Let me dump my thoughts real quick.:
I'll admit, I was down on Fuente a lot last season and quite a bit this season so far as well. 2018 was disastrous. "Disastrous" is not an exaggeration, either. But at the same time, I can see what he's trying to put together, primarily because of the way he and the staff recruit offensively. A few things:
1. Fuente loves skill position playmakers. Wide receiver and tight end recruiting has been a huge upgrade under Fuente. No coach (playing by the rules) comes in and gets superstar skill position recruits within the first 2 years. But, the way we've been landing higher profile wide receivers and tight ends, I can see what he's putting together. We're trending up in this area. Do we do a good job of getting these players the ball? Not really. Tre Turner should have around 50 more career targets, to be fair. Robinson should be targeted more, too. We've had a few injuries to young players that have set them back (Payoute) but I still like what I'm seeing here. And, in the current age of college football where defenses are no longer able to win teams games and the scoreboards are getting lit up, we have to be able to compete offensively more than ever before.

2. He's surrounded himself with a capable staff, some areas I see sticking around for a long time. Vice is well liked and has shown this year, with his own guys, what he can do. Wake was a bad showing, but optimistically it was an anomaly. Our O-Line is still fantastic. Vice deserves all the credit in the world here. Adam Lechtenberg is a diamond in the rough as well. Listen to any interview, read anything the players say, look at the recruiting, Lechtenberg has far surpassed the expectations we had, which granted may have been very little, but he's doing an excellent job. I think he and Vice are here for as long as Fuente is, potentially even longer.

3. We are no longer a defensive and special teams rooted program. Those were Beamer's staples. Beamer is gone. We cannot expect a program that has neither Beamer nor Foster to be representative of teams past. Not to state the obvious, but we're under completely new leadership. Hanging onto past methods of operation just isn't helpful, especially in the changing landscape of college football. Can we still be an above-average defensive team? Absolutely. But gone are the days where we're holding teams to 10 points routinely. No team in the country can do that. Our defensive ceiling is probably 3rd or 4th in the ACC any given year. Pair that with a 3rd or 4th offense and that's no slouch of a combo.

4. Fuente is running an underfunded program. Whit has his work cut out for him. Our recruiting department is severely underfunded. Last year (haven't seen current numbers if they're out) our football program ranked 42nd in the country for revenue. 42nd in the country is probably where we are if the AP poll had a few more voters. We're 38th in the coaches' poll. So my point is mainly that there's almost always a strong correlation between program funding and program success. Don't like the team right now? Donate.

So all that to say, I DO think Fuente is the right guy for the job. Hamilton...not sure yet. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but we're probably two years away from a fair evaluation of him. This was the year, with all of our returners, to make some noise. Granted, we could go on to win out until we play Clemson. That's a 9-win season. On the flip side, nothing I saw in the Wake game tells me this is a 9-win team. But...I've been wrong before. Thoughts?