Episode talks about ACC/Big10/PAC alliance and hot seats. VT part starts around 1:08:50.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-andy-staples-show-friends-a-sh...
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
I hate to say it but I think they're right. Recruiting failures of the past few years are going to be the ultimate downfall of Fuente and these Hokies. I think it's great that we have some recruiting momentum right now but it's about 5 years too late. You just can't win consistently if you don't have the players to do it.
I don't expect this team to win more than 7 or 8 games. I'll be pleasantly shocked if they do. Fuente recruited soo poorly for a few years that his ship is already sinking and it'll take a miracle to salvage.
The 2017 and 2018 classes had huge potential and had me excited for the next several years after that. Unfortunately, a lot of those recruits just didn't/haven't developed, transferred out, ended their career due to injury, or just weren't as good as advertised. That has really hurt over the last several years, and with recruiting classes as bad as 2020 and 2021, there will be glaring roster holes for the next several years. It's a tall task and tough situation to face. As you mention, the recruiting progress in this class is very encouraging, but is it too little too late at this point?
the head coaches job is to hold on to players with potential, hire a strength staff that is good at dealing with injuries, and develop players. That's his job. No excuses at this stage
I mean, if a player wants to leave, should he lie to them, or do something that is in his best interest over the player's? I agree 100% with your other points, but if we are trying to "do right" by the players, we would want our coaches to be level and honest. If we don't care about player welfare or it is less important than winning games, yeah, the coach needs to lie, cheat, whatever to keep talent in house.
It just depends on what you want our program to be.
The coaches should never lie to keep a player at VT, but turnover is a problem. Just like turnover can be an issue at businesses. If turnover is high at a company, that is normally a bad sign and it means the culture is very flawed. If a CEO chooses to do nothing to fix things and avoid turnover, he or she can expect to have poor results in the future. Fuente is the CEO in this situation and the choice is his. Fix the issues or expect bad results and more turnover. If he chooses not to fix things then he's probably gone after this year. But like DC said, the blame can only be placed squarely on his shoulders. He's the boss and he sets the tone and culture.
Edit: none of my statements apply to a player wants to leave to be closer to a sick family member or some other personal reason. My comments are 100% about the culture Fuente created that has caused so many players to bolt.
High turnover could also mean low salaries, or limited raise possibility, which I think loosely corresponds to limited access to national championships and limited NIL money.
I definitely agree that Fuente needs to address the turnover issue as best he can, but I also kinda think it is at a much higher baseline than we might be used to and a new coach could stabilize to that baseline, but not further. So, maybe it is a problem, but it might be less of a problem than we think because we don't know what the turnover would look like in this portal/NIL environment with another coach. We just haven't seen it yet.
Fair points but we happen to be playing in the weakest division in P5 so you never know
The fact this is being spun as a positive thing is not good. I appreciate the optimism but I'd much rather dominate and know than be part of the riffraff and the ceiling is "ya never know"
I took it as the best way to have a legit turnaround is to have a half assed one in a shitty division that masks the deficiencies in recruiting until the newer talent comes on.
Division won't be shitty forever, not with UNC recruiting at the level they have been lately. We won't be able to hide much longer.
Next you are going to try to convince us that Miami is back. I'd be more concerned with UNC long term if Mack Brown wasn't 69 and didn't have a dope like Stacy Searels as his O-lone coach.
We all said this when he was hired, then they started out recruiting us, then they took us to the wire in Lane in 2019, then they blew the doors off our defense last year, are recruiting lights out, and are favored to win the division this year. We need to stop downplaying the job Mack has done at UNC. And when he does retire in the next few years, they are going to have one hell of a program to sell to a very talented coach with extremely deep pockets.
there was a lot of smoke about shane raiding unc's coaching staff...i wish he had succeeded in that.
I don't give a shit about long term. We are one of, if not the lowest performing team in the Coastal on the recruiting trail. And our gameday coaching is suspect at best. Our short term is not looking very good at all right now.
I'm so tired of hearing 'oh well Miami sucked, so you can't put any faith into recruiting'. We heard this exact same kind of denial 10 years ago about why we shouldn't have to worry about Clemson finally putting things together.
Your comment is literally about the rise of UNC which is inherently long term and then you just pivoted to rehashing VTs recruiting struggles. I'm only interested in the UNC projection discussion.
let's be realistic here. our recruiting has had two incredibly down years. but suggesting that we are "lowest performing" on the recruiting trail in the same division as Duke is laughable. Even Pitt is worse than us. VT's 2021 class was down by all accounts, 43rd nationally and 0.8512 average rating. Pitt's average class since Fuente took over is 41st nationally with 0.8567 average rating. we're generally better recruiting than both of them.
In looking at VT recruiting over the past two years, I see some solid players coming on board, even if we've missed on virtually all of the high flyers.
Looking at this year's class, I see some room for optimism in recruiting. Will it be soon enough? Will look a lot better if VT shows up ready to play this year. Particularly in the early contests against UNC, WVU, and Notre Dame.
Go Hokies.
What about 19 and 20?
In 2019 Pitt was 55th overall, rating of .8664 and VT was 26th with .8739
In 2020 Pitt was 45th overall, rating of .8607 and VT was 76th with .8498
Pitt has had one class inside the top-30 since 2016. We have three.
Not gonna argue that 2020 and 2021 were bad classes by our standards. But 2021's "bad class by our standards" is about in line with Pitt's typical class.
And the difference between Pitt and VT standards is smaller than the difference between VT and where we want to be to hit that blue chip ratio.
So why do they typically maul us all over the field?
This is what Alum said. I took issue with one part, which I've bolded above. Our gameday coaching is suspect (situational play calling, scheme issues, so on), our approach to S&C doesn't really appear to give players functional football strength as much as it gives nice twitter pics for #bodybyhilgart2k17 or whatever. Players can't stay healthy, so on and so forth.
Pitt typically having good line play doesn't mean we haven't factually and objectively been generally better than them recruiting. Miami has always recruited better than us, UNC is about the same historically but in the middle of a big leap forward. GT appears to be taking a step forward of their own under Collins but historically they're between 45-60th ranked class. Pitt's best years are our minimum expectations. Duke is a football recruiting afterthought. I hadn't even mentioned lolUVA --no top-30 class since 2013. Do they typically maul us all over the field?
So why does Pitt maul us ? Because Pitt plays hard nosed football. They will bully their opponents and expose their weakness and capitalize on it.
So why do they typically maul us all over the field?
"It's puzzling"
Do you mean the Stacy Searel's O line that pushed tech 10 yards down the field, and racked up 408 yards of rushing? Just checking.
You should be worried about UNC long term. They are about 1.5-2 classes away from eclipsing the blue-chip ratio. They have tons of young talent for at least the next 3-4 years even if they fell off a cliff next class (they won't). North Carolina as a state is likely to produce more and more talent as Charlotte and the Triangle continue to grow.
Mack has been schmoozing the boosters and aligning those in and around the program towards commitment to the football program. The next coach will be inheriting a very well built ship. That doesn't guarantee they will be good for 5-10-15 years or whatever, things in this sport can change quickly, but to deny the possibility that UNC is building something seems naive to me.
UNC gives me nightmares.
The only answer there is to shift recruiting into a higher gear. It's not really optional.
It may not be shitty now. I mean all I hear is that VT should be able to sleep walk to a coastal crown in the weakest division in football. Then I hear you can't sleep on the job Mack is doing at UNC, Miami wont be bad forever, and Bronco has UVA going the right direction. So is it or isn't it a weak conference? We wont know until the cards are on the table. My point was that there appears to be a talent gap coming when our dud classes are expected to be contributors; so, the only way it ends up not being a shit show is if our foes do not put it together in time for our rejuvenated classes (assuming optimistic turnaround here) mature into contributors. The transfer portal is also a potential tool to level the playing field. People say you cant live on the portal, but I disagree. I think ignoring the portal could be just as damning as not recruiting high school well. Teams are going to need both because recruiting classes are going to be cut down by a third or more due to attrition or transfers...the way those spots are filled will make a huge difference to who wins in the end.
Schrodinger's division. It's both good and bad at the same time!
And we are the Heisenberg Uncertainty Program...we know which direction we're going in but have no idea how quickly and/or slowly
#goacc
Less than a month of hiding left.
Sadly, UVA, Miami, and UNC alone are trying to make the division respectable. It used to be us and nobody else when the division got the reputation as the worst. Because other than the Hokies, there wasn't anybody.
Hope we turn that around this year.
When it was us and Miami VERY early, or us and GT we were the stronger division. It wasn't until 2012 that it really flipped to the Atlantic being better, largely because FSU and Clemson got really strong.
and Pitt and duke can be shitty forever, and VT will play close games/lose to them anyway with the talent we have now.
I keep waiting for this "now the recruiting class failures come to fruition" moment and I don't see it. Why is that?
- Transfers have been successful filling in gaps, especially for the difference making players. A backup from Kansas was our first 1K rusher last year. An OL from Coastal (when they weren't good) was the leader on the OL. This year, we got dudes from Vanderbilt and Maryland and Marshall who are going to play important roles.
- Our staff does a good job getting more out of the 2-3* barrel. Our best player last year was a near-no-offer OT. Our best player this year is a former JUCO LB now DE. Dorian Strong is going to start 40 games at VT.
- QB, which remains the most important position on the field, has been a transfer starter 4 out of the last 7 years (and the other 3 transferred out). It's easy to find a QB who can play these days, the guys who can play aren't going to sit behind someone else. I'm to the point that any HS QB we offer and sign, I don't expect much from. It's just lottery tickets. Will Tajh Bullock ever start games for VT? He probably won't start as many as some dude who is currently on some other roster.
I don't look at this year or the next 2-3 years as having any noticeable talent drop. Is there a depth problem? Sure, I see the issues at QB and DE. But we're building depth at WR, DB, OL and sure as hell are "deep" at RB.
Fuente has enough talent to win. This year and next year and the year after. And where he is short, he can fall out of bed and upgrade in the portal.
Now, can he win? Can he coach? Can Corny develop QB's? Can we adjust during the season? Is JHam an adequate game day coordinator?
Those are the questions that worry me more about Fuente and his staff than this ominous "recruiting failures will bite him" mantra that I just don't see.
Does he really have enough talent to win? We have a lot in our ones who are playmakers, but we are talking about a season where a critical injury or two could seriously derail things. Much of our depth is unproven freshmen and transfers. Sure we can cherry pick the success stories of the portal, but look back at the '17, '18, even '19 recruiting classes and count the number of players who are no longer here due to transfer or didn't pan out. That is certainly not sustainable by any measure if we expect to become a winning program again.
Also I wouldn't say it's a simple as falling out of bed and landing a star QB transfer. Landing Evans was a huge win year one, but they haven't had a great track record since. AJ Bush had next to no impact, and Ryan Willis was benched midway through his second season due to inconsistency. We all have hopes for BB, but he has a lot to prove this year.
I cant ever remember not being concerned about depth. VT rosters have never been 3 deep with playmakers. It is the star talent of the ones that is missing the most.
I fall somewhere in the middle. We must recruit better but we must also take full advantage of the portal.
I think that's fair. We are certainly not new to depth concerns, but I think the top end talent overall isn't what it used to be either. Which may be a bigger problem.
Both are issues. We don't have top end talent at RB, WR, QB, DT or LB... and we have no depth- other than perhaps OL and TE. That's how you go .500 in your last 40 games.
This ^.
VT's stock in trade for the entire time I've been a fan (since 1989) is the coaching staff's ability to mentor higher performance than the recruiting rating suggests. The problem is that approach often takes years, and there is a steep performance drop off (a year or more of development) when the injury bug hits.
while it's true that depth has seemingly always been a concern for VT I feel like this year depth is particularly thin - like thinner than it has ever been. We've always had depth issues but we've also always had a couple of solid units to build around. That just doesn't seem to be the case this year.
Agree. And it is a factor of the recent recruiting dropoff. The blue chip recruits may have a higher ceiling, but they arguably start out with a higher ground floor, as well.
Depends on what we now accept as "win."
In this context, I would say Fuente has enough talent to win to stay employed. To me, that's 8 wins. 6 wins, he's gone. 7 wins, we have (another) very uncomfortable December. But Fuente has enough talent on this team to win 8 games. He'd probably even be fine if a bowl win was #8.
Now, does that represent a lessening of our standards from the previous decade or two? Of course, but the game has shifted dramatically in that time and left us behind in many ways. Is Fuente the best coach out there? Most certainly he isn't.
But does he have enough talent to keep his job the next 2-3 years? I think he does.
I am with you on 8 wins (including bowl) or at least 7 regular season wins will probably let him keep his job for another year. That lets the currently projected good recruiting class get in. But another 6 win or worse season in the next 3? Then I think he is gone regardless.
Will Tajh Bullock ever start games for VT? He probably won't start as many as some dude who is currently on some other roster.
Really interesting thought and probably not untrue. I think a more accurate answer is that he probably won't start as many as a dude currently starting. The question then is, can we get this dude on to OUR roster?
dude, we went 5-6 last year - largely because we just aren't very talented - because we haven't recruited well. Our failed recruiting classes came to fruition last year in a big way. You're cherry-picking the transfer portal success with Herbert. He was fantastic and I'm very glad we had him. If he didn't come to VT last year we're probably 3-8 or worse. The transfer portal is important, yes, but no team can rely solely on the portal for success. Similarly, no team can rely solely on recruiting high schoolers for success but it can't be ignored either. We haven't recruited well enough to win the division, as evidenced by the fact we haven't won the division in 4 years. Fuente's recruiting classes from 19-21 were horrid and our depth chart is about as sad as it has ever been as a result. He's not going to adequately supplement our roster's shortcomings purely from the transfer portal. If you think 8 wins is good enough then Fuente can probably get us there most years the way he's going. But that's not going to win the coastal any time soon.
I don't think our record had anything to do with talent. We lost 3 DB before the season started. Two of them there should be no argument about their talent. We had to start a true frosh walk on at Safety due to covid. We had a new defensive coordinator that didn't get to install a defense. We were 3 plays from 8-3. We played with just about everyone on our schedule. The Clemson score was much larger due to turnovers. We were a mess scheme wise. We made a lot of mental mistakes, but Pitt was the one game that looked like we shouldn't have been playing. Which is odd.
Now in a year or two when the last 2 classes become upperclassmen, thats when either 1) the xfer portal has to giveth, or the current class has to over achieved like no other.
Pitt, Clemson, and UNC destroyed us. Dominated us. UNC could have scored 100 points if they kept running the ball off tackle. The head coach that you are making excuses for, was the one that did not start Hooker in that game - so that's on him if Hooker was magic when he came in and made the score better than it was. Fuente hired the DC with no experience so that's on him too. The excuses are tiresome - covid or not- after 5 years.
I didn't mean to imply that I made excuses for the head coach because I was just talking about the talent (players) and not the game plans, the timeouts, the hiring.
Yes, he did not utilize the talent. Our defense was a mess, but I don't think that was a talent gap as much as no one knew where to go gap. There is probably some gap in talent we have vs talent to run the new system since our dline does something completely different.
Yes we didn't start Hooker, but as you stated that wouldn't matter if UNC just kept running against us and scored 100 because our dline didn't know where to go. Clemson, we gifted one of the best teams in the country half their points. It was also one of their worst games statistically. Our defense statistically played them as well as anyone not in the playoffs. And Pitt was just bad.
We will have a talent gap in a season or 2 unless we work miracles in the portal or the current class out performs like crazy. But we have a lot of players on the team that could play for just about anyone.
agree to disagree. Every team had to contend with COVID19 last year - VT was not the exception. When every team has a revolving door at every position on their squad, no time to install their systems, unpredictable roster availability, and question marks all over the place the results are going to come down to talent differential much more often than anything else. And VT was lacking in that department against just about every opponent we played. Talent (or lack thereof) was absolutely a big reason we lost so many games last year. Coaching didn't help.
Sure fine, I'm too tired to argue. You win the players lack ability to play at a p5 level and we should look yo move into a g5 league.
We don't need to be hostile. We have done and can recruit much better than we have under Fuente. We don't need to move to a G5 league. We just have to be honest with ourselves that this Hokies team is not talented enough to achieve the goals that we aspire to as a program. The sky is not falling. We're just bad right now but there is room to improve and I believe that with the right leadership in place VT can get right back to the top of the coastal.
Last year we had our first losing regular season in 25+ years, and our second losing season in 3? What more do you need to see?
Enough talent to win what? The ACC? The Coastal? We've been boat raced by multiple mediocre ACC teams (Pitt x2, Duke, GT, come to mind). Either he is an absolute abysmal coach, or he can't get the talent he needs.
Upgrade from what, though? Having KU's backup QB as your starter isn't exactly upgrading.
Bill Connelly always says that there's 3 phases to coaching: Acquiring Talent, Developing Talent, and Deploying Talent. I'd grade Fuente as a D+ at Acquiring Talent, a B+ at Developing Talent, and C+ at Deploying Talent.
Any and all optimistic feelings I had regarding this season were crushed after listening to this snippet...
If we get blown out by UNC and then followup with a dud two weeks later in Morgantown I will be a very sad boy.
Can anybody summarize what was said for those at work who can't listen to podcasts?
Basically that Andy and Ari don't believe there are any coaches that are walking on eggshells right now except for Fuente. They allude to a ceiling of 7-8 wins this season, and believe the only way Fuente redeems himself and keeps his job is if he wins the Coastal. Ultimately recruiting is what matters and Tech basically crapped the bed the previous couple classes and the current class is too little too late.
They also state that going up to Morgantown and beating Neil Brown at home will be nearly impossible if we are already reeling from a major loss against UNC.
Unfortunately I agree with everything they said.
Well, he's wrong if he thinks Fuente needs to win the Coastal to keep his job. He doesn't. He's got two better teams in front of him, teams with better resources who finally seem to be getting out of their own way.
Now....Fuente may need to win the Coastal to get the fanbase reset he needs to make our programs next iteration.
But an 8-4 season where a 11-1 UNC wins the division most certainly won't get Fuente fired.
I will say, Andy and Ari did sound completely perplexed by the situation and the general fanbase feelings towards Fuente. Which I think is just kinda how I feel myself. I have wanted Fuente gone for a couple years and was upset and confused after Whit's presser in December. I think 8 wins seems right for the overall fanbase's minimum this year, but I would mark 9 as my personal minimum (not that it matters, I'm a small time donor). BUT, even if Fuente won the Coastal I would still have doubts he's the long term answer. It just seems like he's alienated the fanbase and has done so much damage at this point that I am ready to cut ties regardless. I understand we're making a big time effort now to get him out in front of donors, podcasters, fans, and get him to schmooze but it seems like too little too late. Get a new, charismatic leader, and start fresh.
As much as it hurts to admit, Mack has completely revamped UNC, and they don't even care about football. I just rewatched highlights from the Tech game last year, a top 25 matchup, and they were at like 60% capacity. Other TKP posters in the know have stated that Mack has gotten all the big boosters jazzed about football. From that alone, he's elevated UNC to a preseason top 10 ranking. Not to mention their recruiting will help them remain at a high level. If they keep recruiting like they have and winning like they're predicted to, the fans will follow, and Tech will become second tier in the Coastal for the foreseeable future.
I think there is a lot of truth to the argument that when a coach loses a fanbase by this much, they don't come back. That's probably Fuente's fate, but that's the fate of almost every coach out there. Coaches get fired. I think I've read that like 65% of P5 football coaches end up fired as opposed to hired away or retired with success. We are most likely going to fire Fuente. And probably the next coach too.
That said, looks like you're a Nats fan, so you are well aware that things that probably shouldn't happen do happen. My point was that the dreaded talent deficiency that we have all been waiting on has actually been mitigated pretty well. At least well enough that it would not be the sole source of Fuente's eventual firing. He's got enough talent to win enough to keep his job.
Those recruiting classes aren't as dire as many predicted. Look at the much maligned 2020 class. Reminder, if you get 1/3 starters, 1/3 contributors and 1/3 wash outs, you are on schedule.
Projected Starters: Clements, Jenkins, Strong, Moore
Projected Contributors: Rudolph, Bailey, Lee, Wright, Pene
Projected Wash Outs: Bryant, Wooten, Saunders, Beadles, Hampton, Brunson
That's not crippling. We lost 5 of those 6 players in Wash Outs because of two separate behavioral issues.
This is the type of thing that you can easily use the portal to fix. We need to bring in one or two DE's on transfer next year who can play. They will replace the 3 DE's lost here.
There is a lot of woe with recruiting rankings, and they have a lot of value, but keep in mind the numbers aren't big and can easily be augmented.
The talent is good enough for 7-9 wins the next few years. Is the coaching? Is the development? That's my concern with Fuente, not this mythical recruiting class talent drop that seems easily mitigated.
We definitely *can* beat WVU regardless of what happens with UNC, but it will be a very difficult game. They're very well coached, like a good Wake or Northwestern team with a lot more talent.
I wouldn't at all be surprised to see us lose to UNC and WVU but beat Notre Dame and Miami. Vice versa wouldn't really surprise me either. We can win/lose all of these games. Pitt, BC and even GT could go either way as well.
I will be very very surprised if we beat ND. Very. I don't think Ian Book will be a huge issue to replace in that system. Kelly coaches circles around Fuente.
We basically had them beat at their place with our third string QB and almost our same team now. In a game where Fuente was definitely the one outcoaching Kelly.
I'd be more worried about the talent gap being the reason we lose that one
It's truly amazing what can happen here because some guy with a podcast throws out a couple of superficial takes on nothing new.
Genuine question, do you respect the opinion of anyone who covers this sport?
I respect the opinion of people who bring something new to the table - and consistently far more often than not turn out to be correct.
Unfortunately there are very few who cover the sport who meet these simple criteria. Most are appreciably less insightful than the better informed posters here and generally just repeat conventional wisdom or report on "news" which known already public knowledge or will be in 5 minutes.
But my real point was I amused how some dude with a podcast can send folks into a serious frenzy of confirmation bias arguments and counter-arguments.
Soooo who are those few? I'm curious, as I too have shared content from journalists and creators that find to be insightful, but you see to shrug off. Interested to see who I'm missing out on.
By definition, national sports media, even good reporters like Staples, just aren't going to have any new or exciting VT takes you haven't already seen. If you're on this website you're consuming VT info at like a 99th percentile clip.
It's the preseason, every fan base is worried about depth, whether the new guys can get it done, and if the other conference teams are running away with it. Ultimately, we will see when we see at the end of the month.
Except when they do, like Steven Godfrey, who is more connected within coaching/AD circles than any other CFB journalist I know of, and he gets shot down just the same.
Godfrey always has great insider stuff here and there, but Kirshner is a sensationalist always pushing for "Are they gonna fire this guy? What about this guy? This guy that's been there a year, when can we start talking about firing him?"
Especially has been doing that with Michigan and VT (coaches that have winning records) and pushes Godfrey for that kind of gossip
Two counter points:
I don't know about anyone else, but I for one *cannot wait* for this season to start. Is it because I'm incredibly optimistic about our team? Well, not really. I believe we will be better than last year, but that's a low bar.
The real reason I am want this season to start is so we can get some damn answers!
The majority of the fan base is down after last year and rightly so. But we will likely never know everything that went on behind the scenes with regard to player availability, conditioning, leadership, etc. Unfortunately the numbers are the numbers (cue the Bill Parcells "You are what your record says you are" meme), and that's what most of the talking heads are relying on to generate their predictions. Totally fair, but I don't think anyone can honestly say the external forces last year weren't far and away greater than any other season in recent (or not so recent) memory. Questions remain regarding how much different teams were affected and if that unbalanced the playing field, but again we likely won't get any of those answers.
Sorry for the ramble, but the TL;DR is I don't put as much weight on any predictions for this year by anyone, because I don't put as much weight on the results from last year. Please don't confuse that with a "free pass" for anyone - I'm still unhappy with several things and they need to improve, but I am really not going to get spun up about anyone predicting we are going to be great, or terrible, or middlin' and what that might/could/should mean for the program.
I just want football.
I will draw no conclusions from 2020. I watched a Clemson team lose a playoff game and look relieved it was all over. Every week was essentially a letdown game for any team not playing for a title. No judgment from me for that either.
I'm sure everyone can remember the hype we had for ourselves going into last season. Coming off the strong finish to 2019 (outside of the uva and kentucky missteps) we were preseason ranked and expecting a lot from the team. Obviously, covid had impacts on the team last year, I know every team had to deal with it but we can't act like it didnt result in the team playing worse than they would have during a normal year.
Even with all of that, we were two plays away from two top 25 wins in a row over liberty and miami. Yeah I know every season there are games that could have gone either way, but last year we really got shafted in that department. This year, we return a ton of talent at the receiver and TE positions, a deep running back room, a talented mobile quarterback, and a lot on defense along with their additional year of experience in the system. I think its safe to assume a big step forward on defense and probably a similar if not better performance on offense this year. These are a lot of ifs but this roster is one that can easily go 8-4 or 9-3 and if everything goes right could be 10-2. With that said yes we are a few injuries in the wrong position groups away from a 7-5 type year, but that should be the floor with the experience on this roster.
TBH, what I remember most from last offseason was resignation that college football wouldn't happen at all. Most of my saturdays were spent checking Twitter to see which 20 guys were sitting that week and laughing.
Lol the pregame warmup twitter updates of who was on the field had to be the most exciting part of the day
There is no denying bad recruiting will lead to poor results. There is no denying we have recruited badly the last two years.
The question is: will replacing Fuente change the recruiting and the trajectory of the program?
I dont think we have to win the coastal for him to stay or to get the fanbase back. I think we just have to have a competitive 8 to 9 win season where we show improvement and toughness every week. And then another good recruiting cycle next year and things will be on the up and up. We probably wont be competing for ACC titles for another 2 to 3 years even if all of that does happen. But the point is, this staff is showing signs of life and turning things around, and replacing them isn't going to accelerate the timeframe for winning titles.
If either we dont have a competitive season OR we have a really bad recruiting class in 23, then it might be time to move on.
The argument that VT can't upgrade from Justin Fuente at head coach really boggles my mind. Really? Dude is .500 over his last 42 games, broke the UVA and bowl streaks and has signed two straight sub 50 recruiting classes. Wow I have no fucking idea how Whit could possibly replace THAT guy.
Its funny, we heard the same things about basketball when it came time to replace Seth Greenberg. People get so tunnel-visioned on the here and now that they lose sight of the big picture.
Yes, we can be better than we are right now. We absolutely can. Sure, you might fuck up and hire a James Johnson, but then you step up and knock it out of the park with a Buzz Williams or Mike Young and you still end up better off in the end. The worst thing you can do is stick with mediocrity because you're paralyzed into inaction.
Then we need to set the tone and win the Coastal this year. Not next year, not 2 years after having a rebuild with a new coach. we need to do it now.
With 4 of the last 5 on the road, I don't expect that to happen.
You make it sound so simple. There's a lot of reasons for those numbers. I would argue that having a terrible defense when you were inheriting a hall of fame defensive coordinator was not something anyone would have handled much differently or much better. My point is that this staff has made changes and is finding a way to recruit again despite some bad seasons. Its not a long leesh, but I think Whit made the right decision not to pull the trigger yet.
Bud is a hall of fame DC because Cav, Stiney and others went out and got him players. When the G5 coaching staff came in, we stopped landing guys like Tim Settle and Tremaine Edmunds..hmm.
Any hire we make will be a G5 coaching staff
True, but they may develop into a P5 coaching staff. DC has been pretty forthright regarding his opinion on our current staff's development (or lack thereof) from their G5 days.
Again, the idea that Justin Fuente is the only possible coach for VT is laughable.
I don't think people are saying that. I think they are saying that they don't feel confident in the ability of another coach to do significantly better, given that Fu was a universally acclaimed hire at the time, handed a seemingly great situation and bottomed out.
If the guy everyone thought would succeed fails miserably, why would we have confidence the next guy will be able to succeed in a harsher environment?
Yes, Virginia Tech can do significantly better than a .500 coach and bottom 3rd ACC recruiting. Full stop.
I think we all feel that way.
So it's a good thing that Virginia Tech isn't in the bottom 3rd of ACC recruiting.
We have had 2 FB coaches in the last 30 years. 1 of 2 exceeded your expectations and not in his last 3 years. That's not a lot of evidence.
Maybe I'm just overly pessimistic, but I don't think we have the tools, alumni base, location, money and history to be better than a consistent 3rd place in the coastal team anymore. So, I guess I sadly disagree with your premise.
I hope so much to be convinced otherwise.
I definitely think that's overly pessimistic. We have the name and resources to run the Coastal. Yeah, UNC might have more money at their disposal, but at the end of the day, they will always prioritize basketball over football. The rest of the schools in this division really just don't have the pedigree of VT, certainly not over the last 30 or so years, and the only one who does (Miami) is plagued with a school admin who isn't fully bought into wanting the team to actually exist. Yeah, we get our act together the Coastal is absolutely ours to run, we just have to be willing to go and actually do that. And by that I mean legitimately moving toward a program with a modern emphasis on recruiting where we load up on elite recruiters on our staff and then build out from there.
I mean I understand where you are coming from, but keep in mind that it was widely accepted that VT would never have a basketball program that would ever rise out of the bottom quartile of the ACC. 3 of our last 4 coaches over the past 20 years have had us consistently in the top half with multiple legitimate runs at the regular season title, and another run locked and loaded to begin this year. At the end of the day, anyone can contend if they get the right people in the right place.
I mean Wichita State won a national championship with this guy. Wichita State!
I like his moves
Led Tasso cam be a hard ass though.
Damn, that is convincing. I hope its true.
I sort of agree with you but bad example. We weren't doing much winning with those guys either until the G5 staff brought along a juco qb. Edmunds was a legacy and Settle absolutely bails to greener pastures if his grades weren't scaring people off. So yeah, recruiting needs to be better but I don't think those two cherry picked examples are any kind of proof. I do think staff tried to shift focus to offensive recruiting, which caused the defensive talent to suffer.
There was more talent on Beamers last team than Fuente's 2021 squad, IMO. Kinda buries the "bare cupboard" narrative. Also you still have to recruit legacies. It would have been nice to have Dazz Newsome the past couple years for example. They aren't automatic. Tremaine could have went wherever he wanted.
Jalen Stroman is here too. Legacy recruits are an advantage but not a lock, some kids want different paths. I think I could make the argument that Fuente has recruited talent equivalent with the last Beamer recruits. But, no the cupboard wasn't bare. I think you may be the only one to invent that narrative. The overall team would have struggled without a qb in 2016 though. Point is, we need better talent to get where we want.
You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose.
Lou Holtz
If the goal was to win championships then the cupboard was hardly full during the transition to Fuente. And It has been emptied out considerably more since then. Bottom line is Beamer wasn't recruiting well enough and Fuente has done progressively worse.
Fair enough in regards to defensive recruiting (Fuentes first few classes overall were respectable P5 classes). For defense recruiting though I don't think thats something that most anyone appreciated until the damage was done. My impression was that Fuente's approach was very hands off on the defense. In hindsight it was probably the wrong call, but deciding not to mess with something that has worked so well historically was not a bad decision at the time. Its the one we all praised, and its the one 99% of coaches probably would have made. Thats my only point.
If you want to make a change, you have to be able to diagnose the problem. Its not clear to me that having a different staff the last 5 years would have resulted in us being in a much better spot today. In other words, I think this was somewhat inevitable, and we might still have the right staff capable of digging us out. We're clearly not in year 1, but due to many circumstances I don't think the evaluation is complete.
I will admit that I've somewhat changed my mind from last December. I don't think the 2020 team was 100% dialed in, nor do I think the coaches were at their best. We couldn't manage COVID, and players took a step back after working out at home for 6 months.
I think this team will surprise us this year and compete for the Coastal, coming up short. My only request is to see them be competitive and punch some teams straight in the mouth. Fuente will stick around for another season, and I will have serious expectations for 2022. Unless...
...We're lackluster, and let teams roll us over, then yes, it's time to light the torches and gather the pitchforks.
I'm sick of seeing us unranked in the preseason, with UNC, U.N.C., being tabbed as a Coastal Champ.
I'm sick of not going to awesome bowl games.
I'm sick of my kids having had to witness us lose to UVA. (child abuse)
I witnessed multiple Orange Bowls as a student, and it's only right this generation of students get the same in return.
Anyways, let's beat UNC.
I know people don't like the "2020 was an asterisk season" but there is plenty of reading out there about professional athletes burning out having to play sports in a Covid bubble. There's just no way to expect 17-22 year olds to manage that same stress and perform at a top level, and I expect with the benefit of a little more normalcy, lots of stars "come out of nowhere" on a lot of different football teams
This^^ especially considering how different parts of the country all handled covid differently, resulting in different effects on each school and student.
Yeah, i think there is valid criticism to hand out to this team or that team that they handled the situation poorly or not, but any predictions based off of what happened in 2020 are going to be shaky at best.