Virginia Tech football coach Justin Fuente talks with reporters on Monday. The Hokies (1-0) play #17 Tennessee (1-0) on Saturday in the Battle at Bristol.
Opening Statement: “Before we begin, I want to touch base on a couple things. I want to take this time to thank everyone that came out on Saturday. It was a beautiful day. It was a beautiful atmosphere. It was a lot of fun. Obviously, there was some good and some bad out there on our part. Some great teaching went on yesterday while watching the game film. Now, it’s time for us to turn our attention to a very talented Tennessee team. Obviously, it is in a unique venue. It is a great reward for both sets of fan bases in my opinion. You get a chance to celebrate college football and have a good time in a unique venue with a large crowd. We will have our hands full preparing for Tennessee in all three phases of the game. They are a very talented, well-coached football team. They have aspirations for the season. With that being said, I will be happy to answer any questions.”
On if there are things you can do to prepare the team to play in a venue like Bristol: “We will go to the stadium on Friday and get a feel for it. We will try and get acclimated the best we can and have a walk through and work out there. We don’t do that for all of our road games. Many of them are not like this. You don’t need to do that. We will let our coaches get a handle on the press box and that kind of stuff.”
On what he saw from junior QB Jerod Evans’ performance on Saturday: “A little bit of what I eluded too on Saturday. He made some nice plays out there. There was a third and long where they dropped to eight, and he tucked it for about 10 yards with a chance to kick a field goal. I thought that was a hefty play. He made some good throws in tight coverage. Both of those balls to Bucky (Hodges) and a couple balls to Isaiah (Ford). We left plenty of plays out there as well, in every position, not just Jerod (Evans). Evaluating Jerod’s game, he knows that. We missed a few things in there. Obviously, we have to take care of the football. That’s the first thing. That was not pleasing. There were some good and some bad in every single position on the offensive side. We did a few good things, but we were not consistent.”
On what he liked and didn’t like from Saturday’s game vs. Liberty: “We made a few plays in tight quarters. The way they played us, it forced us to push the ball down the field. I would like for us to be more efficient on those things. We probably could have done it more, but there came a point in time where you just try and get the game over with. We did some good things in there. We got the ball to the perimeter a couple of times. However, it wasn’t as nearly as sufficient as I would like it to be. A couple of times, we hit the ball inside. In general, I like the kids. I like the way they work, and I like the way they practice. We have to get them to play better and maximize the skill sets we do have. That’s the challenge.”
On how much improvement is expected from game one to game two: “You could improve a lot and not be able to tell when you take a step up. We are going to take a step. That’s just the facts of it. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Liberty and what they have done with their program, but the team we are going to play on Saturday is much more talented. The challenge for us is to continue to improve and for us to measure those things internally. We have another level that we can reach, and I don’t know whether it’s the first game or what. I think it’s still figuring out exactly who can do what. We played a bunch of guys and part of that is an evaluation game, too. In terms of how many guys can we and can’t we play? Some of that I would attribute to the first game, and some of that, I would attribute to guys playing for the first time period. Hopefully, we can make strides.”
On how Tennessee struggled on offense against Appalachian State: “Appalachian State did a great job defensively. They played a 50 defense, and they have some really good football players over there. I’m sure it wasn’t the performance that Tennessee wanted to have offensively. I’m sure they will get those things corrected and be ready to go on Saturday. It’s up to us to worry about ourselves and make sure that we are ready to play. They have some fine coaches and some fine athletes over there. I’m sure they will make the corrections that they need to make.”
On if he feels like his plan at running back is set with multiple guys getting carries: “I don’t know. When you think about it, we don’t have (redshirt sophomore RB) Marshawn (Williams). Marshawn had a good camp, so it’s not defined. We won’t have him for another week. He’s certainly in the mix to get in there, so we will go the first two games without him. You still have (redshirt sophomore RB) Shai (McKenzie) recovering from the knee injury. We have a good handle on where we are at right now and what we have. I don’t foresee just one guy carrying the ball 40 times a game. I don’t see that happening, so it will continue to be by committee as we move through.”
On what he can use from the Liberty game to prepare for Tennessee: “It’s fairly different. Some things do not carry over. The fact that they both line up in some one-back sets, both teams do offensively. The fact that they both play base out of four down defensively. That’s about the extent of the carry over there.”
On how sophomore CB Adonis Alexander react to rejoining the team: “I am not positive he is going to start. We haven’t had our staff meeting today. We just want to make sure that we got him on there, so that no one thought that he was going to be out. He’s done everything that we asked him to do. He had a good camp. He did well in summer school to earn another shot.”
On what he knows about defensive coordinator Bob Shoop at Tennessee: “I don’t know him personally. He’s very well respected throughout our profession. He’s done a good job everywhere he’s been. He’s schemes are sound. He has good players to go with those good schemes, so there’s a reason they only gave up13 points last week. They are pretty darn good.”
On how to control the awe of the players on Saturday night walking out in front of that crowd: “I don’t know if you can control the awe other than focus on the task at hand. To me, that’s the biggest thing. It’s the same for both teams. We have to focus on understanding that it’s just a different stage. It’s still a game. The stage shouldn’t determine the way we prepare or the way we perform. We should prepare in the same manner that we prepared last week. We should do the same things. We should act the same way because it’s still one football game. The stage shouldn’t determine our behavior. With that being said, obviously, it is going to be pretty cool. There is going to be a lot of people there. I am not really sure what it is going to look like exactly, but I’m confident that we have a group of guys that want to play well. They also will listen how to play well in order to give ourselves a chance.”
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Chris Graham
