Justin Fuente, who had a 43-31 record in six seasons at Virginia Tech, is out as the Hokies' football coach, athletic director Whit Babcock announced Tuesday.

J.C. Price will serve as interim head coach while school starts a national search to fill the position.

"We sincerely appreciate the contributions that Coach Fuente made to our football program and the positive impact he made on our student-athletes during his time at Virginia Tech," Babcock said in a statement. "While it is never easy to make a change, I believe in order for our football program to attain the type of sustained success that is expected at Virginia Tech, the time was right for new leadership of our football program."

Including his four seasons as coach at Memphis, Fuente has a career record of 69-54.