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Pressure mounts on Justin Fuente as Virginia Tech blows late lead against Syracuse

Updated October 23, 2021 at 8:05 p.m. EDT|Published October 23, 2021 at 6:59 p.m. EDT
Virginia Tech Coach Justin Fuente continues to face fan backlash after a 41-36 loss to Syracuse. (Matt Gentry/The Roanoke Times/AP)
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Chants of “Fire Fuente” began echoing throughout Lane Stadium on Saturday afternoon not long after the Virginia Tech football team collapsed in the fourth quarter of a 41-36 loss to Syracuse that placed the future of Coach Justin Fuente further in doubt.

In losing their third in a row and for the fourth consecutive time against a Power Five opponent, the Hokies wasted a rare offensive uprising by squandering a nine-point lead with 5:36 left in the game. The decisive, deflating points came via a 45-yard touchdown pass from Syracuse quarterback Garrett Shrader to Damien Alford with 19 seconds to go.

The wide receiver got separation from cornerback Dorian Strong on the play, and Shrader delivered a strike on a go route despite absorbing a jarring blow to the midsection that left the Mississippi State transfer slow to get back to his feet. When he did, Shrader beat his chest and celebrated on the sideline.

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“That’s a tough way to lose a ballgame,” said Fuente, who added he has not paid attention to fan vitriol demanding his ouster. “I hurt for our players, just because of the effort, the exertion they put out there today to find a way to be up toward the end. They fought until the last play of the game trying to find a way to win it.”

The newest round of calls for Fuente’s dismissal comes amid the Hokies’ third three-game losing streak at Lane Stadium in the past four years. Fuente’s immediate predecessor, the legendary Frank Beamer, had only two such skids over 29 seasons in transforming the program into a national power.

It’s also Virginia Tech’s third loss in the last minute this year. The first came against West Virginia, 27-21, on Sept. 18 when Hokies quarterback Braxton Burmeister threw incomplete on fourth and goal from the 4 and the Mountaineers ran off the final 45 seconds at home.

Three weeks later, Notre Dame rallied to defeat the Hokies, 32-29, in Blacksburg, Va., on kicker Jonathan Doerer’s 48-yard field goal with 17 seconds to play. Virginia Tech had allowed the tying touchdown with 2:26 left in the fourth quarter.

“It’s a heartbreaker,” Hokies wide receiver Kaleb Smith said. “This week we talked about all the work we put in there in the offseason just to get to this point, just to take advantage of the opportunity we have. I think we have one more game left at Lane. This is a heartbreaker.”

Virginia Tech (3-4, 1-2 ACC) failed to protect a 36-27 lead after freshman Malachi Thomas’s 47-yard touchdown burst up the middle late in the fourth quarter. Thomas had 151 yards and three touchdowns on 21 carries as part of the Hokies’ season-high 260 rushing yards.

They amassed 437 yards of total offense after entering the game ranked last in the ACC (311.8).

Quarterback play, however, continues to plague the Hokies in what was forecast to be perhaps a career season for Burmeister under the tutelage of Fuente, who was hailed as an offensive wizard upon his hiring in November 2015.

The redshirt junior transfer from Oregon instead finished just 10-for-20 passing for 177 yards against Syracuse, which won its first ACC game this season. It’s the third consecutive game in which Burmeister has not reached 200 passing yards.

Burmeister has thrown for 1,241 yards and seven touchdowns on 98-for-183 passing (53.6 percent) with three interceptions this season.

Shrader, meanwhile, accounted for five touchdowns and 410 yards of total offense for the Orange (4-4, 1-3), including 174 rushing. Freshman tailback Sean Tucker added 112 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries, setting a Syracuse record with a sixth straight game of 100 rushing yards at a school that had Jim Brown, Ernie Davis, Floyd Little and Larry Csonka.

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Virginia Tech trailed for the first time at 20-19 when it permitted a 75-yard touchdown drive in the third quarter, with Shrader scoring from 21 yards for his second rushing touchdown of the game.

But Thomas’s second touchdown run, this one from two yards, put the Hokies back in front 26-20 with 6:52 remaining in the third quarter. Virginia Tech stuck mostly with its rushing attack on the series, which featured wide receiver Tre Turner gaining 26 yards on a jet sweep into the red zone.

The lead flipped back to Syracuse at 27-26 courtesy of Shrader’s three-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter. One snap earlier, Shrader had run for 21 yards on third and 13. The Orange faced that predicament because Tucker lost eight yards on second down.

The Hokies reclaimed a 29-27 lead with 10:54 to play behind kicker John Parker Romo’s 33-yard field goal. Romo’s second field goal came not long after Thomas ran for 45 yards to move Virginia Tech to the Syracuse 20.

“They have to believe they’re going to get paid off the effort their putting in,” Fuente said of another loss down the stretch. “They have to believe it’s a test to see how long they can hold the rope and how long they can continue to put that effort out there and believe they are doing it for the right reasons.”

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