By Jimmy Robertson
BLACKSBURG – Virginia Tech head coach Justin Fuente met with media members via video conference Monday morning, and he spent the first few minutes of a 35- minute session thanking his staff and the Hokies' sports medicine group for getting the team prepared to play Saturday's game at Duke.
Tech played without 21 players and two full-time coaches and yet answered every Duke comeback attempt in the fourth quarter en route to a 38-31 victory. The Hokies moved to 2-0 on the season, 2-0 in ACC play.
Despite the personnel losses, Tech rushed for more than 300 yards for the second straight game and an undermanned defense – the Hokies played without most of their secondary – finished with seven sacks and an interception.
Aesthetically, the game wasn't always pleasing, especially for a perfectionist like Fuente. But considering the circumstances, it was another work of art.
For that, Fuente remains grateful after two games.
"I feel fortunate to be surrounded by such great people," Fuente said. "It's a testament to people in our program that many people don't know their names, that don't get any praise or accolades, but they do understand that our mission is to help these young people to be the best that they can be in all areas of their lives and sometimes you have to reach outside your comfort zone to try and give them those opportunities.
"There is a whole army of people where at Virginia Tech willing to do that. So I'm pleased with that, and if the games had been 10 or 14 points different and maybe we hadn't been on the right side of the ledger, I think I'd still feel the same way that, not just our team, but our support staff have gone about trying to help these kids."
Here are some other takeaways from Monday's news conference:
• Hendon Hooker, the preseason starting quarterback, was available to play at Duke, but has missed a lot of practice time, and Fuente and the staff went with Braxton Burmeister for the entire game. So who gets the nod Saturday against North Carolina in Chapel Hill?
On Monday, Fuente wasn't ready to commit to a starter.
"We'll continue to evaluate it," Fuente said. "I'll tell you all this: things have changed so much and so quickly over the past four weeks. Two weeks before the Virginia game, we felt like it was Hendon that gave us the best chance to win. Hendon has missed time, the game was postponed – all those things you guys already know. Heading into this last week, we felt like it was Braxton. I'll you this: we'll go out this week and practice, and like we do at every single position, we'll evaluate it and try to make the best decision we can for the football team."
• After another 300-yard rushing performance, Tech is averaging 319 yards rushing per game, which ranked third nationally behind rushing powerhouses Air Force and Army – two teams that annually rank at the top of this category. Most people knew that the Hokies featured a big, veteran offensive line heading into this season, but questioned the tailback position.
Khalil Herbert has been the answer, for sure. He leads the nation in rushing at 156 yards per game after his 208-yard outing against Duke – a performance that earned him the ACC Running Back of the Week award.
It appears that Fuente has found a primary tailback to carry the load for the first time in his four-plus seasons as the Hokies' head coach.
"I would say having Khalil back there certainly makes us better," Fuente admitted. "I do think we have to be cautious with him, but I think in the first game he only had six carries, if I'm not mistaken. I do think we need to make sure that we're not overusing him, and we have really good guys that can fill in and not have a huge drop-off that I feel really comfortable with. But I certainly like having him here and the ability to get the ball to the unblocked hat and make the unblocked hat miss has been really big for us so far this season."
• Most teams make their most improvement between their first and second games, but given the roster fluctuations because of the COVID-19 pandemic, that improvement may not be as pronounced. Fuente actually wasn't sure that his team improved that much between the NC State and Duke victories.
"I don't know that we made huge strides, quite honestly, anywhere," he said. "I thought we did some things well. We did some things that certainly need improvement. Some areas that we wanted to improve, I don't think we did, quite honestly, from week 1 to week 2. But some of that is a product of what we were dealing with and that may be the case from here on out."
• Fuente continued to sing the praises of Tyler Matheny, a walk-on who started at free safety for the Hokies at Duke. Matheny, a redshirt sophomore from Fairfax, Virginia, turned down a wrestling scholarship to Virginia to come to Tech and try his hand at football. In his first career start and second career game – he played against Old Dominion in 2019 – he registered seven tackles, including two for a loss, and had an interception.
"I think it's a fantastic story," Fuente said. "It's well-deserved. You get guys of varying talent level that walk on. You can tell relatively quickly if it's a guy that you think one day has a chance to be a contributor on offense or defense, or one day has a chance to be a contributor maybe just on special teams, or maybe one day gets to run down on a kickoff if you're up considerably in the fourth quarter, or if this is a guy that can be a glue guy – a guy that just helps the football team in any way possible.
"Matheny is a guy that has just worked his way up those levels, quite honestly, into a guy that contributes. Obviously, he got a start, but he is going to contribute to the football team on defensive side and on special teams. It's a testament to his work ethic, his toughness. I haven't heard him say very many words. He just shows up and does whatever we ask him to do whenever we ask him to do it. It's always fun to cheer for guys like that."
• After finishing with seven sacks Saturday, Tech currently leads the country in sacks per game at 6.5. Emmanuel Belmar recorded three sacks on his way to being named the ACC Defensive Lineman of the Week, and redshirt junior Amaré Barno had the first two sacks of his career.
A year ago, Tech's defensive ends combined for just 7.5 sacks. This season, the Hokies' ends already have eight sacks, and Saturday's sack-fest was an understated key in the game, especially considering the Hokies' issues in the secondary.
"I think it certainly helps when you can create pressure with four, sometimes three, particularly when you're short in the back end," Fuente said. "It can be a huge advantage for you. That was something that we had to have last week. It wasn't an option. We had to find a way to get some pressure while finding a way to cover on the back end to try and help those guys. They did a great job, but trying to get the quarterback off his spot is going to be just as important. The philosophy between [Bill] Teerlinck and [Darryl] Tapp and Justin Hamilton meshing all those things together has really been beneficial for us."
• The ACC announced the kickoff times for the games on Oct. 17, and the Tech-Boston College game is slated to kickoff off at 8 p.m. The game can be seen on the ACC Network.