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ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 15, 2017

Justin Fuente

Greensboro, North Carolina

COACH FUENTE: Looking forward to playing back home at Lane Stadium. It's Senior Day. We have a really special group of men. We have a challenge in front of us. Pitt is very well-coached and a tough, disciplined football team coming in here. Pose challenges for us in all three phases of the game.

Q. To speak on early success for you, we've spoken before on team buy-in and whatnot, but what have you been able to take away in these first couple seasons on how the team transitioned into you and found success.
COACH FUENTE: Well, I think -- let me backtrack here.

I guess the first thing I would say was we had a group of guys that was really welcoming. You know, I don't want to say that they were looking forward to change.

I just think that the whole transition was handled so smoothly concerning everybody else, that the players just sort of fell in line with that. Meaning administratively from Coach Beamer on down, the players fell in line with that and were ready to do whatever we asked them to do. I think they deserve a tremendous amount of credit for that and how they have worked on things that have changed.

I don't know -- I know this. I don't know if that's correlated into success, but I know that we would not have had any chance to have success if they had not done those things that way, and we're all pretty appreciative of that.

Q. To be where you are right now, Bowl eligible again and pushing forward, just what can you say you've taken away from some of the guys, the carry over, the Cam Phillips' of the world and whatnot, have you seen leadership out of some of those guys and if so, who are they?
COACH FUENTE: Yeah, absolutely. You know, the first guy that comes to mind in our senior class is Andrew Motuapuaka. He's just done a fantastic job. Really kind of the very definition of a Virginia Tech football player. Works incredibly hard. Shows up every single day and gives his all.

The other guy would be Eric Gallo on the offensive line. He's our center and he works incredibly hard and has done a great job being more vocal this year and presenting leadership.

And we have got many other guys. We have got some unsung heroes, Anthony Shegog and Deon Newsome are two seniors that play primarily on special teams, play a little bit on defense, that have just done a fantastic job of leading and helping us bring some young players along.

Q. Curious about your defensive coordinator, Bud Foster, one of the best at X's and O's in the nation. What does he bring to the team and why did you keep him on the staff when you got to Blacksburg last year?
COACH FUENTE: Well, the first thing is, he's obviously a fantastic coach and communicator. He is a team-first guy. He's not into doing anything other than what's best for Virginia Tech and we hit it off pretty well on that accord. Not only does he understand the scheme that we run, but he can make adjustments in realtime.

He has given us a great kind of scouting report through the transition of you know, kind of how things work here and what we can tweak and what we should stay away from, and just been a great resource through this transition.

Q. Did you ever go against his defense while you were at other places?
COACH FUENTE: No. Obviously seen him on TV and that sort of stuff, but never coached against him.

Q. Did you change defense much, or was it a mix of what he was doing and what you brought with you?
COACH FUENTE: No, I didn't change the defense at all. I changed our off-season, how we practiced, what our summer looked like, what our football program structure was.

But, you know, James Shibest runs the special teams, Brad Cornelsen runs the offense and Bud Foster runs the defense. That stuff has been tweaked and been moved to fit our personnel, but no, I didn't come in and change anything defensively.

Q. You've been through a little bit of adversity with a couple tough losses. How have you seen the guys respond in practice this week?
COACH FUENTE: They have been great. You know, and we've got a million excuses and all that sort of stuff. The bottom line is, we haven't done what was needed to win those two road games.

It was really nice to have a normal Sunday with the kids this past Sunday and they have been great. You know, we had a great workout on Sunday and another good one on Monday. They are certainly not happy but it's been really positive.

Q. And how are you going to try to make up the loss of Terrell Edmunds in the secondary for this stretch run?
COACH FUENTE: Well, those are big shoes to fill, first of all. Not only is he a fantastic defensive player but he's been tremendous in all our coverage units on special teams.

Special teams-wise, we'll have to have several young players step in and take on larger roles in terms of covering kicks. You know, on defense, we still are fortunate that we've still got a few veteran players there in the three safety's role that we have between Shegog and Newsome and Mook and Ladler. Ladler is a little bit younger player but Mook's played a lot and then Reggie and Devon Hunter.

So we've still got a two-deep back there and of our three safety positions. But obviously Terrell has left some big shoes to fill.

Q. You've been good on punt coverage this season. You're getting ready to face a guy in Todd Sanderson (ph) who has taken a couple punts back for touchdowns this season and three for his career, four kickoffs for touchdowns, too. Obviously pretty skilled. How concerning is this guy this weekend?
COACH FUENTE: Incredibly concerning. He is fantastic. They do a great job schematically on their punt return unit. We are without our best cover guy. Terrell Edmunds was unbelievable, unbelievably productive for us on punt coverage and kickoff coverage. We'll have to have some young people step up and do a great job there. So it's been a huge point of emphasis for us, and is a huge concern, because he is a fantastic football player.

Q. Is he a guy you try to punt away from, or do you really subscribe to that philosophy at all? I know Oscar has had really good hang time to be able to get your guys in position to make tackles like you said, but is that something you really try to do at times is kick away from guys?
COACH FUENTE: Well, we haven't -- you know, directional punting is a little bit more, I think based on comfort level of the punter. I mean, it's something we've talked about with Oscar. I don't know that you're going to walk out there and say it's obvious that we're trying to kick away from him. I just don't know that we're incredibly comfortable with telling Oscar which way to punt the ball just yet.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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