Virginia Tech head coach Justin Fuente made some questionable comments yesterday regarding the NCAA Transfer Portal. He’s already receiving a healthy amount of blow back.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Fuente said that after discussing with his staff, players who enter the transfer portal are not allowed to return to Virginia Tech. This comes as a bit of a surprise given what the circumstances were for the Hokies one saeson ago. Quarterback Hendon Hooker and running back Deshawn McClease both entered the transfer portal before removing their names and returning to the team last February. Hooker ended up starting every game for the team at quarterback last season.

"We talked about that. We talked about it as a team," Fuente said. "We talked about Hendon and Deshawn last year and how that was me not doing a job educating them. We'll take all of them on a case by case basis, but we're moving forward."

"It's all individual," Fuente said at the time. "I think it would be foolish to do it any other way."

Panelists on ESPN’s morning show “Get Up” were highly critical of the comments that Fuente made.

“...this is the double standard that’s always gone on in sports,” ESPN basketball analyst and former Duke star Jay Williams said. “It’s always been like ‘Oh, you is a kid? Because you’re an amateur, you can’t do this. I’m not going to allow you to do this, I have a monopoly -- I can be a dictator to some degree.’ But I can do this. If it betters me and my career, I can go take another job and make more money, or if I choose not to want it, come back and everything can be OK. That’s always been the case.”

Former Maryland and NFL cornerback Dominique Foxworth called out what he believes to be hypocrisy in Fuente’s comments.

“What really kind of annoys me is that there is no looking in the mirror,” Foxworth said. “It’s something that you’re doing. If we’re going to accept that these people have choice and have agency, then you have to provide an environment that they have to be around...The point isn’t that they are a bunch of bad guys who don’t fit in. If it happens repeatedly, it’s because of you. It’s because of the program that you are running. Not because of them.”

Longtime ESPN analyst Mike Greenberg brought up an extremely valid point in regards to Fuente. The head coach talked to Baylor about its head coaching vacancy last month, but opted to remain at Virginia Tech. Greenberg suggested that Fuente may be a little upset that those talks leaked to the public like they did.

“That seemed to be of concern to him,” Greenberg said of the video he saw of Fuente talking to reporters. “The hypocricy of it is overwhelming and obvious. The reality of it is that the system is set up so that he has that choice. If the players enter the transfer portal, he doesn’t have to welcome them back. But the reality is now is because the players have that option both on the front and and the back, all players who might consider going back to play for him should remember him. The coach believes that he is well within his rights to explore the circumstances out there if he thinks that there might be a greener pasture for him and he might leave if he likes it better. He thinks he is well within is rights to do it, but, for the most part, he did use the word ‘policy.’ Now, in this case, he says he will take them on a case-by-case basis -- he seems very uncomfortable that his players may do the same. Everyone should go into that with their eyes wide open.”

Foxworth says that Fuente could pay a big price for this in recruiting. This was already a bad year for the Hokies on the recruiting class, posting the last-ranked recruiting class in the ACC and 70th nationally, their lowest mark since 2002.

“This is going to be something that other teams who are recruiting against him that guys are going to walk in there and say ‘this guy doesn’t respect you the way that I respect you. I believe that if you come here, we’re going to do everything right so that you want to stay here, and if you want to leave, you can leave.’”

The Hokies went 8-5 a season ago, but saw their season end with two disappointing losses at Virginia and against Kentucky in the Belk Bowl. It will be interesting to see if these comments from Fuente impact recruiting in the future.