‘Make it to breakfast’
Coach Fuente draws on SEAL mantra to push through season
Early in preseason practices, Virginia Tech coach Justin Fuente had a Navy SEAL come talk to his team. In self-admitted “fan boy” mode, Fuente had a chance to talk with the SEAL away from the players.
As the discussion veered toward what it was like to endure SEAL training, Fuente was struck by one message the highly trained operative conveyed. They’ve become words for Fuente to live by during the coronavirus pandemic.
“He said, ‘Justin, if you look at all the training you have to do to be a Navy SEAL, it just overwhelms you, but if you can just focus on making it to breakfast, and if you make it to breakfast, try to make it to lunch, and if you make it to lunch, try making it to dinner, and that’s all you worry about, then you’ve got a chance to be OK,’” Fuente said. “So, we’ve kind of taken the mantra — let’s try and just make it to breakfast.”
Fuente is keenly aware of the need for a live-in-the-moment approach after he was missing 21 players and an assistant because of the coronavirus, injuries and other issues in Virginia Tech’s 38-31 victory over Duke on Saturday. All but one player in his two-deep at all defensive back positions were out.
He’s carrying that attitude into Saturday’s game at No. 8 North Carolina (2-0 overall and ACC), especially as it pertains to evaluating his quarterback position this week.
Fuente said Monday he hasn’t decided if he’ll go with Hendon Hooker as No. 19 Tech’s starter at UNC. Braxton Burmeister started
in Tech’s wins against N.C. State and Duke. Hooker sat out the N.C. State game, and though he was in uniform for the Duke game, he didn’t play.
“It’s just things change so quickly with getting guys up to speed and out there playing,” said Fuente, who also had 23 players, two assistant coaches and two support-personnel members sit out the N.C. State game. “We’ll just have to kind of play it by ear.”
There’s no doubting who his top option in the backfield is at this point. Working behind an effective run-blocking offensive line, running back Khalil Herbert has established himself in the early stages of the season as not just the most surprising back in the ACC, but also the most productive back in the nation.
Herbert, a transfer from Kan
sas who has played two games for the Hokies, leads the Football Bowl Subdivision with 156 rushing yards per game after running for 208 against Duke. He also accounted for a Virginia Tech singlegame-record 358 all-purpose yards.
His six carries of 20-plus yards, which include four carries of 30-plus yards, are more than any other player in the nation in both categories. Last season, Virginia Tech had five rushes of 30-plus yards for the entire season.
Virginia Tech (2-0 overall and ACC) ran for 314 yards against N.C. State and 351 at Duke. That represents half of the number of 300-plus rushing-yardage games Tech has had in ACC play since it joined the conference in 2004.
“We probably made a relatively quick evaluation in terms of what we thought his talent level was,” Fuente said regarding how Tech’s coaches looked at Herbert when they were studying video of him during his playing days for Kansas. “We thought it was pretty obvious pretty quickly that he certainly was a guy, from a talent perspective, could come in and help. … Just a great addition both on and off the field here at Virginia Tech.”