In 2017 on Defense we had the following starters with only 3 Seniors:
DE 94 Trevon Hill 6' - 3" 245 rSo.
DT 4 Tim Settle 6' - 3" 328 rSo.
DT 8.1 Ricky Walker 6' - 2" 300 rJr.
DE 99 Vinny Mihota 6' - 5" 270 rJr.
LB 49 Tremaine Edmunds 6' - 5" 250 Jr.
MLB 54 Andrew Motuapuaka 6' - 0" 236 rSr.
LB 6 Mook Reynolds 6' - 0" 191 Jr.
DB 3 Greg Stroman 6' - 0" 181 Sr.
S 21 Reggie Floyd 6' - 0" 218 So.
ROV 22 Terrell Edmunds 6' - 2" 220 rJr.
DB 31 Brandon Facyson 6' - 2" 197 rSr.
DB 36 Adonis Alexander 6' - 3" 197 Jr. (Co-Starter)
Instead of losing 3 defenders (Andrew Motuapuaka, Greg Stroman & Brandon Facyson) and having a truly imposing defense in 2018, VT lost 6 more (Trevon Hill, Tim Settle, Tremaine Edmunds, Mook Reynolds, Terrell Edmunds & Adonis Alexander) for a total of 9 out of 12 starters. Add to that Vinny Mihota was recuperating from knee surgery and truly never recovered & Ricky Walker played hurt all year that is 11 out of 12 players either gone or highly compromised.
This alone would cripple just about any team. Then add additional injuries on the DL from the depth POV along with promising CB Jeremy Webb and you have a bad defense with little to no experience. To say this is Coach Fuente's fault or Coach Foster's fault is IMO totally misguided.
I believe the VT Coaches truly coached probably their best season ever given the sheer lack of depth & player losses. It appears to me that 2019 recruiting is specifically trying to reverse the depth issue.