Three years ago, in 2016, would you have imagined a world in which the Wake Forest Demon Deacons were favored over the Virginia Tech Hokies in Blacksburg, in November, and the idea of a Virginia Tech win would rate as an uncertain prospect?
I’m betting not.
To be clear, this is not a commentary on Wake Forest. Dave Clawson has proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is one of the better coaches in the ACC. I personally think he should win ACC Coach of the Year. We can talk more about that later in the season.
The idea that Wake being favored in Blacksburg would have been unthinkable in 2016 is much more a commentary on Virginia Tech. The Hokies looked very good under Justin Fuente in his first season on the job. Virginia Tech seemed ready to pick up where it left off and remain the program to beat in the ACC Coastal.
It hasn’t worked out that way.
In a 2019 ACC season in which no non-Clemson team has emerged as a clear-cut No. 2 team in the conference, Virginia Tech’s reputation had begun to deteriorate. In a 2019 ACC Coastal race which has raised the possibility of a seventh different division champion in seven straight seasons, Virginia Tech’s stability under Frank Beamer had become a distant memory.
Heading into Saturday’s game against Wake Forest, Virginia Tech had fallen so far that a win over the Demon Deacons would not make everything right again. It wouldn’t offer complete restoration. It wouldn’t prove that 2020 would mark a triumphant return to the Hokies’ (in their minds) rightful place atop the Coastal. Justin Fuente had stumbled too often and too badly to earn that level of trust.
Yet, for all the things Virginia Tech couldn’t achieve with a win over Wake, the game was still hugely — profoundly — important for Fuente and the Hokies.
In the 2019 ACC, games against Wake Forest and Virginia — the two teams most visibly fighting for status as the second-best team in the conference — are the big proving grounds for the other 11 non-Clemson teams in the league. Louisville beat both the Deacs and the Hoos, which is why Scott Satterfield has ample reason to be confident about his future in the Bluegrass. Florida State’s failure to beat either Wake or UVA is a big reason why Willie Taggart got fired.
Virginia Tech obviously needed the Wake game for ACC Coastal purposes — enabling the Virginia game to become a possible division championship battle — but more than that, the Hokies and Fuente needed to beat an opponent which had occupied Virginia Tech’s place.
Wake Forest had become, through two months of play, the non-Clemson ACC team which won the games it was supposed to win. Wake had become the most responsible “do what you can” team among the non-Clemson set. The positive ways in which the Demon Deacons reshaped their identity made it paramount for Virginia Tech to take down Wake. Again, this isn’t a full restoration, but it was certainly a time to repair damage and begin a process of recovery.
Virginia Tech — with the help of Hendon Hooker — made huge progress in its repair project against Wake.
Everyone can see it: Virginia Tech’s offense has snapped back into place with Hooker at the controls. A Virginia Tech offense which was rudderless in the first half of the season has roared to life. Suddenly, Justin Fuente has quieted the noise within the system. The disaster of a blowout loss at home to Duke (a team which isn’t that good and might not make a bowl game this year) now feels strangely distant.
By all means, Fuente deserves credit for finding his way out of a deep, dark ditch. Taggart couldn’t find that escape route at Florida State. Other high-profile coaches this season have not been able to turn around disappointing seasons: Chris Petersen at Washington, Mark Dantonio at Michigan State, Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M, and many others. Fuente, by rescuing a season headed for a fireball of destruction, has taken himself off the hot seat. Virginia Tech didn’t need that kind of headache with Bud Foster about to ride into the sunset. Now, the Hokies can simply focus on internal improvements for 2020. That is one big thing the Wake win achieved.
However, while giving Fuente credit, let’s not allow this piece to end without noting that — much as Clay Helton at USC failed to name Sam Darnold his opening day quarterback in 2016, and much as Kirby Smart went with Jacob Eason over Jake Fromm at Georgia in 2017, before an injury changed UGA’s season and the 2017 college football landscape as a whole — so it also is that Fuente failed to identify Hendon Hooker as the solution to his problems.
Coaches — good coaches, proven coaches — still fail to select the right opening day quarterbacks for their programs. Fuente has rescued himself, and yet his rescue also contains components of why he fell into such a troubled spot in the first place.
This is a happy story for Virginia Tech, but it is not without its cautionary tales. We will see if this repair job turns into a fuller restoration of the Hokies. Justin Fuente is working toward that goal, but he isn’t there yet.
