Breaking down five areas of improvement for the Wahoos

UVa sits at 2-3 overall and 0-2 in ACC play heading into its sixth game of the season, looking to get back on track before its bye week. The Wahoos will be back in the friendly confines of Scott Stadium taking on a Louisville team also looking to bounce back after a difficult road loss in league play.

Virginia seemed to show some improvement in the second half against Syracuse, but regressed against Duke in a 38-17 defeat. The Cavaliers certainly have a lot of work to do and when reviewing statistics from the first five games, there are several major dropoffs in performance across the team.

So as they try to get back to .500 with a big home game on Saturday, we decided to take a look at five key areas that will need to show improvement if the Hoos are going to get the 2022 season back on track in the coming weeks.

Four of UVa’s first five games have something in common: The Cavaliers trailed early in each contest. Against Richmond, they went down 7-0 before getting on track. Against Illinois, the they scored first but then quickly went down 21-3 at the half. They took a 10-0 lead against ODU, the only game where they didn’t have a first-half deficit, but only led 10-7 at the break. Against Syracuse, the Hoos were down 16-0 at halftime and last weekend at Duke, the Blue Devils jumped out to a 21-0 lead that was too much for UVa to overcome.

Even in the games where the Cavaliers scored first, they haven’t been able to keep rolling. Richmond was the only team that allowed them more than 10 points in a first half, and against three Power 5 opponents they have been outscored by a combined 58-10. That’s just too much for a struggling offense to overcome right now. They are allowing 19.3 points per game in the first halves against P5 teams, which is far from good, but also isn’t totally on the defense. Illinois scored a touchdown on a muffed punt. Syracuse scored its only touchdown following a kick return to the UVa 41 and scored three more first half points off of a Brennan Armstrong fumble in his own territory. Duke scored 14 points off of a blocked punt that set them up at midfield, and a kick return fumble that gave them the ball inside the UVa 40. Those errors on offense and special teams account for 31 of the 58 first-half points allowed.

It would be nice to see the offense come out and score first, and perhaps build some confidence going forward. UVa has had some success on opening drives in the losses to Syracuse and Duke, crossing midfield on both possessions only to come up empty. If the Cavaliers can find a way to get a lead, even if it’s 7-0 or something like that, perhaps they can better set themselves up for more competitive play as the game moves into the second half.

Last season, Virginia wasn’t the nation’s most-disciplined team, finishing 77th in penalty yards allowed per game. UVa averaged just over six penalties per contest for an average of 56.4 yards per game. Not coincidentally, their most penalized games were both losses, with nine penalties for 102 yards in a loss at UNC, followed up by 11 penalties for 83 yards in a home loss to Wake Forest. The in-game discipline did drop off in 2021 after much better seasons from 2017 to 2021, where UVa was top 50 nationally in penalty yards each season, with top 20 finishes in 2018 and 2019.

This year, those already not-so-great numbers from last season have gotten worse. Through five games, UVa has averaged 7.4 penalties per game for 72.4 yards per contest, which ranks 117th nationally. UVa was relatively clean in the first two games, averaging 45 penalty yards per contest against Richmond and Illinois, but the flags have been flying in the three weeks since. UVa had eight penalties for 80 yards in the narrow win over ODU, 12 flags for 105 yards at Syracuse and six penalties for 87 yards in Saturday’s loss to Duke.

Every team gets penalized, but some of the ones we’ve seen from UVa have been avoidable errors. Whether it’s a procedural penalty like a false start or post-snap penalties, this is an area that UVa can improve, and must, if the Hoos want to be more competitive down the stretch.

Virginia’s offense has struggled in plenty of areas, but one major improvement could come if they could be more efficient on the “big” downs. Through five games, UVa has converted 36.2 percent of its 3rd-down tries, ranking 87th nationally. That’s a massive shift from last season, when a big part of their success on offense came by converting third downs. The Hoos converted 45.9 percent of their 3rd-down conversions in 2021, ranking 17th nationally. They have two games where they’ve converted less than a quarter of their 3rd-down tries, going 3-for-27 combined in losses at Illinois and Syracuse.

The offense will also be far more threatening if they can finish drives in the end zone. The Hoos have had some solid red zone trips, scoring three red zone touchdowns against Syracuse and two more last week against Duke. On the season, they have scored on 13 of their 17 red zone trips, with nine touchdowns and four field goals. Their 52.9 percent TD scoring rate on red zone trips again puts the Cavaliers along with some of the nation’s worst offenses, ranking 102nd nationally. And that’s not to mention the four empty trips inside the 20 this season, a number that hopefully won’t go too much higher in the weeks to come. But given UVa’s struggles in the kicking game, and the overall inability to score points in bunches, converting red zone trips into touchdowns becomes critical to the success of the team.

Any Cavalier fan that has watched the first five games of the season knows that the special teams units still have work to do. After finishing 57th nationally in last year’s PFF grades, the 2022 special teams grade has the Hoos 115th. And there are plenty of areas that they can improve. The kicking game has been handed over to Will Bettridge, at least for now, and the freshman made his field goal try as well as his two PATs at Duke. Perhaps the first-year kicker can knock some through and help the team and coaching staff gain confidence in the kicking game. UVa has had two catastrophic fumbles on special teams, both leading directly to scores by the opposition.

The good news is that UVa has some talent to work with on special teams groups. Bettridge is unproven, but seems to have far more potential than his predecessor, especially from further out. Daniel Sparks has done a nice job punting the ball; the Cavaliers just need to do a better job avoiding blocks. And despite his fumble on Saturday, we’ve seen flashes of ability from Demick Starling in the return game, including a decent run back to set up the game-winning drive against ODU.

This area of focus has drawn the most attention through five games, and for good reason. The dropoff in the productivity of UVa’s passing game has been staggering, going from 393 yards per contest last year down to 210. Virginia’s passing game was boosted in 2021 by the team’s ability to stretch the field and turn short-to-intermediate throws into big gains with yards after the catch. Last season, UVa was fourth nationally in passing plays for 20+ yards, finishing the campaign with 77 such plays. The Cavaliers haven’t found success creating chunk plays, with just 11 plays of 20+ yards through the air, ranking 105th nationally.

That staggering dropoff has to reverse course for Virginia to take a big step forward as a team the rest of the way. However they do it, the staff needs to find ways to get the ball to their playmakers in space, with room to run and do damage. UVa hit about six of those chunk plays per game last season and has averaged about two per game in 2022. If the Hoos can get that number up to even four or so per game, it can make a big difference. Those chunk plays often find the end zone, or shift field position in a meaningful way. And the fewer snaps it takes to get down the field, the potential damage from penalties or negative plays becomes less relevant.