I’ve been covering Virginia Tech football for 25 years now, and this is new territory for me: a football coach being fired for failing to win enough games.

Despite the “mutual agreement” part of Virginia Tech’s press release, Justin Fuente was indeed fired. Whit Babcock made it sound like an amiable breakup, and I believe it was, but it came down to this: when Fuente asked if he was going to be the head coach next year, Whit finally reached a point where he could no longer say yes, and that was that.

I cracked a few jokes on the message board, and even on Twitter, but I’m neither excited nor jubilant nor sad nor upset. It’s just over. I remember when Seth Greenberg was fired in 2012, I stayed up until 2 AM writing an inspired column that I consider to be one of the best pieces I’ve ever written for Tech Sideline, The Posse Closes In. I had bottled up a bunch of stuff and let it fly all at once, and it was pretty good work.

I have no such piece about Justin Fuente living inside me, waiting to be unleashed. It’s just over.

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