Blankenship knows how Fuente ticks

Fayetteville head coach Bill Blankenship during a September 9, 2016, game at Hornet Stadium in Bryant.
Fayetteville head coach Bill Blankenship during a September 9, 2016, game at Hornet Stadium in Bryant.

FAYETTEVILLE -- The Arkansas coaching staff has been burning through video, turning over every leaf while trying to get into the offensive brain of first-year Virginia Tech Coach Justin Fuente.

A few football fields away in his office at Fayetteville High School sits the man who might know the football mind of Fuente, whose Hokies will face Arkansas on Dec. 29 in the Belk Bowl, as well as anyone.

First-year Fayetteville Coach Bill Blankenship, 60, coached Fuente in high school at Tulsa (Okla.) Union nearly a quarter of a century ago. He served as an analyst on Fuente's staff at Memphis throughout 2015 while undergoing a year-long, self-described "sabbatical tour" after being fired as head coach at his alma mater Tulsa after the 2014 season.

Blankenship, a former quarterback at Tulsa (1975-79) and head coach of the Golden Hurricane (2011-14), has had an insider's view of Fuente's rise up the coaching ladder.

Fuente has advanced from being a 25-year-old quarterbacks coach at Illinois State in 2001 to replacing legendary Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech 15 years later. Fuente, 40, is the youngest head coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference and the fifth-youngest head coach in the FBS.

"The deal was, I never thought he'd be a coach," said Blankenship, who led Fayetteville to the Class 7A state championship this year. "His dad was kind of a businessman, and I just thought he'd be a heck of a CEO or he'd be running some company. But you saw the leadership, no doubt. You saw the intelligence."

Blankenship intentionally has not visited with Arkansas coaches or viewed Razorback practices during bowl preparation because of his relationship with Fuente, saying it would be awkward.

Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema, who first matched wits with Fuente as Wisconsin's coach at the Rose Bowl after the 2010 season, has praised his work.

"A tremendous talent," Bielema said. "I am very, very impressed with what he did in Memphis, and then obviously the things they've done this year when they took over in transition."

Blankenship, who was born in Fort Smith and grew up across the border in Spiro, Okla., was hired away from his job at Edmond (Okla.) Memorial High to put in a sophisticated passing attack at Tulsa Union to fully use the talents of the hotshot quarterback Fuente, who was going to be a sophomore in 1992.

Fuente had such a high upside that after a series of workouts in T-shirts and shorts in the spring, a senior quarterback and junior quarterback came to Blankenship and asked to be switched to defense at the start of summer.

"That kind of gives you a little sense of how good he might have been," Blankenship said.

Fuente led Union to the playoffs three consecutive years, including a Class 6A runner-up showing in 1994, when he led the state with 2,934 passing yards and 32 touchdown passes and was selected as Oklahoma's player of the year by the Tulsa World.

Fuente signed to play at Oklahoma under first-year coach Howard Schnellenberger in 1995, but Schnellenberger resigned after one season. Fuente never got going under new coach John Blake.

He transferred to Murray State in 1998 to reunite with coach Denver Johnson, who had been an Oklahoma assistant in 1996 before taking the head coaching job with the Racers.

Johnson described Fuente's spirits after his transfer in vivid fashion in an interview with Sports Illustrated in early 2015.

"You ever see those commercials on TV where they have those abandoned animals in the shelter?" Johnson told SI. "He looked like one of those dogs. He just had big ol' sad eyes."

Fuente got it together for his final college season in 1999, setting four school records at Murray State -- including single-season passing yards (3,498) and touchdowns (27) -- and was named the Ohio Valley Conference offensive player of the year.

After a short run with the Oklahoma Wranglers of the Arena Football League, Fuente reunited with Johnson at Illinois State. He was promoted to offensive coordinator after three seasons, and he landed with Gary Patterson at TCU as running backs coach in 2007. He was co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach with the Horned Frogs from 2009-11.

Blankenship said he realized the nature of his professional relationship with Fuente had changed at the American Football Coaches Association convention after the 2010 season. The Horned Frogs went 13-0, capping their year with a 21-19 victory over Coach Bret Bielema and the Wisconsin Badgers in the Rose Bowl.

"They've just come off the Rose Bowl and that undefeated year at TCU, and he's just still very humble about it," Blankenship said. "I said, 'Let me make it clear to you, you're not networking me anymore. I'm networking you. You're on your way.' And he's like, 'Aw coach, come on.'

"But sure enough, it's just boom, boom, boom. He just killed it."

Fuente's offenses at TCU killed it from 2009-11, ranking No. 7 (456.7 yards per game), No. 12 (476.9) and No. 28 (440.2), respectively, in the country in total offense. The Horned Frogs went 36-3 in that span, paving the way for their transition from the Mountain West to the reconfigured Big 12, and opening the door for Fuente to take his first head coaching job at Memphis.

He inherited a Tigers team that had gone 5-31 in the previous three years and led the program to records of 10-3 and 9-3 after a couple of losing seasons. The 10-3 record in 2014, which included a 55-48 double-overtime victory over BYU in the Miami Beach Bowl, was Memphis' first 10-victory season since 1938. Fuente earned American Athletic Conference coach of the year honors for leading Memphis to its first conference championship since 1971.

The Tigers had a 15-game winning streak between 2014 and 2015, including a 37-24 victory over No. 13 Ole Miss.

"Those kids really believed in the coaches," Blankenship said. "They were doing some special things. It was just a good ride to be on."

In addition to the fresh state championship trophy for Fayetteville, Blankenship has other keepsakes in his office and adjoining breakroom. He was given a game ball from the upset over Ole Miss, and he has a ball with the score Memphis 66, Tulsa 42 on it, a tribute from Blankenship's return to H.A. Chapman Stadium in Tulsa.

"Oh, I think that was a sentimental deal," Blankenship said. "I think he just wanted to try to hook up his old coach."

Sports on 12/23/2016

Upcoming Events