ORLANDO, Fla. — Virginia Tech head coach Justin Fuente held a press conference Friday at Camping World stadium.  A transcript of the press conference follows:

Opening Statement

JUSTIN FUENTE: Sure. I can’t tell you what a tremendous honor it is to be recognized as the ACC Coach of the Year. I want to thank Commissioner Swofford; I want to thank Witt Badcock, our athletic director; Dr. Sands, our president of Virginia Tech for having the faith in me to take over, coming off of the legendary career of Coach Beamer. I really view, you know, this recognition as a team award. You know, they don’t give these awards to coaches that have bad teams and I can’t say enough about our coaching staff, our support personnel and our players that have bought into everything that we’ve been preaching since day one. It’s a true tip of the cap to them and their work ethic and their desire to continue the tradition of Virginia Tech football.

We’re excited to be here in the championship game. Our kids have done a great job throughout the years through the ups and downs of the season. We’ve got a tremendous challenge in front of us. Coach Sweeney and his team are very talented, very well coached, and our kids are excited for the challenge. That being said, I’ll be happy to answer any questions.

Q. For those of us that don’t cover Virginia Tech on a regular basis, you hear a lot about Bucky Hodges and Isaiah Ford. But Cam Phillips is actually second on the team in reception and reception yards. How much has he meant to your offense this season?

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, Cam’s done a great job for us. He’s played in the slot. He’s a pretty versatile player. He has a few carries from time to time. But the great thing about all three of those kids you mentioned, all three highly intelligent, so we can move them around, line them up in different spots, ask them to do different things. And they pick it up incredibly quickly. But Cam, having that extra guy on the inside has certainly helped us be more efficient offensively.

Q. I know in covering Coach Swinney, he doesn’t set goals like, hey, we’ve got to make the ACC championship game or a college football playoff. But when you took this job, did you have an internal timetable of I want to be in an ACC championship game or win an ACC championship by a certain time?

JUSTIN FUENTE: I don’t think that’s at least for me personally, that’s not the way to go about it. There’s so many things that happen that are so many things that are beyond your control, external factors that can occur, that can either accelerate the process or decelerate the process. For me it’s about establishing your identity and working towards that on a daily basis and getting to the end of the season and tallying up the wins and seeing how you did. But I’ve always stopped short of putting those things, you know, on the calendar in terms of, we’ve got to do this by this certain date and instead just doesn’t mean that we don’t make goals and we don’t have aspirations. We do. But for us it’s about the process on a daily basis.

Q. Justin, as a follow up to that, when spring practice ended, what type of team did you think you had to work with?

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, obviously, in the springtime, we had an offense you think about the first day of spring. We had an offense going on one day of installation versus a defense going on 29 years. And so it was a little lopsided particularly early. But, you know, by the end of the spring, we were still a long ways away.

And I think the thing that the most dramatic moment for me in terms of our improvement was the difference between the last day of spring and the first day of two days, the first day of fall camp, to see the work that our kids had done on their own in terms of understanding the scheme offensively and defensively and special teams wise, the gains they had made physically. You know, that let me know that this was important to them because they had to do it on their own. And that very first day of practice was, as the head coach that was trying to step back and take a good look at his team and the team’s development, that let me know that this was important to these guys and they were going to do whatever we needed to have done in order to give ourselves a chance.

Q. Hey, Justin. Has Bud or have you talked with your defense about capitalizing on turnovers of all these games, something extra that you wanted to drill into your defense? And is that an added opportunity for a guy who likes to run and aggressively run this?

JUSTIN FUENTE: I hope we can cause a few. The bottom line is nobody has stopped them offensively. You’re trying to slow them down, try to limit a position by getting a turnover, trying to do anything you can to keep them out of the end zone. And if you can create a turnover or two and in turn hold onto the ball offensively, then you have a chance to kind of steal a possession there. And I think that’s going to be important for us to have a chance.

Q. Coach, a few questions ago when you were asked about trying to win championships right away, you said the things you can control is your own identity. What would you say is the identity of 2016 Virginia Tech?

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, for us it’s about hard, smart and tough. I think we want to be known as a group of people that whether it’s on the football field or off the football field we work hard in the classroom, in the community, on the field. We have an intelligent group of kids that play they play the game. They play smart football. Do well in school and a group of guys that are tough regardless of circumstances, whether it’s rain or cold weather or wind, or you’re up or you’re down or you’re doing well or you’re not. Our guys battle through and that’s the mentality we’ve instilled since day one.

Q. Justin, you mentioned earlier that naturally during the spring, the defense was ahead of the offense. You recruited them in Memphis. Obviously, you recruited them in Virginia Tech. How similar is what Gerad was doing in Trinity Valley to what you guys did in Memphis and are doing in Virginia Tech and how quickly did he make that transition?

JUSTIN FUENTE: He did a pretty good job with it. It was a little difficult in the spring, too, just because we some of our guys went out there on a consistent basis, you know, our wide receivers and that sort of stuff. Isaiah didn’t do much this spring. So it was just a little difficult to judge. It was all about, you know, trying to get a handle on the scheme and what we’re going to do. How different is what Gerad’s being asked to do now from what he did in junior college? I’d say there’s quite a big difference in terms of the way they were structured was to run 110 plays every game and, you know, trying if they had to win the game 62 58, that’s what they were going to do and just extreme pushing of the tempo almost like the Baylor coaching tree type deal. And we’re not like that. But some of the skill sets have carried over, though, in terms of running with the football or play action pass game and that sort of stuff and he picked it up really well. He’s very diligent, as did Brendon. That was part of the reason that thing drug on so long was that Brendon is a sharp kid as well and they were both learning at a pretty steep curve pretty quickly.

Q. I wanted to ask you, you mentioned earlier in the week about Clemson’s defensive backs. As you studied this week, what do you see in the matchup for your outside guys and the athletes that they have on the edge?

JUSTIN FUENTE: It’s going to be a tremendous challenge. They’re very good in the secondary. They will play tight coverage. There’s times and you’ll go a whole several series and other teams are trying to run the ball and the ball won’t get past the front six or seven, but they’re skilled. They certainly understand the scheme. They’ll be the biggest challenge we’ve had to date. No question.

Q. You’re a quarterback guy. You’ve coached some really good ones. When you look at Deshaun Watson, what separates him from other quarterbacks?

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, from afar, you know, not being in the meeting room or being around him on a daily basis, my impression of him is he’s an incredibly driven young man, things I’ve read about him, in terms of his academic aspirations, combined with his athletic goals and achievements. He can do it all. He’s got length. He’s mastered their scheme, offensively, he’s in total control. He’s played in big ball games and he’s not just a thrower of the football. He’s an accomplished passer. He’s got a bright future in this game. I don’t see any weakness in anything that he does.

Q. Justin, one of the hallmarks of Clemson’s offense under Dabo seems to have been the effective use of the tight end. What have you seen from them in terms of how they use Leggett and how the plan is then to because, obviously, Williams, you’re paying attention to him on the perimeter and Scott on the other side.

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, the thing about it is the add is in the run game and the pass game. And that’s the true value of a dangerous tight end, is a guy that’s versatile. You can create mismatches offensively through versatile tailbacks, guys that can line up in the backfield or line up in wide receiver or through versatile tight ends, guys that can line up in the backfield and block and give you an extra half a run game, give you an extra half a protection game, and also get out and make plays in the passing game. Those guys are hard to come by. Guys that can both add value running the football and then guys that you actually want to take advantage of, they’re one on one matchups. Those guys are few and far between, and he’s certainly one of them. They’ve done a great job moving him around. At times you’ve got to you’re not sure where he’s going to start out or where he’s going to end up and then being able to run the ball and then play action and getting the ball. He’s a pretty accomplished weapon.

Q. Coach, obviously Clemson has tons of pressure on them to make the playoff. If they win this game, they’re in the playoff. You guys, what do you tell the team in terms of how much pressure you guys have? Do you feel you’re playing with the house’s money, anything like that?

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, I mean, I understand that angle. But our kids you know, they don’t if you if you frame it like that, it’s as if they shouldn’t expect to do well. And that’s that’s not where we’re at mentally. We know we have a tremendous challenge. We know we’re playing a well coached, talented football team. But we didn’t we didn’t do all this work just to get here. We still have work left to do. Our kids are prepared that way. And we’ll know we have to play extremely well in order to get it close there at the end. But, you know, I’ve stayed away from the commentation of you’ve got nothing to lose because I don’t believe that. You know, I think we’ve got a great opportunity, and we’ve got a great group of kids that have worked incredibly hard for this opportunity. Now it’s our job just to prepare and do the best we can.

Q. Coach Swinney talked a little bit this week about his relationship with you. I’m curious about your interactions with Coach Swinney over the last five or six years.

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, we’ve stayed in touch, certainly. We’ve enjoyed watching his teams from afar. Occasionally we’ve had conversations about players and through you know, long story short, just through a few things, guys that have ended up at Memphis or whatever. I’ve enjoyed our relationship. I just spent about ten minutes in the back with coach and his wife. And you know, it was fun to get caught up and see his kids and see how they’ve grown. I’m happy for his success. It’s certainly well deserved. And, quite frankly, I’ve enjoyed the relationship.

Q. I was going to ask you about practice this week. Have you noticed any extra bounce in the players’ steps? And what can you do as a staff to kind of prepare a young team for the big stage of Saturday night?

JUSTIN FUENTE: Well, I was telling Whit Babcock this the other day. I really believe the second game of the year has a chance to help us in this. You know, playing at Tennessee in the “Battle of Bristol,” we did not play well, and I’m certainly not taking anything away from Tennessee. It’s just the facts are, we just didn’t handle the whole situation well. And we’ve talked about it at length many times since then as a team. And I like the way that we’ve matured throughout the year, our emotional maturity, our ability to put the previous week behind us and focus on the next week and handle the emotions of big ball games. And I feel good about where we’re at now as opposed to week two.