BLACKSBURG, Va. – Shortly after Justin Fuente and his staff arrived at Virginia Tech, the sales pitch began from his assistants.

They wanted to start using virtual reality to help train their players.

Fuente listened to a few presentations, then made the pitch to athletic director Whit Babcock. Donors helped finance the $150,000 technology, and – voilà! – the Hokies became one of a few schools across the country to use virtual reality this spring.

“Those assistant coaches know how to get to me,” Fuente said. “We brought a couple people in and they hooked me up to it and I was blown away. It’s pretty fascinating to put the goggles on and put the headphones on and literally you’re standing in the huddle.”

Virginia Tech began building its play library on the first day of spring practice, and is using the technology primarily for its quarterbacks and linebackers. Somebody stands behind either the quarterback or middle linebacker holding the camera, which captures all 360 degrees.

After practice, the video is downloaded inside the facility, then stitched together to form the images. The turnaround is fast – the next morning, players can come in and put on the goggles to go over practice from the previous evening.

The headphones complement the video images because players can hear the play calls just before the ball is snapped. Coaches and players also can pause the video and then rewind it to take the rep over and over again.

The Hokies have a new virtual reality system that puts players right in the action. Peter Casey/USA TODAY Sports

“It’s a huge teaching tool for the quarterback position,” offensive coordinator Brad Cornelsen said. “You’re seeing almost what you’re seeing in a real-life rep. Once you put those goggles on, you control what you’re looking at, you can move, you can take a drop in a meeting room and make quick decisions. It’s one thing when you have all kinds of time and you’re sitting in a classroom and you’re saying 'hut' and making a split-second decision. That tool bridges that gap a little bit. The guys have taken advantage of that. It’s something that can continue to help us.”

The technology is even more crucial this spring because the first-year staff is installing an entirely new offense and working through a quarterback competition. So let’s say one quarterback has the virtual-reality goggles on. The same clip is being shown in the meeting room on a 2D screen, so all quarterbacks can identify what is going on.

Or say you’re a quarterback who didn’t get that many reps at practice. Using virtual reality allows them to take all the reps in a meeting room with the first-team offense.

“They use it every day,” Cornelsen said. “What I’ve told them is you have a chance now to come in and go take every single rep with every single group. To me, that’s the advantage of it. It’s a great schedule for them to come in on their off days and practice all those reps again and get the ones they didn’t get to take on the field.

“You almost forget you’re in a meeting room at a certain point.”

Fuente also sees recruiting advantages because the virtual reality will allow recruits to truly experience a game-day simulation at Lane Stadium and what it is like to play for Virginia Tech.

But for now, the most important aspect is training his entire team, from the starters all the way down the depth chart.

“To me, it’s going to help us with the second- and third-teamers maybe as much as the first-teamers, those guys that weren’t actually in it and have a chance to mentally and visually go through the process to run the play,” Fuente said. “In the summertime we’ll see the most use of it. Once we get our catalogues built, you can get 25 reps of different looks of the same play over and over again by pulling them all up.”