The college football season is almost over, and Virginia Tech has already fired head coach Justin Fuente. The Hokies need a good replacement who can do the things Fuente was expected to do, but utterly failed to achieve. There should be some quality candidates available for the Hokies, with these four names figuring prominently:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dan Mullen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The fired Florida coach develops quarterbacks really well and knows how to scheme up a passing offense. That\u2019s what Fuente was supposed to bring to Virginia Tech, but after his first season in 2016 \u2013 the most successful season of his tenure in Blacksburg \u2013 the Hokies failed to thrive on offense. Mullen would be able to give Virginia Tech dependable quarterback play and restore the program in that all-important area. He isn\u2019t a great recruiter, but if he solves the quarterback problem and hires assistants who are good in recruiting, this would work out really well for the Hokies. It\u2019s definitely a choice they should have at or near the top of their list. Remember that Mullen turned Mississippi State into an SEC contender in 2014, and developed Dak Prescott into a top NFL prospect (now quarterback). Virginia Tech has to give him a long look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marcus Freeman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The defensive coordinator at Notre Dame will get a head coaching job soon. Virginia Tech could get an early start and give Freeman his big break. Freeman was the defensive coordinator at Cincinnati under Luke Fickell before moving to South Bend to coach under Brian Kelly. Freeman\u2019s work for two highly-regarded head coaches, Fickell and Kelly, gives him a lot of valuable experience. He is young, but his work over the past few years should recommend him for a head coaching job. Freeman\u2019s ability to teach defense makes him a very solid candidate. If he can hire a good offensive coordinator, he would probably be a quality fit for the Hokies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jim Leonhard<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Wisconsin defensive coordinator is one of the best assistants in the country. Wisconsin\u2019s defense has been lights-out this season, allowing fewer than 18 touchdowns in 11 games. Leonhard will want to be a head coach at some point in his career. Virginia Tech could do a lot worse than him when considering all the candidates available for this job. Leonhard is extremely consistent. His work under head coach Paul Chryst has enabled Wisconsin to become one of the most reliable and productive college football programs on an annual basis. Virginia Tech would crave that kind of dependability, since that is what it lacked under Justin Fuente.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alex Grinch<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Oklahoma defensive coordinator has significantly improved the Sooners on that side of the ball. Without defensive enhancements, Oklahoma would not be nearly as good this year as it has been. The Sooners would probably be 8-3 instead of 10-1 heading into their game against Oklahoma State. Grinch will probably be a head coach before too long. His work at Oklahoma under Lincoln Riley has also exposed him to the value of a high-octane modern offense. He would likely hire an offensive coordinator who would bring that kind of system to Blacksburg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The college football season is almost over, and Virginia Tech has already fired head coach Justin Fuente. The Hokies need…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaaf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20097,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20088\/revisions\/20097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}