Much like Duke, the Hoos of Hooville Charlottesville suffer from basketball-itis. To their credit, they rose past everyone’s completely original “1 seed lost to a 16 seed L O L” jokes to win a national championship in April, so you know, respect - I know the pain of such original yet repetitive sports memery all too well.
But unlike Duke, whose football team seems to be on the decline this fall, the Cavaliers, led by now fourth-year head coach Bronco Mendenhall, is looking pretty, pretty, pretty good heading into this fall. “Why?” you might ask — well, isn’t that what you’re here to find out?
Offense
Like their Cleveland counterparts in 2016 (note: I do not basketball, so please send complaints to @jakegrant98 on Twitter if this analogy is incorrect), the Virginia Cavaliers relied on a trio of offensive talents throughout 2018: QB Bryce Perkins, RB Jordan Ellis, and WR Olamide Zaccheaus.
Good news: Zaccheaus, who torched Tech’s defense last season for 96 yards on 10 catches (part of his 1058 yards on the season), was drafted by our friendly neighborhood Atlanta Falcons. No longer must opposing secondaries fear this man slicing and dicing them for 60 minutes. Ellis, he of 1095 total scrimmage yards and 10 touchdowns last year, is also gone, signed as a UDFA by the Cincinnati Bengals.
Bad news: Bryce Perkins is back, and he might be the best quarterback in the ACC Coastal (which says a bit more about the Coastal than his quality, but I digress). His 2680 passing yards, complemented by another 1124 yards on the ground, shows he’s no slouch when it comes to slinging the pigskin. Mind you, this is the same Bryce Perkins who willed UVA back into last year’s game even after sustaining what looked to be a pretty serious foot injury. Suffice to say, he’s no joke.
But here’s the problem for the Hoos: like our old pal Bill Connelly explains, they lacked explosiveness, both in the air and on the ground. The radar chart does not paint a particularly pretty picture of Virginia’s big-play ability whatsoever. Chipping away at opponents slowly and cutting them up through the air is great — not being able to score on those effortful drives is not.
There’s hope for them yet: senior Joe Reed, junior Terrell Jana, and senior Hasise Dubois all return, each having put up 10+ yards per catch last season. Perkins can still be a threat on the ground and in the air. Bronco Mendenhall has an established reputation for moulding unheralded recruits into high performers, and he brought in the 39th-ranked recruiting class in the nation this cycle — undoubtedly, one of his receivers will become the Hoos’ secret receiving threat.
But there’s a whole host of other problems that an exponential increase in passing explosiveness will need to cover for: junior PK Kier, Ellis’s presumable replacement, will have to improve on his disappointing 3.1 yards per carry and 23% rush success rate; a young Cavalier offensive line (which just lost grad transfer and supposed starter Alex Gellerstedt to a knee injury) will have to overcome the “glitches” that plagued it last year; and heck, most of the guys I listed as aerial threats are listed as injured on CFB Reference (granted, their statuses are only Probable, but still).
Bottom line: the Cavaliers bring back a lot of what made them successful on offense last year, but they still have a variety of holes to plug if they want to maintain the growth they’ve seen under Mendenhall and offensive coordinator Robert Anae.
Defense
To set the mood, here’s Bill: “Mendenhall doesn’t tend to field bad defenses,” and that remained true in 2018. The UVA defense finished 31st in defensive S&P+, limiting opponents to 183.0 passing yards and 147.5 rushing yards on average and placing top 20 in some vital categories: opponent completion rate, explosive rushes per game (10+ yards), explosive passes per game (20+ yards), overall success rate, and success rate on standard downs. The secondary was really, really good and also remarkably young — Bill notes that three members of this unit that helped UVA place seventh in completion rate allowed and 17th in passing and passing downs marginal efficiency return for 2019, and only one of them is a senior. Undoubtedly, their success against the pass will continue.
However, for all of the success the Cavaliers had defending the pass last year, their run defense was...lacking — the Hoos were in the bottom 10 in the nation at forcing third and long situations and absymal at stuffing the run at the line of scrimmage. To make matters worse in 2019, there are significant changes up front, the most important of which is the departure of Chris Peace, Virginia’s sack leader from last season (with 6.5, along with 63 total tackles) and the leader of a defensive line ravaged by injuries. With the line now healthy and its members seemingly consistent, Bill suggests that UVA could have a top-20 defense for the first time since 2007.
Consistency is great, but effectiveness is better. The run defense and pass pressure has to be better if that dream of a top-20 defense is to be realized. The Hoo front seven can not leave its secondary out to dry on passing downs and hope that they make plays — while they probably will, relying on that is a recipe for disaster in the long term. The front seven doesn’t have to be good, just mediocre to average.
Conclusion
No, the Hoos didn’t win the Coastal in 2018. Yes, they blew their best chance to lift the Commonwealth Cup in years (in one of the most brutal ways imaginable, to boot). But I’ll be [David Bowie]’d if they didn’t look like the only non-dysfunctional team in the division last year, and there’s no reason to think they won’t be the same in 2019. They just have to overcome their own mistakes, generate explosive plays, and (somehow) avoid plain bad luck (see: the end of their game last year versus Virginia Tech). The boys in Charlottesville have a good program on their hands, and if they play their cards right, they could make their way to the ACC Championship Game to be Clemson’s sacrificial lamb.
As with every year during Mendenhall’s tenure (Tech is 2-1 versus him), this game is going to be a tough one for Tech (especially this year, given Tech’s roster and playbook churn). The numbers aren’t pretty; S&P+ gives UVA a 79% chance to win and pegs its margin of victory at 13.8 points. If Tech has grown into its offensive and defensive schemes right around this point in the season, then the Jackets have a good shot at upsetting the Hoos in their house. If not, it might be a long afternoon in Charlottesville.