It barely caused a ripple in the recruiting world when Josh Jackson enrolled at Virginia Tech in January 2016, turning down offers from the likes of Bowling Green, Boston College and Minnesota. But for Justin Fuente, who had just left Memphis and was scrambling to save the Hokies’ class, landing a three-star quarterback recruit was a relatively big deal.

“When he was hired, he said as soon as he was allowed to use the jet he was going to come see me, which was awesome,” Jackson told USA TODAY Sports this week. “He had a great résumé behind him, two great quarterbacks he had coached, and that definitely helped. He definitely knew what he was talking about.”

All of college football is starting to understand what he means.

One-third of the way through what was supposed to be a season for Virginia Tech to take a step back, the Hokies are ranked 12th in the Amway Coaches Poll and will host this week’s most fascinating game when No. 2 Clemson visits Lane Stadium. Regardless of the outcome, the biggest reason to believe Virginia Tech is set up to challenge the likes of Clemson and Florida State for years to come is the play of Jackson, a redshirt freshman who popped off the screen in the Hokies’ 31-24 season-opening win against West Virginia and has thrown 11 touchdowns against just one interception.

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“He’s broken some big plays in the run game, broken some tackles, kept plays alive, and that’s a little bit of a pleasant surprise for us,” offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Brad Cornelsen said. “Josh’s accuracy throwing down the field has been really good, and that's given us a chance to hit some big plays.”

Virginia Tech’s continued success, in many ways, is credited to a smooth transition out of the Frank Beamer era, including Fuente’s decision to retain longtime defensive coordinator Bud Foster. Though following a legend often is uneasy in situations where a singular figure such as Beamer towers over the program, the relative lack of ego involved on both sides has made it comfortable for Fuente to reshape the program in his image.

But most remarkable thing about Fuente’s 14-4 record with the Hokies is that he’s done it with two different quarterbacks — first Jerod Evans out of junior college last season, now Jackson — neither of whom came to Virginia Tech as celebrated recruits nor had any experience at the FBS level.

Combined with his work at Memphis, where he developed Paxton Lynch into a first-round NFL Draft pick, and TCU, where Andy Dalton went from three-star recruit to three-time Pro Bowler, it’s clear this isn’t happening by accident.

And in a sport where the fortunes of most programs rise and fall annually based on how well they’ve recruited and developed quarterbacks, Fuente and Cornelsen may be college football’s most underrated combination.

“It’s a good question,” Cornelsen said when asked how he and Fuente have been able to hit on three consecutive quarterbacks, none of whom were expected to be stars out of the gate. “It’s probably a combination of a lot of different things. We do put a huge emphasis on making sure that what we run and what we call fits what our quarterback can do and can handle and have success with. That’s something that is always really important to us. That’s part of developing with a new quarterback is figuring out what he feels good about and what he can do and what he knows, what he can actually process out there in real speed on game day.”

When Jackson signed with Virginia Tech, 247Sports ranked 30 quarterbacks ahead of him in the class of 2016. Among those, only Ole Miss’ Shea Patterson (1st), Georgia’s Jacob Eason (2nd), Florida’s Feleipe Franks (5th) Alabama’s Jalen Hurts (11th), Texas’ Shane Buechele (13th), South Carolina’s Jake Bentley (18th), North Carolina’s Chazz Surratt (27th) and Baylor’s Zach Smith (25th) have made any impact at the college level and only Hurts has established himself as the clear starter for a ranked team.

Jackson said he never had a problem with his high school ranking, largely because he had learned from his father, former longtime Michigan assistant Fred Jackson, how the recruiting game worked.

“I didn’t play my sophomore year in high school because I transferred, so that didn’t help my recruiting,” he said. “I kind of understood how I was being rated compared to other guys who were sophomores. So that never really affected me to be honest. I'm a lot better player (now).”

It was Fred Jackson’s connection to Scot Loeffler, another former Michigan assistant, that led Virginia Tech to pursue Josh. Even though Loeffler recruited Jackson to play in his pro-style offense before Beamer announced his retirement, Fuente and Cornelsen quickly determined he would fit in their spread system and made him a top priority in piecing together a recruiting class.

“We knew he was committed so we watched his highlight film and you saw a skill set that can fit into a lot of different offenses to be honest,” Cornelsen said. “When coach Fuente went to meet him and we talked to him, it didn’t take long to figure out he’s the kind of guy you want.”

Ironically, though, it was the other quarterback they brought in — Evans — who won the starting job last season and played so well, throwing for 3,309 yards and rushing for 759, that he entered the NFL draft rather than coming back for his senior year.

With Evans gone, along with much of the Hokies’ veteran skill talent like running back Sam Rogers, tight end Bucky Hodges and receiver Isaiah Ford, it seemed likely the Hokies would slip back from last season’s 10-4 record and ACC Coastal championship.

Those concerns on offense were particularly pronounced after the spring, where no clear starting quarterback emerged. But with Jackson asserting himself early in the fall, giving Cornelsen a chance to build the offensive plan around him, it appears the Hokies are a strong contender to repeat in the division and maybe aim for even higher goals.

“(Cornelsen) has a really unique gift and a great gift for evaluation and is able to not always do the same things we’ve done in the past just because they used to work but try and craft those things to fit the players talent level,” Fuente said. “For instance, I think Brad made an early kind of evaluation that Jerod was a pretty darn good inside runner and we didn’t feel as comfortable standing back there in the pocket for long periods of time with him as we did with Paxton the year before, so we try to tweak those things to fit those guys’ skill set while still trying to develop the things they may not be good at. I think it starts with our coordinator, who has a unique eye and the ability to think a little bit outside the box to mold what we’re trying to do.”

If you could build a perfect quarterback for Fuente’s system, though, it would probably look a lot like Jackson, who has a strong 6-1, 215-pound build that allows him to run the ball effectively (he had 101 yards on 11 carries against West Virginia) but also throws with accuracy and touch (he’s at 65.2% this season).

Just as impressive was how he handled the big stage against the Mountaineers, and he’ll need every bit of that composure Saturday night in prime time against arguably the best defensive front in college football.

But whatever it is Fuente is doing to identify and get a quarterback ready for this kind of test right away, it’s working.

“I wish it was always as easy as just picking out the top 10 quarterbacks on film in the country and getting to go interview them and draft which one you want. It’s never that simple,” Cornelsen said. “When you talk about talent, it’s not size, speed and arm strength, it’s timing and the ability to process and accuracy with the football and anticipation of where to throw it and kids being able to under when it’s a good look and a bad look. Then, you love recruiting kids that are going to be the face of your program when they become the starter and you want that to be the right kind of guy, too.”

The Hokies have found that guy — again — in relatively short order. And their future is significantly brighter as a result.