Being named the new head coach of a 2-10 Memphis team after the 2011 season the thirty something aged Justin Fuente flew under the national radar. Expectations were really low to be sure and the national media rarely give much attention the Memphis Tigers.
The Tigers had little talent and Fuente led the team to a very underwhelming 4-8 record. Nobody seemed notice outside of Memphis.
The 2013 season was not a good one, but there was a young freshman Quarterback from Florida named Paxton Lynch who say his first playing time. Nobody wanted Lynch coming out of high school, but Fuente saw something in the 6-7 gunslinger that would become a 1st round NFL Draft
pick.
By the time Lynch gained a little game experience during his sophomore season of 2014, coach Justin Fuente’s Memphis Tigers were getting pretty good. They finished with a superb 10-3 record which was probably the biggest turnaround that season in the nation.
Suddenly, Justin Fuente was the hottest name in college football coaching.
As a recruiting geek, I remember Justin Fuente from his high school football playing days. He played at Union High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma and he signed with Howard Schnellenberger at Oklahoma. I remember him briefly at Oklahoma, but he didn’t finish there and I lost touch with whatever happened to him. It turned out he finished up his college eligibility at Murray State.
Fuente even played a little Arena Football before giving it up for coaching. He didn’t even start in the coaching field until 2001 wen he got a job coaching Quarterbacks at Illinois State.
He quickly rose up the coaching ranks and was the Offensive Coordinator at TCU when Memphis hired him as their head coach.
The brilliant Fuente followed up his impressive turnaround in 2014 with another great season in 2015 when the Tigers finished the regular season at 9-3.
Virginia Tech’s Frank Beamer had announced he was retiring at the end of the 2015 season and the Hokies were smarter than anyone else and hired Justin Fuente before anyone else had a shot at him. Brilliant move by the higher ups in Blacksburg.
But, make no mistake about it, the Hokies don’t hire Fuente without what Frank Beamer Beamer
accomplished at Virginia Tech:
Beamer’s last few years at Virginia Tech were pretty mediocre compared to earlier years when Beamer Ball was the talk of the town among football pundits.
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Obviously, when new coaches are hired, they get busy hiring a staff and then hit the ground running with recruiting. In today’s times, a lot of kids are graduating early and arriving at the school of their choice in January and they participate in Spring Practice to get an early start on their freshman season. So, it’s majorly important to get a staff together quickly and get busy recruiting. Fuente, wisely, brought in a Junior College Quarterback Jerod Evans as his Quarterback as quickly as he could.
Fuente also had a really great built in advantage taking over at Virginia Tech. Maybe the very best Defensive Coordinator in the nation, Bud Foster, decided to remain as the Defensive Coordinator.
Retaining Bud Foster and signing Jerod Evans now look like very smooth moves by Fuente.
Evans won the starting Quarterback job and Foster has fielded an excellent defense, as usual.Virginia Tech is currently ranked third in the nation in total defense and Evans has thrown for over a thousand yards and 15 Touchdowns passing against only 1 Interception.
Evans is a Dual Threat Quarterback and he’s run for 258 yards and 2 Touchdowns.
Virginia Tech lost to Tennessee in Bristol in their second game of the season. If these two teams were to play again at the end of the season, my money would be on Virginia Tech. The Hokies are 4-1 and they are looking, as of right now, as the most improved team in the nation. Justin Fuente definitely
has a way of making that happen as he did at Memphis in the 2014 season.
This past weekend, the Hokies traveled to North Carolina to take on the Tar Heels right in the middle of Hurricane Matthew. Virginia Tech was more than impressive in dominating a really good North Carolina team, 34-3.
Maybe the driving rain helped them, but the Hokies are looking good right now. They are looking very good.
The ACC is the best Conference in the country right now and I don’t see how even Paul Finebaum could argue that.
Clemson, Louisville, Florida State, Miami, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh, North Carolina State and North Carolina are all quality teams. Clemson and Louisville are as good as anyone out there including Alabama. Virginia Tech has a shot at making the ACC Championship game and even winning it all.
If not this year, the Virginia Tech Hokies have a shot at being really good for a long, long time. Justin Fuente is one of the top coaches in the nation and he’s only 40 years old.