Virginia Tech Hokies, HC Justin Fuente agree on 6-year extension
By Carly Regehr
Some college football news as Virginia Tech and HC Justin Fuente reach extension deal.
For the next few years, Justin Fuente will be calling Blacksburg, VA, his home. Just freshly announced, the deal encompasses a six-year stay in the ACC, as Virginia Tech and Fuente agreed on the extension, which won’t expire until the 2023 season. With Fuente as the new face of the Hokies, this also marks Virginia Tech’s second head coach in over 30 years.
During his first year on the Blacksburg campus, Fuente would help the Hokies climb back from a four-year drought. Up until Fuente’s arrival, the Hokies would experience a minor dry spell during the later years of Frank Beamer’s head coaching career at Tech. The last three years (2012-2015) of the infamous Beamer era, which predates to 1986, would prove to be the last miles in the tank. But, in 2016, a defeated and hopeless Tech football team answered to a new man.
Over a decade earlier in 2001, Fuente left the college game as a player at the University of Oklahoma and Murray State to begin his coaching career. Illinois State would be the first to reach out to then-25-year-old Fuente, who was named their quarterbacks coach. Three years later — and now 28 — Fuente claimed responsibilities as Illinois State’s OC. And then Division I football followed Fuente from there.
Starting in 2008, Fuente touched upon D-I programs, like TCU and Memphis, and then morphed them into contenders in their respective conferences. Fuente reversed the fortunes of both programs as TCU’s running backs coach and Memphis’ new head coach, filling in for Larry Potter, who recorded three wins in two seasons (2010-11).
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Now at Virginia Tech, a football community in which lost motivation following the 2011 (11-3), Fuente will have another opportunity. During his first year at Tech, Fuente not only reinstated a 10-win season, but did so with charisma, a quality that earned him ACC Coach of the Year. Furthermore, Tech also shattered 10 single-season records during his inaugural campaign as the Hokies head coach, proving that he can hang with the best of them in the ACC.