With spring football now underway at Virginia, there’s lots of work to do to get ready for a pivotal 2024 season. While improvement is needed in all areas, the Cavaliers could use a boost from their offensive line, which will be trying to get a ground game going that was off-and-on in 2023 in addition to protecting one of two talented quarterbacks poised to compete for playing time.
And luckily for second-year offensive line coach Terry Heffernan, the Wahoos have a leg up as they bring back nearly all of his 2023 group, a line that was young and showed flashes but needs consistency.
UVa didn’t add much to its offensive line room in the offseason, because it didn’t have to. The Hoos did add UCF interior lineman Drake Nugent, who Heffernan coached when the two were at Stanford in 2022. So other than one early enrollee, Heffernan has coached every offensive lineman in his room for at least a season. While the O-line still has plenty of work to do, success in keeping their talent in the building was a major offseason win for Heffernan and the offensive staff.
“Modern day college football starts with your own roster,” Heffernan said Monday. “If you can win by retaining your own roster nowadays, especially when you have good, young players like this team does, that’s a huge victory.
“That’s the most important win we had, was getting our guys back,” he added. “And bringing in new talent and young guys to develop is really important, but nothing was more important for our group on the offensive line than bringing back the guys we played with a year ago.”
Spring football rosters are always a bit smaller than what a program will have in the fall, as players recover from injuries from the previous seasons or are in post-surgery recovery. It’s not uncommon for entire position groups to be impacted by players sitting out spring ball, and this year the offensive line is the most-impacted group, with several projected starters, including Brian Stevens, McKale Boley, and Ty Furnish expected to miss time.
While the room isn’t as deep, that doesn’t mean the staff can’t be creative through allowing players to cross-train at different positions, which should prove useful in the fall if injuries mount up.
“There’s a couple of attributes that we really look for,” UVa’s second-year OL coach explained. “The first is availability, if you’re healthy and you can go, and the second is versatility. The more you can do the more valuable you can be to the team. My goal as o-line coach is to put the best five players out there. If you’ve got guys that can only play left guard, and two of your top five guys are left guards, that’s not good.
“I want to keep guys moving around,” he added. “I think it helps them to learn the offense and the other positions overall. And it challenges them. You never know when somebody’s going to stub their toe or their shoe’s coming off, and someone has to run in for a critical play.”
With a thin group this spring, opportunities have arisen for the players that are healthy. And given that nothing is set in stone, the players lining up before next month’s spring game will have opportunities to demonstrate growth and put themselves in a position to compete to start in the fall.
“There’s a ton of opportunity out there and it’s about competition,” Heffernan said. “And we didn’t play well enough as an offensive line to say ‘we’re going to roll this unit out right now.’ We’re far, far away from naming starters, and we’ve got a ton of competition amongst the guys that’s going to show us who’s going to run out there in the opener.”
One player competing for snaps is fifth-year Ugonna Nnanna, who joined the Hoos last year after beginning his career at Houston. Nnanna was in and out of the lineup last fall after beginning the season starting at right tackle before ultimately playing at guard. Nnanna is attempting to take advantage of an opportunity to shine in the spring and try to earn a starting role in the fall, or at least be an asset to the team.
“For everybody now, it’s just getting better, being intentional with the details of everything that we’re doing, every single practice,” he said Monday. “Knowing that we have our older guys, previous starters out right now, it’s time for us to go out there and make a name for ourselves-the guys do want to get out on that field and prove themselves.
“The main thing is eliminating all distractions and focusing on myself,” Nnanna added. “If I can focus on myself and focus on what I have to do, and listen to the instruction the coach is giving me, that’s when I can see that jump to being more consistently in the starting lineup, and sort of just showcasing that I can bring that consistency to the o-line that’s needed.”
Heffernan has been impressed with Nnanna’s work ethic and dedication to finding ways, both big and small, to improve his game.
“We’re trying to keep him at left guard a little bit, he’s doing a great job,” Heffernan said. “He’s a kid that works really hard, it’s important to him. He’s a great teammate to the other guys on the line and he’s a fun guy to coach.
“Effort has been awesome, and now it’s tightening the screws, getting our hands tighter, getting our pads down, playing with a better base,” he added. “And those are things that he comes in and watches extra tape and sees that of himself, and now its just building that muscle memory and playing the way we want him to play.”
Familiarity with the program and the offense have helped Nnanna and several other teammates that were new to UVa and the offensive line last year as they continue to settle into things. In Year 2, Nnanna believes that his comfort level will pay off with improved performance on the field.
“Much more confident and much more comfortable,” he said. “Just being able to get those repetitions, repeated plays and getting the reps and talking to coach over stuff I might be confused about. On the second time, it’s much easier, much more seamless.
“Second go-around, I know how it is,” Nnanna added. “Getting around Grounds, it’s a big campus, it’s easy to get lost. From a football standpoint, I understand what it is to come in and get a whole new install, get a whole new playbook and learn that playbook in spring, which is a decent amount of time. And it’s really helpful to have the coaches around us too. They make sure that transition from that previous group to this one is seamless.”
Nnanna isn’t the only one in the O-line room far more comfortable in Charlottesville than he was a year ago. That also extends to UVa’s offensive line coach himself, who took on a big challenge last year and now has a group that he knows well, which should play off in the spring and in the fall.
“I think the familiarity with the guys has been terrific,” he explained. “Last year I was new and I was learning how they learn, how they practice, what makes those guys tick. Having worked with everybody except for our young guy Grant (Ellinger) in this group, we’ve been able to start way ahead of where we were a year ago.
“They also know me,” Heffernan added. “They know what my expectations are, they know what makes me upset, they know what I’m looking for in drill work. Even just setting up a drill is so much quicker and more seamless than a year ago.”
