By Jimmy Robertson
BLACKSBURG – Over the past couple of weeks, Justin Fuente has added some responsibilities to his ever-growing list.
In addition to being Virginia Tech's football coach, he now has become a physical education teacher and occasional math tutor.
Like most state employees trying to get through the nation's current COVID-19 pandemic, Fuente spends his days at home with his wife and three daughters. He runs the football program through texts, phone calls and Zoom meetings, while spending a portion of his afternoon hours outside with his daughters.
"One of the benefits is that I've seen my family more than I have in a long time," Fuente said during a Zoom conference with the media on Wednesday afternoon.
These certainly are interesting times, and Fuente and his staff are adapting, finding creative ways and solutions to communicate and solve problems. This situation isn't necessarily ideal, but all involved in Virginia Tech football make the most of it.
Before the majority of the players went home after the university's decision to go strictly with online learning and the state government's decision to shut down all non-essential business, Fuente met with the team and gave them three prerogatives.
He wanted them to stay healthy and heed the advice of the medical experts. He wanted them to take care of their schoolwork – telling them that this time was not an extension spring break. Finally, he wanted them to do their best to stay in shape.
"Our kids have done a great job of those three things thus far several weeks into this," Fuente admitted. "With our coaches, it was similar guidelines – the health and safety of their families and then our players, just making sure we stay on top of them the best way we can. Obviously, we've got recruiting. It's a dead period, but we've still got to continue to stay in touch with recruits. And our coaches are working on our first couple of opponents."
During these uncertain times, Fuente spends his time focusing on what he can control. He meets with his staff to discuss game planning and recruiting, and he often meets with his players through channels and platforms such as Zoom, Skype and FaceTime.
Tech's auxiliary areas continue to be available to offer support to all student-athletes. Those areas include academic advising, nutrition, sport psychology and sports medicine. The NCAA has restricted strength and conditioning staffs, all but preventing them from any contact with student-athletes.
"The thing we have to do is make sure we're taking care of our guys the best we can," Fuente said. "We still have our tutor sessions. We're still on top of our guys in terms of assignments and class attendance to some extent the best that we can. We still have Monday meetings with some of our high-risk players. We're trying to make it as normal as possible. Nutritionally, we still have our nutrition staff that's here. We're able to do some things in terms of trying to help these guys out nutritionally from a distance, whether it's per diem or whatever we're doing. They're still getting their scholarship check, so they can continue to eat the best that they can."
As for the future, that remains up in the air. ACC officials, university presidents, and athletics directors meet constantly to formalize options for a football season, but that remains difficult without knowing when the nation returns to normalcy.
Fuente was asked how long it would take to prepare a team for a season without knowing the exact schedule. He said he and his staff would make any scenario work as best as possible.
"I would like to have as much time as possible," he said. "I know that's really stepping out there for a comment, but if we had to do it in a month, and the alternative was not doing it at all, yeah, I think we could find a way to make it work."
Here are some other notes from the conference:
LOOKING AHEAD TO THE FALL
Tech Director of Athletics Whit Babcock also held a Zoom conference with the media Wednesday as well and answered an array of questions, most of which were related to the financial implications caused by the COVID-19 situation. A cancelation of the season would create a lot of uncertainty for many athletics departments nationally because of the importance of football to departmental budgets, and Babcock admitted that he would be open to shifting the season from its normal spot on the calendar if it meant preserving it
However, he wasn't a fan of holding games without fans in the stands, as has been suggested.
"I would never say never because we were going to play the NCAA Tournament without fans, but I would have to lean that, if it's not safe enough for fans and students to come back, then I would have a hard time operating a football game under that premise," Babcock said. "But if I've learned anything, it's that things change very rapidly. So that's not off the table. But I believe we would look at pushing the season back, starting it later rather than [playing without fans in the stands]."
IMPACT OF MISSING SPRING BALL
Tech returns a veteran roster for the upcoming season whenever it kicks off, but the lack of a spring practice will have an effect, primarily on Tech's defense. The Hokies return 10 starters, and the unit features a new coordinator and basically an entirely new staff.
"The first thought I had was our defense," Fuente said when asked about the impact of missing spring practice. "We have a new defensive coordinator. We have several new coaches on the defensive side of the ball. There's certainly an element of X's and O's and terminology and scheme that will carryover, and some will change, as you can imagine with any change in personality or person in charge. Maybe the bigger thing was our kids actually being on the field and being coached by these guys and getting a better feel or better window in their new position coach or new coordinator and how they're going to teach and how they react to great things, how they react to mistakes, how they react to things that happen throughout spring ball."
RECRUITING IN FULL SWING
Recruiting never stops, even during pandemics, and even though in the midst of an NCAA-mandated dead period that prevents face-to-face contact, the coaches still are able to communicate with recruits through other channels such as calling, texting, Skype, Facetime, and Zoom.
The staff's recent emphasis in the state of Texas continues to pay off. The Hokies secured two from the Lone Star State in last year's recruiting class and recently picked up a commitment for this year's class.
"This is one of the mistakes I made when I got here, quite honestly," Fuente said. "When I got here, I said, 'We're not going to go down there. We're going to stay in the traditional part where Virginia Tech has always recruited in the region.' But just in this short time, things have changed quite a bit in terms of your ability to reach out.
"Don't get me wrong – our mission is to do a great job in this region. But we have so many connections down there in that part of the country that I underestimated the power of those connections, the power of those relationships. So a year and a half or two years ago, we decided to go down there in a focused way and not in a broad net way, to go root around and see what could happen. It's been very productive for us. I wish I had done it when we very first started."
DIFFERENT ROLE FOR THE LUNCH PAIL
There has been much speculation about the future of the lunch pail, and Babcock cleared some of that up Wednesday when he told reporters that the pail will take on a different role now that longtime defensive coordinator Bud Foster has retired.
"We will still use the lunch pail somewhat," Babcock said. "It's obviously on Coach Foster's banner. It will be displayed. That era of history will be one that we'll always brag on and be proud of. You will not see us carrying the lunch pail to every game and doing it that way.
"We talked to Coach Foster, who owns the trademarks, and he said, 'If you guys want to use it, you certainly can, and if you don't, I certainly understand that.' Justin Hamilton's position – which I take a lot of stock in as a former player and he probably carried the thing – he didn't move into Bud's office. It's hard to follow a legend. We need people to be able to create their own program and not be an extension of the last one. But we're not going to shy away from the lunch pail. You'll just see it used it a little less."
