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VIRGINIA TECH FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 30, 2015

Blacksburg, Virginia

THE MODERATOR: Again, on behalf of everyone at Virginia Tech, welcome, and it is now my pleasure to introduce our president, Mr. Timothy Sands.

TIMOTHY SANDS: Thanks, Pete, and good morning. Justin Fuente has already heard many times that he's following a legend in Frank Beamer and that following a legend is hard, but it's precisely because of what will be Coach Beamer's legacy and his careful stewardship of our football program for the past 29 years that we will have access to someone with the talent, proven ability and integrity of Justin Fuente.

Laura and I welcomed Justin, Jenny and the family to Blacksburg and to Virginia Tech. As president, it's my job to take care of the hard stuff, so we've already explained that it's not VA Tech or Virginia Tech University. He's met the Hokie Bird, he and his family, knows about "Enter Sandman," a detail that had escaped me when I was introduced. He knows that a Hokie Stone is technically a dolomite limestone, but it is by definition found nowhere else on the planet. They know the significance of our motto, "Ut Prosim."

They may not yet know that we have two bands, a big cannon named Skipper, many world-class academic programs and the best campus food in the country, but there's time for all of that.

Before you have a chance to meet and hear from our new coach, I want to hand the microphone to our athletic director, Whit Babcock. Whit may very well be the best AD in the country, but what matters to us is he's the best AD for Virginia Tech. Whit, his wife Kelly and his three sons, Andrew, Brett and Eli, joined us in 2014, and he's been focused and committed on creating the best experience for our student-athlete and Hokie fans. Under Whit's leadership, the athletic program adopted the core values of integrity, service, honor, excellence and strong together.

As I said, Whit is the right AD for Virginia Tech. Whit?

WHIT BABCOCK: Thank you for that introduction. It's been a heck of a 48 hours, last 48 hours. It's been very exciting. Obviously it's always enjoyable to beat the in-state rival, to celebrate continuing the nation's longest bowl streak, to give a great finish to a great man in Coach Beamer, and he's got one more to go, and I know he'll handle it with class.

And we've got another month to enjoy him and his team and to get to a bowl game for these seniors, there's plenty to celebrate in the last 48 hours, and then today included. It's also an honor to celebrate what we are here to do today, and that's to welcome the Fuente family into the Hokie family, and I'm proud and honored to do that.

Before I formally introduce Coach Fuente, I thought I'd try to touch on three things. I want to talk briefly about the search process and acknowledge a few people along the way. I'd like to discuss a few points to note moving forward over the next month, and then lastly, and I'll spend the most time on this, what appealed to us so much about Justin and why we hired him to be the next leader of our program and to represent Virginia Tech.

So first, a little bit about the search process and acknowledging a few people. Our search was not final or official until very late Saturday night, actually technically early Sunday morning. Coach Fuente and his representatives were very easy to work with. I believe the media and some of you were provided an executive summary of the term sheet, so you should have that there.

Justin and I went on each other's word of strong interest, or for lack of a better term, to exclusively date each other for the last week, give or take a couple days. I don't really want to get into the specifics of that, but we did it the right way, I believe. We certainly talked with the Memphis athletic director and Tom Bowen, who's a friend of mine and a class guy and handled it very well, and we certainly were able to meet and talk and do some things.

But we got to a certain point during the week, understandably, where it was, hey, we're not going to talk until after the game. Justin wanted to give his all for Memphis. We wanted to give our all for the Hokies, and we did it on a word, and we were able to complete all of that, again, very late Saturday night, technically early Sunday morning.

The leaks were somewhat disappointing. I guess in this day and age that can happen. The world of social media, I believe there may have been some motive in that, but that's not important today.

I believe media could also have pieced together and agents and other things because when things go quiet in a coach search, even for a couple days, where no one is getting a return call back from Coach Fuente and we're not reaching out to other candidates, perhaps they pieced it together in that manner, and I believe the rush to be first and not always accurate is a sign of the times. But for the most part they got everything right, and we got through that.

Justin was absolutely our top choice and the only one we offered the job to. I know that every AD will say that, but I sincerely want to assure you that it's true. And also to sit up here in front of you today and say, my saddle is hitched to him and vice versa, as well as our 22 other coaches, but he and I are in it together, and I'm proud to tell you he was the top choice and the one we wanted, and I'm thrilled that he said yes.

During the search process -- I especially want to thank Dr. Sands. He was tremendous. He's a wonderful leader. He certainly wants to know what's going on, but he lets his people lead, and he handled it just perfectly.

And then Debbie Petrine, director of our board, as well as our board of visitors, again, very supportive. They certainly know how important it is, but they let people do their jobs, and I hope we've earned their respect and made them proud today. But working for people like that is just A+.

Also Coach Beamer and Cheryl who are here today, that means a ton. Thank you all for being here. We're first class the entire way. The way coach announced his retirement, he did that and he talked to me and he said, Whit, I also hope this will give you a little extra time to do what you need to do, and there's not many coaches in the country that would even think of that, and I'm grateful to you, Coach, and you've made me a better AD. Thank you for that.

(Applause.)

I'd also like to thank Desiree Reed-Francois. Desiree has worked with us. Sometimes it was a committee of two, other than with Dr. Sands, Desiree and I. I trust her implicitly. She gave me great sounding board. She was confidential the whole way, and she gets after it and grinds it on any information we needed, and she allowed me to focus on what I needed to, and she planned a lot of this with help from her team, but A+, Desiree, and thank you.

Also John Ballein, and I'm not sure where John is today, but John, for those of you that know John, was Coach Beamer's right-hand man and still is as we get through the bowl game, and John is one of the most humble people I know, and Coach Beamer is, as well, and all those accolades over 29 years, John deserves -- certainly the coaches and the players, but what John did for this football program in those 29 years was A+, and now he's going to join us on the administrative side, and I'd really like to thank John for how he handled it, as well.

In addition to that, I certainly talked and vetted Justin to some trusted advisors in the industry, people that have coached with him, for him, against him, ADs that have worked with him. I believe there's some merit. While I miss Virginia, all that moving around I did, it's a relationship business, and I trusted -- when you have people you can trust to find out about coaches, it certainly helps.

There are many others on campus and too many others to acknowledge that got bits and pieces of information that helped us in the process. Our University administration, our athletic department, even Kevin Jones from a former player perspective, and we also had a group of our underclassmen football players that I met with, and they described the type of coach they would want and the character and other things, and I'm proud to say I believe that we certainly delivered to them, as well.

Again, Tom Bowen at Memphis was A+, first class all the way. I'd like to thank my wife Kelly and our three boys for putting up with me and what all this has done to me, so thank you. I love you. I don't get to say that much, and we did not let our kids skip school today to be here.

One more note before I move on, and I know I talked too long, but we also talked about doing a little bit of a press release after the season, and I don't want to take away from Justin, but you give an AD the mic and sometimes we talk too long.

But one other person that truly helped on the search, and I think he's at school today, he's a freshman at Blacksburg High School, Craig Weaver, son of the late Jim Weaver, came up to me and he talked about how his dad, while he always had Coach Beamer, he said always taught him you should have names and things, and we talked about it, and I said, Craig, why don't you go and do some homework on some candidates and get back to me, and I'd really like to hear what you have to say, and he said he would do it.

I thought he might send a few names. Craig did bios on people. He brought me a confidential folder. It was extensive, and Craig, Justin Fuente's name was in that group, and I know Jim would be very proud of you today, and Tracy is, too, so Craig Weaver, A+, and thank you for that.

Second, a few points to note moving forward, just to give you some information and maybe head off a couple questions, as well. For the next month or so or however long it takes to get through this bowl game, we will have one football staff intact and one that we are building. I have no doubt that if we put our student-athletes first and with the class and dignity of Coach Beamer and Justin, we'll work that out just fine.

Our current coaching staff will stay in their offices, coach the bowl game. They've got us here and they deserve that. We're going to put Justin and his staff as they develop in the press box temporarily. It's wired, phones, other things, and they will hit the ground recruiting, but the utmost respect will go to this staff and let them finish up the right way.

As for Coach Fuente, he plans to hit the ground running after media today. He will immediately go into recruiting and meeting with our recruiting folks, getting summaries on all of our players.

He also has two of his assistants with him today in James Shibest and Holman Wiggins, and you'll meet them along the way, and we're getting them all set through HR, background checks, NCAA clearance, so they can get up and running, as well.

It's great to be in this bowl game. Obviously for the team, for the seniors, for Coach Beamer, for 20 practices with the young group, but I'll tell you what you need, looking at this coach search and the way Justin is transitioning in, when you can have a head coach that can simply be a fly -- this head coach following Coach Beamer and to be a fly on the wall and watch practices and evaluate players all within NCAA rules that is a heck of an asset when you can do that, so the bowl game is great on a lot of levels, and I just wanted to point that out.

As far as Coach Fuente's other assistants and staff members, sometimes that's the tough part of the business. We don't have those to announce. He will announce those when he's ready. Right now we have Coach Fuente, Bud Foster, Coach Shibest and Coach Wiggins, and the others, when we can announce officially, we will do that.

Some of you have asked a little bit about Coach Beamer's role after he coaches the bowl game. It will probably be a while before we discuss it, and quite frankly, it's whatever role he wants it to be, and we will talk on that, but we will cross that bridge and we'll figure that out, but I know when on call for Virginia Tech he'll be here and answer the bell. But we won't get into that today, and again, that is very much up to him.

So moving forward, also, too, what can you do, and those of you what are in the audience and watching online today, we can be strong together. I know that, and that's a tag line that we use and Virginia Tech is unbeatable when we're all pulling together. When you think of the last few weeks, once Coach Beamer announced his retirement and some of the media chirping and other things, boy, when the Hokie Nation came together united behind him, it was magical, and that's what makes this place special.

When you think of many of the great moments of this campus when we've been on our best, it's when we came together all behind it, and I'm confident that our group will come behind Coach Fuente, and that doesn't mean you're going to agree with every decision I make or every 3rd down call he makes, but we don't want to be one of those schools that beats each other, and we're not, and let's don't have it that way, and that's what you can do, and we can be strong together.

While I've also got the mic, what you can do is join the Hokie Club. We need that. All right?

(Applause.)

We need that. That's our booster organization, Coach, and the Hokie Club members, guys, we will not use that money for salaries. I see that as up to us as a department to take care of that. We need your help for scholarships and facilities, and if we're all in it together, I hope you'll do your part and join the Hokie Club.

You can also join us in a bowl game. Our fans travel great. We have season ticket deposits that are ready online right after this press conference. You can be at the spring game. You can spread the good news, and there's plenty of room on this bus and bandwagon, and we have arms wide enough to welcome all.

You can also come to the men's basketball game tomorrow night, support the Hokies in that way, and Coach Fuente and his family will be at that, as well, but we hope you'll come to watch the Hokies and continue this great momentum.

All right, third and finally on my part, what appealed to us about Justin, and there's a lot here. Three primary aspects: He's a proven coach and a proven winner; I love his leadership, secondly; and the values and the fit for Virginia Tech.

He's a proven coach and a proven winner, I'll start with that.

I met Justin, I remember it very vividly, at the American Athletic Conference meetings when Memphis first came into the league. I was at Cincinnati. I went up to meet him. We talked. I certainly had no idea we'd ever be in this setting, but I was impressed with him, and my introduction to Justin Fuente was through a good friend of mine that coaches at Missouri that will be a head coach in his own right in no time. His name is Barry Odom. Barry called me and said, hey, Whit, I just got the defensive coordinator job at Memphis working for Coach Fuente, and I thought, man, that's great, tell me about Coach, and he did.

And when I hung up the phone, I was like, man, Barry, you have taken a really difficult job down there, and I thought I hope they can make it, and they dang sure did, and what those two guys did under Justin's leadership was impressive.

I was also in the room when we were looking in the American Athletic Conference to add Memphis, and I looked at the stats and some of the -- great school and they will be even greater, but it was not exactly highly successful and a large number of wins there, and so I knew the data. I knew the analytics. I knew how hard of a job Memphis was, and the fact that Coach has succeeded in taking it there means a lot.

And very rarely in coaching hires do you get this: A four-year window snapshot where you can directly attribute it to that coach and that staff, meaning a lot of places you come to, they're inheriting players and quarterbacks. They're doing this, all of that, and I know Justin would defer the credit, but to take Memphis, and you guys know the stats, they won, I believe, five games total in the three years before they got there. They started with 51 scholarship players in the first team meeting and you can have 85. They won the first conference title at Memphis in 40-plus years while stepping up from Conference USA, first 10-win season since 1938, and in 2014 Coach Fuente was Coach of the Year. Most wins in a two-year period. They had a first-time-ever national ranking at the end of the year by the AP and USA Today in 2014, and then this year as high as 12th or 13th this year and on to beating Ole Miss.

Coach Fuente got this job in large part for much more than beating Ole Miss, but I remember what I thought of when I saw the Memphis stats and the data, and to watch what they've built in four years, and to do that, that's when I started to think of Justin as the right guy.

He has a great pedigree. The TCU aspect, I think the American Athletic Conference is a heck of a training ground. We talk about the Power Five. I'm biased, but I think there's a Power Six, and what those guys can do there, I've already seen his track record at Cincinnati. Mark Dantonio, Brian Kelly and Butch Jones, what they did in the American, and if you can coach, you can coach, and then you go up and you elevate it, and I have no doubt Coach Fuente will do the same thing.

He's great on offense. He develops quarterbacks. He's great in player development. Recruiting is one thing, but player development is a wonderful trait to have in a coach where they're better as a freshman to sophomore to junior to senior. Player evaluation is key. He's outstanding at that. With only 85 scholarships, you can't miss on kids, and player evaluation he's excellent at, too.

Coaches with passion, coaches with energy, extremely focused. He coaches his players hard, but he loves them as family.

Heck, with all those attributes I just mentioned, we should never lose a game, and I'm planning on going undefeated. (Laughter.)

Sorry, I know it's too long. Just a little bit more. Thanks for bearing with me. Leadership, I believe you can define leadership as character and competence, and this man has both. He's a former quarterback, he's a leader, he's a product of the student-athlete experience. He has vision. He believes in and builds strong culture, a sense of family, work ethic, and he surrounds himself with good people.

He has a self-awareness that was very appealing to me and to us at Virginia Tech and wisdom well beyond his 39 years. He's a lifelong learner.

I learned this from Coach, too, when we were interviewing and talking with delegating and other things and what he had learned, and he said, Whit, the hardest thing for me was to give up the play calling duties. That's what I'm good at; that's what I did; and I delegated that this year. And leadership is delegation. I said, well, why did you do that? You're so good at it. He said, well, as the head coach, I need to think at the 50,000-foot level, and I need an offensive coordinator that's driving home every night thinking about 3rd and 3, and I thought the maturity and other things, to delegate that, to give away a part of yourself was a great sign, too.

On the sideline he's in control. He doesn't panic. He has a great demeanor. He understands the game, makes good decisions and performs under pressure.

We talked about his mentors in the interview process and he mentioned a number of them, but one that I'll mention because I know Coach Beamer has coached close to him, as well, and that's Mack Brown, and he didn't necessarily call Coach Brown when they were struggling, he called Coach Brown after they beat Ole Miss and said, how do we handle success. But the fact that he's humble enough to ask for advice, to have mentors, to have former head coaches on his staff, I think that's A+, as well.

Justin also expressed a lot of sincere respect for Coach Beamer, the tradition, et cetera, and I loved the fact that he chose to keep Bud, and Bud to stay for continuity will keep the best of what Virginia Tech is and implement strategic change and grow it onward and upward.

Finally, about Coach Fuente, the attributes that appealed to us, and maybe these are the most important: Values and fit for Virginia Tech. This is a unique and very special opportunity to coach football, and neither one of us takes that for granted. Obviously I don't coach, but the magnitude of it, to have a coach, there's no better place in the country to coach football in my opinion nor Coach Fuente's. He can build a program here. He can build it the right way. He's proven he can do that and he'll do it with integrity.

Compliance in academics, right, you have to do it all. He supports that. He believes in it. I saw it firsthand yesterday at his meeting with our current players, our underclassmen, and he had a very short message to them. It was great, but he touched on two things -- three things: Finish the semester right academically and be ready for that; two, go out and win a bowl game and finish this thing off right; and when y'all get back here after that, we're getting right back to work. And that was his message.

I believe his Oklahoma values equal Blacksburg values. Football, family and community are important to him. He even talked about wearing cowboy boots and asked me questions about the best places to fish in the New River. Those values fit here.

Again, Justin respects Coach Beamer tremendously, and they even met last night at Coach Beamer's office. Justin respects tradition. He's not afraid to be great. This is the job that he wanted. He was not shopping himself around. He could have had a number of opportunities, but this was the job he wanted. He's comfortable in his own skin. I believe his humility and calm confidence and lack of ego and lack of the limelight will make Coach Beamer proud, and those were Coach Beamer's great strengths.

Ultimately a coach is a teacher and an educator, and this I promise is my last part of my remarks, which have taken too long already. This is an interesting part of the story and I wanted to share this with you.

When we were visiting with Coach, and I had said, hey, we really want you to be our coach; I'd be honored if you'd do it. He had a big smile on his face, and he said, "I'll all in," but he turned to his Jenny, who's right here doing a great job with their three girls, and he turned to her, and he said, "How do you feel," and she was all in, but she said some comment in a very loving and endearing way, and it lessened the tension in the room, and she just said, "Let's win some games, Baby," and I liked that. It reminded me of the movie, for those of you that are old enough to remember, Talia Shire, when she goes to Rocky, and she goes, "Just win," and that's what I saw. I was fired up. I was ready to run out of the tunnel and chest-bump him, and we got our guy.

Please welcome the next head coach of your Hokies, Coach Justin Fuente.

(Applause.)

JUSTIN FUENTE: Thank you. I do want to make sure I thank some people before I begin my remarks. I want to thank President Sands and our athletic director Whit Babcock for their fantastic leadership, courage, and quite honestly their faith in me to come do this job. I will not let you down, and I sincerely appreciate it.

I also want to thank our chair of board of visitors. I got a chance to meet Debbie last night, Debbie Petrine. First introduction was she's on the board of visitors or the chair of the board of visitors but sits in the stands with everybody else and cheers the Hokies on. She's absolutely welcomed us with open arms, and I'm sincerely appreciative of that.

I want to introduce this noisy group down here in the front, my beautiful wife Jenny, our three girls, Cecilia, Caroline and Charlotte. Charlotte is the one that you're probably hearing most. She's two, and in all actuality has done a fantastic job so far. (Laughter.)

I want to thank Coach Beamer. I want to thank Coach Beamer for sharing his time with me yesterday. You know, I went in to go meet with him. I met him one time before for just a few moments, very briefly, and I went in to meet with him yesterday. You know, I walk into his office, and he's very welcoming and humble, and he's got on the side all these Coach of the Year awards, not Conference Coach of the Year awards but National Coach of the Year awards, the Bear Bryant Coach of the Year Award.

And then also coupled with all this outpouring of support as he's going through his last season and announced his retirement, he's got all sorts of trinkets that fans and everything, people have sent him, and I felt like in some aspect, he was trying to make me feel more comfortable. It was a little bit intimidating to walk into his office and visit with him, and I feel like he was almost trying to hide those national awards from me, kind of in order to make me feel more comfortable with him.

We got to visiting, and Murray State came up, and we know coach used to coach there, and I graduated from Murray State. He said, Justin, let me show you something, and he hopped up and he kind of fumbled through all these awards that as a coach you could only hope to one day be recognized for your work, and he fumbles through and he pulls out this plaque, and it's his Murray State Hall of Fame plaque. He says, Justin, I'm sure you've probably got one of these. I didn't have the heart to tell him that no, I didn't have one of those, either. (Laughter.)

But I just felt so great sitting in there and getting a chance to visit with him, and obviously we all know you don't replace a legend in coaching. You hope to build on what he's already done. You hope to continue to operate in the same manner with the same principles and the same integrity that he's done for so very many years here.

I also want to thank Coach Foster for agreeing to stay here and trusting me and the staff that we're going to put around him. Coach Foster obviously has been a fantastic football coach for a long time. One of the beautiful draws about this opportunity was I believed that hopefully it potentially came with the best defensive coordinator in all of America, and I'm awfully happy that he's agreed to stay on with us and help us continue what Coach Beamer started.

I've admired this program from afar for many years, on television, the way the players have played, the way the fans have cheered, their traditions, the wins, the losses, the facilities, the support, the league changes, and I've always wanted to be a part of something like that.

The thing about this job is it comes with all of those things wrapped up in a community that I cannot wait to raise my three girls in, and that was a huge contributing factor to me. I don't say that disparagingly about anyplace that I've ever lived. I'm just very thankful for the opportunities I've had beforehand and thankful for this opportunity.

This is absolutely the job that I was interested in. Whit is correct, I had really no interest in anything else, just this, because of what it has been and what it can be and the community that comes along with it.

Most people will talk about offense, defense and special teams. I'll be happy to talk about that as much as anybody wants. We have some philosophies I think everybody knows what we're going to look like defensively with Coach Foster here. Offensively we will try and implement the same schemes and philosophies that we had at TCU that we brought to Memphis that have been proven over time.

I'm very proud of our special teams record. I know special teams has been a huge point of pride in this program, and I'm awfully proud of what we've done at the University of Memphis on special teams, and that's part of the reason James Shibest is standing in this room right now. He's been our special teams coordinator and he's been a special teams coordinator in the Southeastern Conference for many years. I think you all will be excited to see him go to work. He has done a fantastic job, and our kids love covering kicks for him.

Also have Holman Wiggins here, fantastic young coach with a great family that's anxious to join this charge.

I really believe there are three base phases to this, to trying to build a program. We have some underlying themes that I'll be happy to get into at a later date if you'd like. But we have got to do a great job mentoring young men. This is about the next 40 years of their life, not the next four. It's our job to make sure we give them the skills to succeed in a real world out there, a real competitive world. At some time they're going to be standing in line with other people that have got degrees in their hands, as well, and I hope the things that they learn in our program set them apart from those other people.

We've got to do a great job developing them on the field and off the field, keeping tabs on them, making sure they're in progress, making sure everything is going well, being involved in their lives, both from a physical standpoint, lifting weights and eating correctly, and from a mental and social and spiritual standpoint.

And then we've got to recruit. We've got to bring good young people to this community. That all starts in the state of Virginia. We have to do a great job in this state in order to continue this program along, and we will.

Recruiting is usually talked about in two phases, and one of the phases is the only one that gets talked about. Everybody talks about recruiting or relationships and sales and convincing people to come, but the other part of recruiting is evaluation. We will do our own evaluation here. We will not read other people's evaluations in determining who to recruit. We will do a great job finding the right kids to come into this program and help push this thing forward, and we will also do a fantastic job developing those relationships so that we can identify and recruit the right kids.

I'm incredibly humbled by this opportunity. I cannot wait to get started. I have a deep respect for Virginia Tech and for this community.

Thank you, Whit. Thank you, President Sands, for letting me be the next head football coach here. I can't wait to get started. Thank you.

Q. Curious, you touched on the idea this being the job you wanted. Obviously with all the shuffling in college football, lots of places are coming open. When in the process did you kind of identify, okay, it's just me and Whit, it's just me and Virginia Tech?
JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, I don't know if there's one day. I just know that -- without getting into all the specifics, when opportunities come about, they contact our representatives and our representatives contact me, and I usually -- for everything else, I just nipped it in the bud and wanted to make sure I did right by the University of Memphis.

I had a really good job, and I was really happy there. I loved where I lived. I loved our kids. Our kids worked incredibly hard. They were fully invested in the program. So I didn't feel the need to do anything.

I wasn't desperate to move, but when this opportunity came along, I felt like it was a really good fit and was extremely interested in it.

Q. Being a Midwest guy and from Oklahoma, I know all your ties are pretty much Midwest, and Virginia Tech being such an East Coast based school, recruiting, everything, what do you maybe plan to do to kind of adapt or what do you see as some of the transitions that will maybe allow you to adapt or help adapt to everything being East Coast based?
JUSTIN FUENTE: Sure. Well, we had the same issue when I came to Memphis from TCU. Same question, actually. And the answer is, we'll hire great people. People always went out, and it doesn't matter what part of the country you're in, you hire good people to do a good job, and other people recognize that.

I want us to have a very tangible program in this state. I want us to reach out through camps, clinics, which I know Coach Beamer has done for many years. We want to continue to do that, to continue to develop those relationships, and we'll hire good people and put them in good spots, and they'll do a fantastic job.

Q. You said at Memphis your definition of success changed over the four years that you were there. I'm wondering since this is a little bit different than what you went through there how you might -- if you know, how you might try to define success in your first year or two here.
JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, you know, it's obvious why we said that when we started at Memphis. We had to find reasons -- we couldn't measure it just with wins and losses when we started.

I still believe that, even when we had success, there were games that we won that I was not happy with our team. I didn't think we did things the right way. There were games that we lost that I was extremely happy with them.

So I think you have to be careful. And what I'm talking about is I understand fans want wins, and I understand that part of it. But internally, I think you have to be careful in how you measure whether they're doing what you're asking them to do. You have to do things a certain way in order to give yourself a chance for success. It doesn't always guarantee that you'll have that.

In terms of how I would measure it this year, I don't know if I've been here long enough to even think about that. I mean, I've got -- I know very little about our team. We don't even have our staff put together and all that sort of stuff, so it would be a little premature for me to throw out expectations and all that stuff right now.

Q. I think everybody has seen the stats that your teams have put up over the years. How would you define your offensive philosophy, and is that something that translates anywhere that you coach?
JUSTIN FUENTE: Yeah, I think I'm one of the unique offensive coaches in that I have a deep respect for the other side of the ball. And when I say that, there are a lot of offensive coaches out there that want to lead the country in total offense no matter what, and that's not what I believe in. I believe in trying to find a way to win the game.

I think coaching for Coach Patterson at TCU for five years, who's obviously a defensive-minded coach, helped me develop that feeling.

That being said, we want to change the tempo. That doesn't mean we want to go at such a speed that we hang the defensive side of the ball out to dry, so to speak, by making them play the whole game, but we do want to control the tempo. We have been a run-the-ball-first team. We have made big plays through play-action pass and moving the pocket and getting the ball on the perimeter, and that's what we'll continue to try to do.

I believe that's the best way to have success as a team. You can run the football. You're better on defense. You're better on offense. You're better on special teams. And then you can make some big plays through the play-action pass and getting the ball to the edge.

We'll continue to change the tempo and start with running the football.

Q. That forcing the tempo and you mentioned the system you brought from TCU to Memphis, what are the roots of that? Where did you learn offensive football? Does it go back to your playing days in high school, at Murray? Just curious as to the roots of it.
JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, when I took over at -- when I got the job at TCU, I was a running back coach, and I had been a 1-AA offensive coordinator at Illinois State at a pretty young age, and we had a couple good coaches on our staff, Coach Wiggins was one of them, that we kind of got together and we were a little more traditional I-pro team and we had some good players and had some success.

I moved to TCU as a running back coach and really was enamored with the way that they ran the ball at TCU at the time. They got the ball to the perimeter; they ran some option stuff; they did some things formationally. I think that had a big influence on me, and then eventually I became the coordinator there.

I've really, in short, taken bits and pieces of what we've done in the past and tried to build it together. I think the true mark of it is molding it towards your personnel. That's the most difficult job and the most important job in terms of offense or defensive football is what can our guys do well, what can we get them to do well, what are their skill sets, and trying to mold it to fit.

It does you no good to say that you've got this certain offense but yet you don't have the guys with that skill set. You've got to mold it to what they've got, and that's a lot easier said than done, quite honestly. That's a big challenge.

So we've taken bits and pieces over the years, different influences, talks with other people, and then tried to mold it to what we had.

Q. You said you had a good job, so I'm curious, what was the mood and the meetings like as you told the people at Memphis, your players, that you were leaving, and it seems like they have nothing but appreciation for what you did. What was the tenor of those meetings?
JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, the meeting with our players, boy, it was difficult. I'm glad that I got to do it. I'm glad that I got to tell them face to face. I know there was a lot of -- there were a lot of reports, but I got to tell them the facts. It was maybe the hardest conversation I've ever had in coaching. I could hardly get started, if that tells you anything. I walked in the room and they went dead silent, and it was hard.

But I'm awfully proud of those kids. I'm appreciative of the way they worked. They truly bought into something that wasn't there at the time. They bought into a theory or a belief that we had no tangible proof that we could do it, and they bought into it and they went out and did it.

It was a difficult conversation. I'm glad we had it. I'm glad it was a face-to-face conversation. I've always tried to be as honest as humanly possible with our kids. When I'm happy with them, they absolutely know it, and when I'm not happy with them, they absolutely know it. But that didn't make it easy. It made it very difficult.

Q. Coach, you mentioned a lot of potential opportunities for you professionally before you took this job. What was it specifically, though, about this place that was so attractive to you? Was it the culture, the leadership? What was it that made you say, okay, this is a place that I only want to consider?
JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, I think the first thing is Whit and his leadership. Just in the same ways that he checked around on me, I called around on him. It was a fantastic review of a guy that you truly want to work for.

Obviously the tradition, this is big-time college football, and we all want our shot at coaching at the highest level. I feel like this is obviously a program that's had tremendous success. You do have to follow a legendary coach, however, but I really believed in everything that I had heard about the way this place went about its business, and I wanted to be a part of it.

Q. Justin, you already mentioned Coach Patterson and you talked about some of the origins of your offensive philosophies. I was wondering what else you might have learned that you've taken from Coach Patterson and maybe some of your other biggest coaching influences or influences off the field that have affected your career and your track?
JUSTIN FUENTE: Sure. We have taken everything in terms of the way we practice, the way our schedule is arranged, the way our off-season is run from TCU. When I got there, I was completely enamored with the way it ran and took basically very detailed notes on it and knew if I ever got a chance to run a program, I wanted to do it that way in terms of how we practiced, how we ran our off-season, our player development. So that's been a huge influence in the football aspect of our program.

Coach Patterson has had a huge influence on me. I still consider him a fantastic resource and use him on a consistent basis. I try not to bother him during the season because I know he's a very focused coach.

But I do enjoy spending time with him in the off-season and bouncing things off of him.

I've had some interesting influences in my life. In high school I played for a fantastic high school football coach named Bill Blankenship that was very laid-back and cerebral and just a blast to play for. He actually went on to be the head coach at the University of Tulsa for a few years.

In college my position coach at Oklahoma was a guy named Dick Winder which was the exact opposite. He was old, rough, tough, West Texas, in your tail all the time, and I would have stepped in front of a train for either one of them.

I thought it was a great example of the different ways to get the most out of your players. I'm probably somewhere in the middle of those two.

But they've been a huge influence on my personality professionally and how I've tried to do things.

Q. Whit mentioned the fly-on-the-wall aspect of having 20 practices to watch. Will you have to watch them from afar, or will you be out there with them, and how much benefit is there for you to be able to see how kind of guys operate for those 20 practices?
JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, I don't know that -- first of all, I don't know that I'll be at every one of them just because of recruiting and that sort of stuff. I don't even know the schedule. We don't know when they're playing and all that sort of stuff. Absolutely I will stay out of the way. Absolutely. I wouldn't even dream of getting in the way.

I think it's an awesome benefit to get to be around and see and watch the kids interact and get a chance to not be -- quite honestly not be in charge of it but just be able to sit back and observe and watch. So I think it's a huge advantage, I really do. I'm excited about it.

Q. Much of your success in the last two years can be attributed to Paxton Lynch, 6'7" quarterback who's got 28 touchdowns, had seven in the first half this past Saturday. Is he the type of prototypical quarterback that you'd like, and do you believe that that type of quarterback is already on Virginia Tech's roster?
JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, I would like guys that can move around. I don't know that you're going to find very many 6'7", 245-pound guys that can run and throw like Paxton. I mean, he's a special player. But I do -- I would like -- I always think of when we talk about it in the staff room as I don't want guys that were like me at quarterback. I want somebody that can move.

You know, and I don't know. I have a recruiting meeting and a meeting about the current roster after this, and I'll look at all that stuff. To say we do or don't, I have no clue. But I'm looking forward to working with all those guys that we've got and trying to piece it together.

Q. When do you hope to have your staff in place, your deadline for getting your coaches together, and besides Coach Foster, do you hope to retain any other coaches that are currently on staff?
JUSTIN FUENTE: Yeah, sure. I don't have a date. Essentially we've got two weeks of recruiting, and then it goes dead for almost a month. Both teams, it's kind of a unique situation, both teams are playing in bowl games. I want to be sure I pay due respect to the University of Memphis by making sure that they have enough guys there to win their bowl game because I want them to go win. But I also know that I need to move forward in this aspect, too.

There will be some guys that will stay there the entire time until they're done and then we'll bring them aboard. I think you'll see it just pieced together, then there will probably be a little bit of a lull as recruiting is over -- or not over but in the dead period and teams are really focused on bowl preparations, and then after that stuff is over, then I think you'll see it pick up a little bit more.

We'll talk to some people, both on this current staff and not on this current staff, to try and put the best staff together to give us a chance to win.

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