[Projected Score Today]

UNT: 29

Smurfs: 28

[Update from Footballcoop.com (Monday Morning)]

Gents, I have quite enjoyed hanging around these parts this past week. It appears you have a great fan base. And Coach Fu is your guy if you want to take it to the next level.
 

I promise that’s the one hire the Ponies don’t want you to make. They know what’s up.

[DRC (udpated with story): UNT has hired Jared Mosley as its new athletic director]

5 hours ago, All About UNT said:

His classes were hovering around top 25 almost every year. Many of their fans are out of touch with reality and got spoiled during the Beamer era. 

This! Coach Fu’s 2022 class was top 25 until VT fired him. He had a top QB committed that went to Michigan after Fu was let go. Their top RB recruit went to Maryland. I believe those were VT’s top two recruits in that class.

Fu’s staff were strong evaluators also. VT’s top two CBs were unheralded recruits without any big offers. Both are likely NFL guys.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

32 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

True, as did UCF and Cincinnati in a 3 way tie.

I don’t like what happened at VaTech, at all. He couldn’t win without Bud Foster, then he was flirting around with Baylor, then when he started flailing, demanded a year extension which the AD refused so he decided to negotiate his buyout down to quit/get fired. Just a really bad look that I don’t want for us.

I take it you rejected my suggestions regarding the Baylor thing… You are a tough customer, Cr.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

3 hours ago, TheReal_jayD said:

I think he should have stayed at memphis and he knows that. I think if thats the case he is not an option for UNT. VT was a horrible move. He is not a rah rah kind. But I have learned he is super inteligent and he has done a great job of identifing local guys that can recruit. UNT would have improved the HC positon and that all you can hope for with firing a coach. 

I suspect Coach learned some valuable lessons from his time at VT though. We have all been there… It sucks at the time. But when the dust settles the adversity makes us stronger.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

1 hour ago, UNT Texas Hooligan said:

Thank you @jwVA. I’ve read enough, I’m in. #fUeNTe2023

I hope so partner. I like the idea of being a Mean Green fan… and taking it to the ponies every year in the American.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

32 minutes ago, MeanGreenTexan said:

Wow.

I don’t understand why you’re here though. Are you scouring the internet looking for people to engage about Justin?   Or is there something you’ve been told?

You kinda come across as a relative or agent rather than a VATech fan.

Hah… I can understand that. But at the same time I doubt relatives or agents would spend any time on fan site message boards. What’s the upside?

I stumbled upon your community here looking up the remaining jobs Coach Fuente had been linked to as a potential candidate after the UAB and Tulsa jobs filled. And you guys are quite active so I figured I would pipe in.

I assure you I have no motives here. I am just a student of the game, and I happen to appreciate Coach Fu’s approach. It reminds me of vintage VT, except with a modern offense. 

I will be a fan of whichever program hires the guy. And I would be willing to bet that they will be incredibly successful.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

46 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

Thank you for the response. How did you feel about his Baylor situation?

You mean talking to Baylor about their vacancy prior to the 2020 season? Man, you know a lot about this story.

I never had a problem with it. That was about one of two things...

Either Coach Fu was exploring an opportunity to move back closer to home and get a big raise for his staff – apparently Baylor is an extremely well-funded private school… Or he made a calculated move to show VT’s admin that they absolutely needed to step up their support for the football program. Or fall behind even more.

I think I mentioned at one point in our conversation that VT had exactly two full-time recruiting people at the time. That was part of the problem. The uncompetitive assistant coach budget was the other big issue.

Well, the “head of recruiting” John Iezzi said that Fu showed up in the office the next day (it’s the offseason) and told the staff that some news was going to come out, and that some people would not be happy with it. But he asked them to trust him that it was something that was going to help the program.

So this guy suggested that the Baylor thing was about the second scenario. And that it was 100% calculated.

And maybe it was. By all accounts, Coach Fu really enjoyed raising his young family in Blacksburg VA, which is a small town.

Just to footnote this so you don’t suspect I’m making it up, here’s the podcast where Iezzi told this story: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/john-iezzi-interview-sons-of-crootin/id1306454306?i=1000465163844

At the same time, I wouldn’t blame Justin one bit if he seriously wanted the Baylor job.

For one, Texas/Oklahoma is his home.

I’m a native Virginian who spent a decade working in a different state… and I jumped at the opportunity to move back closer to home. I don’t know, there’s something about us humans where we want to stay close to our roots. Many of us do, anyway.

So I can understand that.

I also heard that some of Fu’s assistants wanted him to take the Baylor job. I don’t know that he was ever even offered the job… but the staff knew it would be better pay.

Plus, Fu’s staff at Virginia Tech was largely a combination of guys from TX/OK and former VT players. I’m sure the TX/OK guys would love to make more money and get back closer to home.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

1 hour ago, Cr1028 said:

Thank you for sharing this.

I haven’t found anything where you advocate for keeping Fuente while others want him gone and I haven’t found anything you posted prior to Fuente’s hiring at VT. 

Really the only thing I’ve seen noteworthy is this post that you linked above. https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2021/november/16/perspective
You essentially say it is wrong for them to celebrate Fuente’s firing and that you are taking your ball and going home. People are typically more invested in their school than a temporary coach. None of this seems to suggest you were a VT alum or fan before or after Fuente’s tenure, it just seems like you are a Fuente fan and VT is just where he happened to coach at that time. It seems reasonable that as a fan of Fuente and not of VaTech specifically that you would come here to advocate for your buddy.

Happy to share partner.

And certainly no arguments from me about people being emotionally invested in the school, not the coach. But think about it in the context of VT’s history for a minute…

For those of us under age 50, Frank Beamer was the only coach we ever knew. We have never played the coaching carousel game before.

What’s more, Virginia Tech is located in a very rural part of Virginia. To us, it always represented the common man.

We never had the nicest stuff… but we were willing to outwork everybody in sight. That was the mentality, anyway.

Coach Beamer put VT on the map with that ethos. So we were in no man’s land when he retired.

It became clear to me early on that Coach Fu is cut from the same cloth. It was the Notre Dame game his first year that sold me.

The game was in South Bend. The temperature was in the teens and blowing snow. Yet Fu’s strength coach is out there in a short sleeve shirt and sunglasses like it was nothing.

Then ND jumped up 17-0 in the first quarter… and Fu went ballistic on the sidelines. He doesn’t do that very often. But it sure got the team’s attention. They rallied and won the game in the fourth quarter. A replay of that game is still up on YouTube I believe.

So for me, Justin was a Virginia Tech guy. The program looked like a modern version of what it had always been… with the same mentality and values.

That’s why I was very disappointed with how the fans turned on him despite the fact that he never had a truly bad season. At VT, we’re supposed to take care of our own.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

4 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

Well seeing as how a few new posters (who could be Jimmy Sexton-types for all we know) showed up just since the job posting just to sell Fuente while twitter dude has been posting about VaTech and the Saints for awhile, my inclination is to trust the one that didn’t just show up overnight. Maybe you can share your handle and some of your hated posts from the VT board to give yourself a little credibility.

Oh man, you are a tough one Cr. Going with Chris from Twitter over me?

Here’s the thing – I took the initiative to come say hello and see what you good folks are all about. Can Chris from Twitter say the same??

I suppose I could share my Twitter handle with you… but all it does is shamelessly promote my business. Unless we have some real estate investors in here, I seriously doubt anyone cares to see that stuff.

I am happy to share a few of my old VT posts with you though:

https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2020/december/1/what-if

https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2021/august/19/call-arms

https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2021/november/16/perspective

And by the way, if you guys want to see the kind of energy Coach Fu brings check this one out: https://vimeo.com/778946687/c89bfaaffd

The ACC Championship Sounds of Game Day piece was really good for some inside looks too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPi9Woat7sY

So now that I’ve taken the time to post all this, I’m going to feel pretty silly if Coach Fu isn’t your guy. Hah.

It’s been nice chatting with you though.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

8 hours ago, Cr1028 said:

Well Chris from twitter is a VaTech fan commenting on his frustration with Fuente-coached quarterbacks which seems relevant to the discussion at hand since a rando alleged VaTech fan came over today to make excuses for Fuente.

Looks like we've got ourselves a fine line in the sand here. Whose random word will we be trusting – mine or Chris from Twitter's?

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

2 hours ago, meaniegreenie said:

Edit - looks like you may have answered some of my questions.

I recently made a post questioning what happened after the first 2 years of Fuente's start at VT.  I wondered if he had inherited a good team and simply reaped the results once they were seniors and with a good QB. 

I noted that in his 4th season (8-5) he had wins over  1-11 ODU and 2-10 Rhode Island along with a loss to 5-7 Duke and that was after a 6-7 finish in the previous season.   You say he lost his identity after a few years, but it looks like things started going south in year 3.  Did this affect his game planning/strategy or recruiting?

Also, you say the admin had a lot to do with it.  Was the admin support demoralizing or simply not providing the necessary resources?  We're VERY familiar with that problem, having lived through it for decades but we've finally gotten support since NS became president in 2014.

What's Fuente like as a person?

Does he support being "Selfless. Tough. Disciplined"? (sorry, inside joke)

Did he have many disciplinary issues with players?

Thanks for stopping by.  Oh, and regarding history, have a coke and a smile and feel free to browse our site.

Thank you for the warm welcome. To your questions…

Coach Fuente always structured his game plans to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses. Year one at VT he had some explosive playmakers on offense and a good/not great defense. So they let it rip.

Year two all the offensive playmakers left, but the defense was one of the best in the country. So his game plans were far more conservative. Ball control. Win time of possession, field position, and hidden yardage.

Every year was a little different.

And he was really good at game-planning for individual opponents as well. Their game plan against Clemson in 2020 was fantastic. VT’s defense was not good that year… but they had Clemson on the ropes until the QB fumbled a snap that Clemson ran back for a TD.

As for recruiting – I think the high school recruiting was consistent. He had one subpar year but every other class was top 30.

Where VT shined under Fu was with the transfer portal in the early days. He seemed to be one of the first to realize that you needed to have a separate process for evaluating and recruiting portal players. And it paid off.

VT pulled in two NFL RBs – Khalil Herbert and Raheem Blackshear through the portal. They picked up several other key players through the portal over the years as well.

Justin utilized it exceptionally well. And he made the comment that it’s a far more holistic process. The high school recruits expect glitz and glamor. The portal players just want you to give it to them straight.

On the admin...

Resources were definitely an issue. VT was way behind on recruiting infrastructure. And the football staff budget was towards the bottom of the ACC.

But I do get the sense that there was a little bit of a disconnect with the admin as well.

If you listened to his interview with Doug Gottlieb, Justin talked about how Virginia Tech was much more of a “northern” school than he expected. Then he talked about how the culture and the values would have to be a good match for him to get back into coaching.

We can read between the lines a little bit there.

What’s Fuente like as a person? He’s a good dude. Family man. Believes in doing things the right way. And he recognizes that success comes from all the hard work these young men put in. He’s not a big ego. He seems to genuinely love the game and the competition.

And no, not many disciplinary issues.

If we’re talking on the field, VT was always one of the least penalized teams in the ACC under Coach Fu.

Off the field, there were a few guys who got kicked off the team over the years. But by all accounts, they were in the wrong. And Coach never let those issues infect the locker room.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

26 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

This is why I like Carthel so much.
 

I thought you were a VT fan. Why do you refer to them as if they don’t include you? Were you satisfied with 5 win seasons or are you just pretending to be a VT fan to advocate and makes excuses for Fuente?

Also, 4 years at TCU doesn’t make you a “Texas guy”. He is an Oklahoma guy unless you want to consider him a carpetbagger everywhere sort of guy.

I don't subscribe to the tribal mentality partner.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

1 hour ago, MGNation92 said:

Welcome to the forum and thanks for the input.

You seem to be in the minority about Fuente from what I've seen of other VT fans. A lot of people are saying he left the cupboard bare and really floundered the last couple of years.

Outside of the difficulty of following someone like Beamer and expectations, what went wrong? Personnel? Game Planning? Bad Coaching hires?

 

Yep – I am absolutely in the minority. I tried to tell them they were making a mistake… they slandered me at the time. But I think they realize it now. 

I just commented on the recruiting situation in an above post. In addition to that Coach Fu had a couple major hurdles.

The first is that VT’s recruiting fell off in a big way in the last several years of Coach Beamer’s tenure.

Fu inherited a good team in 2016. And had three offensive players not tried to go pro early after that year, they would have been a top ten team in 2017.

But then nearly the entire defense graduated. And of the three guys who didn’t graduate, two of them got in trouble over the summer and were suspended. They had exactly one returning starter on defense in 2018. The new guys were all freshmen and sophomores. And they probably weren't as talented as VT recruits in the past.

That was a tough year. And DC Bud Foster had some major health problems that year to boot. That led to what was the only subpar season of Coach’s tenure at VT outside of the Covid year, which I don’t count.

They were one win away from getting back to the ACC Championship in 2019. And they had a good recruiting class coming in after that.

But long-time DC Bud Foster retired. I believe Justin wanted to hire Barry Odom as the replacement. Odom was his DC at Memphis. But he couldn’t afford him at VT.

Fuente’s staff budget was less than $3.2 million. The OC was making less than $500k. And they had to promote a new DC from one of the position coaches willing to work for a similar amount.

So VT had a new DC going into 2020. He’s a good coach and a good man… but he wasn’t ready for the role yet. AND then we had the Covid fiasco which cancelled Spring ball and made Fall camp a revolving door. It was the perfect storm.

That was the one year VT’s recruiting class wasn’t great too. So the fans wanted to run Coach Fu out of town after 2020. The tribal mentality set in.

Then if you look at 2021 – Virginia Tech started the season 4-4 with three losses that came on the final play of the game. That includes a loss to highly ranked Notre Dame in the final seconds.

They could have easily been 7 and 1. But the fans absolutely rebelled and it seems the administration acquiesced.

Ironically, VT finally agreed to pony up for assistant coaches when they hired the new coach. This year’s budget is over $5.2 million. That’s a 65% increase… and Virginia Tech put the worst-coached team on the field this year that I’ve ever seen. And I grew up going to games back in the late 80s when VT was awful.

Had they allowed Coach Fu to hire an experienced DC in 2020 I think he’s still coaching there today.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

1 hour ago, Jonnyeagle said:

Hey man thanks so much that was very informative and much appreciated.  One follow-up question if you don’t mind, how good of a recruiter is coach Fue and not saying necessarily is he a good recruiter but does he understand the importance of it and can he delegate it by hiring good recruiters on his staff?  Out last coach had always been at high level programs before coming here and I think he underestimated how important recruiting is at the G5 level.

Here's the thing - when Coach Fu got to VT they hadn't been using the online recruiting services. Virginia Tech was the very last Power Five team to start using those things. Coach Beamer built the program on relationships with high school coaches in the state and didn't recognize the big shift that was happening in college football.

What's more, Virginia Tech had exactly two people working full time in their recruiting department. That's it. Even the bad ACC teams had at least six or seven guys focused on recruiting full time.

So Virginia Tech was years behind everybody else with regards to recruiting infrastructure. That's what Justin walked into.

Against those odds he inked the 26th rated class in 2017, 24th rated class in 2018, 27th rated class in 2019, and then the 59th ranked class in 2020. He had another top 25 ranked class committed for 2021 at the time Virginia Tech decided to let him go. Several of the top recruits in that class went elsewhere after that.

VT fans point to the 2020 class and say Coach can't recruit. But that's the only class that was outside of the top 30 composite rankings. And he did it with far less resources than pretty much every other Power Five program.

I'll add, I think his staff was really good at evals. Especially on the offensive line.

So I think Coach Fu gets a bad wrap on recruiting.

Plus, he's a Texas guy. That's where a lot of his high school relationships are. He managed to bring a number of Texas kids out to Virginia the last few years.

[Who will be the next UNT Head Football Coach?]

Hey Friends – Virginia Tech guy here. I stumbled upon this site searching for Coach Fuente’s likely landing spot now that UAB and Tulsa are out of the picture.

Just to add a third party perspective to this conversation – Justin would be a homerun hire for UNT. He got a raw deal the last couple years at VT… but none of that is a reflection on the man’s coaching ability.

Virginia Tech had been floundering the last several years under Coach Beamer. They barely eked out a 6-6 season in 2015.

Then Coach Fu came in and injected new energy into the exact same roster. All he added was a JUCO QB and a complimentary offensive system… and the same Virginia Tech team that barely got to six wins the year before came within twenty-five yards of beating national champion Clemson in the 2016 ACC Championship game.

And that may have been Clemson’s best team ever.

Deshaun Watson, Wayne Gallman, big Mike Williams, Ray-Ray McCloud, Hunter Renfrow, Deon Cain, and Jordan Leggett were their top skill people. Every single one of those guys is in the NFL right now. Half of that team’s defense went pro as well.

Watching that game, VT was dramatically outclassed from a talent perspective. But the coaching and the “want to” were superior.

Coach Fu admitted that he lost his identity a little bit after a few years at VT.

Some of that has to do with following somebody else’s legend. And some of it stemmed from the culture and support (or lack thereof) from the administration. Virginia Tech football was not in good shape from a modern operational standpoint when he got there.

All that’s to say – if UNT hires Coach Fu, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

The guy’s brilliant when it comes to offensive schemes. He’s also great at overall gameplanning. That’s why he ate Mack Brown’s lunch year after year.

And don’t let Justin’s media persona fool you – he brings the energy. The players love to play for him.

So if Coach Fu is the new head man at UNT, you can count me as a new fan. I’ll be the only guy walking around in Virginia wearing a Mean Green shirt… and I guess I’ll have to brush up on the program’s history.

That’s how much I think about Coach Fuente and his approach to the game.