Mike London Out At Virginia

Fuente says he had multiple chances to leave Memphis, but wasn’t interested until Virginia Tech offered him the chance to take over after Frank Beamer’s retirement as coach. London compiled a 27-46 record in his six seasons as the team’s head coach, leading the program to a bowl game only once (2011 Chick-fil-A Bowl).

Mike London Resigns As Virginia Head Coach – Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage announced London’s resignation Sunday morning, according to Graham Watson of Yahoo Sports.

Bitter goes on to report that Fuente’s base salary (500k) remains the same throughout the entire contract, and his supplemental pay gets up to $3.15 million by 2021. He can also receive more than $500,000 in bonuses, including $250,000 if he guides the team to the National Championship game.

One of the initial concerns of many Hokies fans when Beamer announced his retirement was losing defensive coordinator Bud Foster, who had established one of the premier defenses in all of college football. He quickly engineered a turnaround, guiding them to their first 10-win season since 1938 past year, and a No. 25 ranking in the final AP Top 25, a program first.

And now Fuente is tasked with taking Virginia Tech to new heights.

It came as a surprise to many that he was kept around this long in Charlottesville, but it is believed that his penchant of being an excellent recruiter was was a sole source of him being retained for as long as he was as head coach. When Virginia Tech reached out, however, his interest was piqued. I am looking forward to a bright future for our football program under the direction of Coach Fuente. “I just think that the fit is bigger than, “Well, it’s Georgia, ‘ or, ‘It’s the Southeastern Conference or [Pacific]-12″ or whatever it is”.

Fuente said he doesn’t expect to have his coaching staff finalized until after the bowl season. This year’s squad averages 42.7 points per game, good for seventh-best in the FBS.

Mike Sanford Jr., in his first year as the offensive coordinator at Notre Dame, has received increased attention in speculation about the Virginia job.

“I’ve been privileged to work for a legendary coach who always did it the right way”, Foster said in the statement.