timelines because you can change all sorts of things through a season to change fans' perception.
I personally don't think this season was that bad and I think having 20 returning starters is an insane asset to have going into 2020. I mean, 20/22 starters is pretty much unheard of and I don't think a lot of people are appreciating how that continuity will probably translate to results next year. Though, the flip side of that is that if do have a 7-8 win season than yeah, Fuente fucked up and probably won't last much longer. I just have faith that we are going to be good next year.
EDIT: Apparently, it's 20/22 now that McClease is gone. Still 10/11 on either side of the ball.
I agree with most of what you're saying, other than the general part of this overall discussion that is attempting to precisely identify a litmus test for Fuente. I think we'll have a decent season next year.
I don't see the point in the part of this conversation that assumes the worst. Also I believe the lower limit that some people are trying to establish is 10 wins and winning the coastal, not 7-8 wins.
Same. If I'm not mistaken, I see people all the time saying 12-14 returning starters gives a team a really strong base and expectation of good things for the following year. So we're at 20 starters with McClease departing, but not sure if you count Herbert given his game experience.
Here's some research:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2015/09/03/college-football-...
The key findings, on average:
— Teams without a returning starter at quarterback see their win totals fall from 7.6 per 12 games to 7.1, a difference of a half a game.
— Teams with a returning starter at quarterback see their win totals per 12 games rise from 7.7 to 7.9, an increase of 0.2.
— An ideal total number of returning players is 15. At that point, on average, teams win 0.8 or more games per 12 games than they did the previous season. Teams in the data set with at least 15 returning players won less than 60% of their games the season before, on average.
— Returning players on defense are slightly more important than returning offensive players, outside of the quarterback position. Teams that return at least seven defensive players, on average, see their win total increase by at least half a game. To see that kind of improvement solely based on the number of offensive returners, a team needs to return nine or more (0.5).
The past 2 years, the most starters returning was 19, which 2 or 3 teams had. But yeah, 20-21 starters is great, and I'm excited about it!
The "Beamer left a mess" stuff has been a retcon job that no one was saying when they won the Coastal in 2016 and had two 1st round picks in 2017. Now that on-field success, draft picks and recruiting have dried up we've heard things were actually bad. I think Fuente might have to own this going forward but I look forward to reading explanations otherwise.
We won ten games with almost all of Beamer's guys in 2016. What happened from 2017-2019?
I agree with you Key that Fuente probably should be given a couple more years with his players. I stated this in my post above. I disagree with you about Beamer leaving the program in bad shape. He left Fuente with a decent roster which helped Fuente have a very good first season. Fuente has lost three consecutive bowl games and the only one he won was with Beamer's players that his coaches developed. He brought in Evans who was a key piece to the puzzle as a whole. I stated this above as well. I don't understand the faith you have in Fuente. He still has a lot to prove. I also don't understand why you continue to talk about Beamer and Foster's short comings when talking about Fuente. I don't know. Maybe you are trying to compare them. If you are trying to compare them there is no comparison, imo. Beamer and Foster's resume blows Fuente's out of the water. Fuente is still very young. He has tons of potential, and has time to write his resume. So, I just don't understand throwing Beams under the bus at every turn when Fuente faces criticism. Not trying to attack. Just my observations. I do hope Fuente has lots of success here. I agree with you that that we should exercise a bit more patience as a fan base.
I gave you an upvote to offset (not sure why you were down voted) even though I disagree with your assessment.
I can't scream it loud enough: We are in a historically bad division of college football. There is absolutely no reason that we should be a middling ACC Coastal football team, its absolutely unacceptable.
I for one will never agree with the "Beamer left a dumpster fire" talking point. Never. It is not supported by any facts at all- only rumors and innuendo. That innuendo includes many players openly criticizing Fu on social media as a large part of the attrition problem. So nope, me personally- not buying it, nor will I ever. What did Fuente want? a national championship contender? A 10 win team? Beamer left him a team that won a bowl and had several NFL players on it. What else did Fuente want? Trevor Lawrence on the roster? 30 sophomores perfect for his scheme? he took over a much better program than Mack Brown and Locksley took over respectively. He took over a much better program than Bronco took over. Yes, Beamer was not in the playoffs his last 4 years. I get that. But he had winning seasons, a couple bowl wins, wasn't cheating in recruiting, and got the Beamer Barn built before he left. I will never buy into Fuente taking over some dumpster fire team.
Well, this is part of the problem, isn't it?
If Fuente gets the same results as Beamer, you consider it a massive failure.
Wasn't a dumpster fire then, isn't one now. But we were starting to slip relative to other programs, and needed some changes.
Umm Fuente is not winning 7 conference championships and 70% of his games. Beamer's career at VT did not start in 2012.
Completely irrelevant to the discussion we're having, isn't it?
So you must be conceding my point.
Nope. Fu's performance to date is being defended by something that I think is totally false. Fu's performance should not be held to the standard of Beamer's worse 4 year stretch as a head coach either.
We have to compare a turnaround to the years preceding the turnaround. That was the actual state of the program.
In order to criticize the process, we need to understand what's actually going on.
DC - normally I don't like your posts, but I do think you have a point and I would find the middle here. Here would be my take:
1) Beamer didn't leave a dumpster fire, but he did leave a very mediocre team with a few good very older players. This is evidenced by the mediocre previous 4 seasons that were the epitome of MEH - especially on offense. See not completing a pass vs Duke in a half or 0-0 vs wake or many other examples or squeaking out games against competition that everyone whines about today. That is the same.
2) I agree if the coaches job to adapt to personnel and some of the ownership of how the players fit is on a coach. Square peg round hole applies here - great coaches make the most of what they have - see point #1. What we had was mediocre.
3) I don't see your comparison to Locksley and Mack. You are holding us to a standard of winning the coastal, but acting like the perception of them out-recruiting is takes precedent. They are mediocre performing teams and Mack will have the same issue at UNC that Fuente has now - just next year for him. Can't have it both ways.
4) Excluding this year's signing class we seem to be over-looking the group of higher level recruits we do have in 3 straight top 25 or 26 classes (let's exclude WR's for now) - Nester, Hunter, Dax, Hudson, Farley, King, Hooker, QP etc. 4* kids who will all play. I think a better question is how do they develop and perform in aggregate next year. This will give the greatest insight to the capability of the coaches, kids, scheme etc. Good or Bad. This will start to materialize for sure.
I do agree that the "lowering the bar" thinking is dangerous. I have always been on the it will be slower than people want rebuild train. However, based on how things are today the evidence that would lead you to believe that rebuild is working needs to be seen next year - raising the bar above where it is today and again in 2021. That isn't wait till next year talk - that is next year is now talk. Winning games and 2021 recruiting etc.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything to lead me to believe the rebuild is working. Our recruiting is at best 'meh' and when judged based upon what those around us in the Coastal are already doing, its very worrisome. The ACC Coastal Division is a dumpster fire and despite 4 years of 'rebuilding', we somehow manage to keep ourselves in the middle of the muck while the division keeps getting worse.
The second that someone in this division legitimately steps up and takes that next step into being a serious football program, if we haven't already done so, I fear we're going to be in for a long sustained period of bad football in Blacksburg. Recruiting is a zero sum game in this region. The better that UNC, GT, UVa, NCSU, etc are, the more regional recruits they are going to pick up, and the worse we are going to be. We have already resigned to the fact we aren't going to ever land the top recruits in the commonwealth anymore with Penn St, Clemson, Alabama, etc having their pick of the litter, we're getting dangerously close to losing any remaining grip we have on the secondary tier. Yes, its exciting that we are trying to grow something in places like NC and TX, but the reason this needs to happen is that we can't compete in our own backyard anymore. And it seems like we've completely given up on trying to get it back.
We had a bad year this year, but the three recruiting classes before that were pretty good, weren't they? I seem to remember mid-20's.
Edit: to the downvoter, where were those recruiting classes, then? Feel free and correct my perception.
Why on earth would folks want to be so damn pessimistic about a 2020 team in January? What good does any line in the sand do for this program. I may be satisfied with 7 wins or I may feel like 9 wins was underachieving, but I will make that decision in a year.
So far, I would grade Fuente as follows
2016 overachieve
2017 par
2018 subpar
2019 par
Looks like 2020 is a great year for an overachieving or par performance.
Because everyone is saying 2020 is our year despite hearing it over and over again. Hard to be optimistic when you keep hearing it with precious seasons and it doesn't pan out.
What? 2020 didn't pan out? Do tell
Just edited it, hopefully it's more clear now friend.
#marinades say that 2021 was the year our coaches were targeting all along
Well, I can see why people are panicking then, as the future predictions say we didn't win the ACC in 2021.
well it was always our goal to win in 2022 and anything before that was gravy
Oh, I thought the goal was to beat up our coaches when we figured out they were human.
if so, then 2023 might be our year!
Come on. Why wait for results when we can do it right here and now.
2024 it is!
Who are these people. I know next year is always the year for recruiting. But who has been repeatedly saying next year is the year for us to be great on the field?
Fans, man.
You think it's bad at VT? I am in doctoral school at UofSC and they have been telling themselves "next year" their entire existence. That's compounded by good to great recruiting and vast amounts of cash. My point is it can be a lot worse or mediocre.
Of course it can. I'm simply providing a theory as to why I'm pessimistic towards 2020. Evidently that's a problem.
I am pessimistic as well if anything too. I became apathetic after the last few seasons. I just do not want this type of fan apathy at VT to continue much longer because there are many examples where it can last for decades. See UofSC.
I like the way you think. I would add a few things. It looks like you're grading based on win/loss totals. Something I don't think we've really considered as VT fans is what are the normal win/loss ratings for new coaches in the same situation (a program that's gone 7-6 the 2 years preceding a coaching change)? I would add some subjectives in.
2016 - way overachieve - keeping Foster on staff and ACCCG game in year one (did ANYBODY expect that going into that season?). No you didn't.
2017 - slight overachieve - 9 wins - still better than most new coaches have in their 2nd year. (at least at schools that didn't already have a lot of talent laying around, and again, from having taken a program that was 7-6 in the 2 years prior), and doubt we would've had the defense we had that year had Fuente not kept Foster, so slight kudos there too (in my book)
2018 - par - this is the rebuild season everybody was expecting in year 1, but it didn't happen in year 1, so people lost their minds
2019 - par - given previous year's performance, a reasonable amount of improvement with still a fair amount of youth on the team (1 starting senior)
I also predict overachievement for 2020.
If the results don't look good in 2020, its hard to say we should expect much different in 2021. I think this is the first time we've been in that position, as each of Fuente's seasons except the first one have had legitimate claims to rebuilding some part of the team. So unless we pull in a monster (like top 15) class for 2021, then I don't see how the seat doesn't get pretty warm if we don't make it to the ACCCG.
Honestly, I just hope they all have fun out there.
Whats up guys? Longtime lurker, first time poster. I have always been a lifelong, die hard VT football fan. I think what is most frustrating for me is that we continue to make excuses for Fuente and this staff. I really hate the mindset of there's always next year. Whenever adversity hits you can fold and be like oh well, we will get them next year and it ultimately just becomes a crutch. I especially hate this because this past season as a Linebackers Coach at Kentucky State University, our first year coaching staff took a team and program that had won just one game the previous two seasons and went 7-3 this year, the best record KSU has had in 41 years. I understand its D2 football, but we had the same players who had lost the previous two seasons, and all we did was change the standard and mindset of our program. At some point, you have to say no more waiting, we will get this done this year. That is a mindset that the entire program must have, and it starts with the HC. I think VT should hold itself to be the best team in Coastal every year, and challenge and compete for ACC Championships and NY6 Bowls. I really worry about the mindset and standard that both Fuente and fans have for the program. There have been lots of firsts under Fuente, first losing season and first time losing the Cup in 15 years. To me, those are unacceptable. As fans, they should be unacceptable. He promised us a great offense that can score points, after four years we still have not consistently seen it against P5 teams and the fact that he has not made changes on offense is extremely concerning to me that he just does not get it. I say this as a young college football coach trying to make it, I understand how tough this profession is but if we do not win the Coastal next year, I will be
done with Fuente and this staff. I'm sorry for my rant and I really look forward to posting on here more. You guys are awesome.
'hasn't made changes on offense'
Just this season Fuente has made two big changes on offense
- benched Willis
- fired Burden
As for the mindset bit... as a coach I'd expect you to understand there's a ton going on behind the scenes that fans don't see. Claiming we as a team/program don't have the mindset to win the division when you have no access to the program to assess mindset...
There are multiple factors that go into winning a division in a P5 conference, and I agree that mindset is one of them. But you can have the most mentally tough, die-hard minded team and still lose 5 games. Just the same as you can have the most physically talented roster in college football and still lose 5 games. You can have a veteran team that all take steps forward under a new coaching staff with inventive schemes and still lose 5 games. A lot has to come together to win a division and win 10+ games.
I think you are conflating the attitude of fans who are happy to cheer for the Hokies and see how things go next season with the attitude of the coaches and/or players. Some fans like to talk about next year because next year is TBD at this point and there's a chance things go really really well, no matter how good or bad this year went, so they are looking forward to it. As a coach you should realize that no coach looks to next season as an excuse to not give 100% this season. There's no way in hell Fuente was telling the team at the end of September 'don't worry guys we'll pull it together next year'. He was telling them that they'd pull it together right now and then they went out and went 6-2 over the next 2 months and were playing for the Coastal title at the end of the season.
That is a lot of reading. I think we often combine the conversation of what we think will / should / could happen the next year with whether the coach should be fired. It is fair, but often colors an argument immediately. Should we win 9 or 10 games next year with the returning talent? I think consensus would all agree yes. This team has 8 winnable games, and perhaps 4 that should be more / much more difficult. If we are ready to chalk PSU as a loss, which I am not ready to do, even then that means we need to hold the line on the 8, and win 1 of the 3 of the tough games. Maybe we drop what statistically should be a win of the 8, 2/3 of our tougher games seems achievable. My guess is SP+ actually has us near or above 50% in those 3 games as well, but we will see.
If the above doesn't happen, my guess is consensus would be we at least have an issue. Whether that is a fire worthy issue is solely each individuals' opinion. Even then there is only one certainty, we are probably not going to change each other's opinions on the matter.
The team this year had the talent, maybe not the depth, and the schedule to win 10 games. Struggle to find a reason that a more experienced team should not win 9, as a reasonable and achievable threshold. If it is not achieved, then it switches to will he be fired, and who the hell knows. That said, more often then not, the move before the HQ gets fired is to switch the coordinator position catching the most heat, in this case it has more often been Corn, whether we agree with it or not. If nothing else, Fuente tied his fate to Corn's at this point, and he will either float or sink with that ship.
Ryan Nanni had what I thought was insightful commentary on the last PAPN podcast. It is terribly summarized as what should be the line drawn on firing a coach with regard to what is palatable to fans. He brought up Will Muschamp, as I believe he is a Florida alumni, and a great example. His comment was that it is easier for fans to digest losses and lack of success so long as the side of the ball the coach brought in is successful and everyone knew what they were going to getting into. In Will's case, he was saying that Florida struggled, but their defense was really good, as expected, which is what was known when hired. Fans are more wiling to hold their nose if what the coach is known for is what shows up on the field.
On TKP, a comment is often made on threads like this, "we signed up for this, and we aren't getting it." Some form, how much varies, of comments around Fuente's hiring was around offense improvement. I think we hung our hat on that expectation. If the defense is losing us games, but the offense significantly improved, I think temperament would be much more aligned. If the offense doesn't take another step forward next year, Fuente will be in serious trouble, regardless of whether any of us think that is or is not right.
Late to the game here, but I don't think there's any class ranking that we could achieve that would relieve Fuente of a poor season. This is the season that this staff has been building towards since they were hired. Underachieving would say a lot more about their competence level than would a single recruiting class, whether good or bad.
Top 15 (or whatever it would be in this hypothetical scenario) also aren't sustainable at VT in this current climate of college football what is sustainable, though, is 8-10 win seasons with the occasional opportunity for more. I'd hang my hat on a staff that continually hits their mark than one that occasionally surpasses it