Defense again the focus as Hoos head into bye week
For the first time since late August, there’s no game on next weekend’s schedule for the Virginia football team. The Wahoos don’t have an opponent they need to focus on in practice this week. They can assess how to best patch a defense that was again exposed by then-No. 25 BYU in a historically poor performance Saturday night in Provo.
With three games remaining coming out of that bye week and a potential Coastal Division title still on the table, this week of practice will be a critical time for a defensive unit that ranks among the worst in the country.
“We’ve got to really so some soul-searching and really do some mental breakdown on our defense,” inside linebacker Nick Jackson admitted in the wee hours of Sunday morning. “We’ve got to really figure out assignments, alignments, all that stuff right now, and it’s going to be crucial going into this last stretch.”
In a season of inconsistent and often disappointing performances by the Virginia defense, Saturday’s wild 66-49 defeat was the new nadir. Those 66 points were the most allowed by the Wahoos since a 68-0 loss to Texas in 1977; UVa’s 49 points were the most in a losing effort in program history.
The Cougars amassed 734 total yards—349 passing and 385 on the ground. The last time a BYU team racked up more than 300 yards passing and rushing in the same game? The 2005 season, when Bronco Mendenhall was in his first season as the school's head coach.
It was the most points and total yards ever allowed by a Mendenhall-coached team. Not the return to Provo that the head coach, now in his sixth season at Virginia, had envisioned.
“Our defense has to get more stops, has to play better from beginning to end,” Mendenhall said afterward. “That has to happen, especially when you go on the road, especially when you play a good team. That just makes it even more critical.”
Last month’s loss at North Carolina was supposed to be the low point. That’s what Mendenhall had maintained over the past month. The Hoos gave up 59 points and 699 total yards that night in Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels didn’t have to punt. They scored on nine of their 12 possessions, including touchdowns on all five drives after halftime.
Progress and plays were both being made in the month that followed, particularly in the four wins that came after UVa’s loss at home to Wake Forest. The strong start at Miami. The late stops that fed the rally at Louisville. The shutout of Duke. Joey Blount’s tide-turning interception against Georgia Tech.
From BYU’s first offensive snap, however, when Jaren Hall connected with Samson Nacua for 52 yards, some familiar flaws resurfaced. It was the 10th 50-yard play allowed by the UVa defense, all in the last seven games. Three plays later, the Cougars were in front 7-0.
Before six minutes were played, BYU was up 21-0. The Cougars averaged almost 13 yards per play on those first three drives, and capitalized on the short field set up by a Brennan Armstrong interception on the first play of UVa’s second possession.
By halftime, the Cougars had put up 38 points and 384 total yards—yet somehow still trailed by a field goal. Led by Armstrong, the Hoos came storming back in the second quarter, putting up 35 points and 367 total yards in the frame. That UVa comeback was aided by two defensive series that ended in BYU punts.
But just as in the second half in Chapel Hill, the defense was unable to get off the field unscathed the rest of the way. BYU scored touchdowns on four of its six possessions after halftime. One of those non-scoring drives ended with a missed field goal; the other came at the end of the game.
“They're very physical, and so we seldom had anyone beating a block and making a tackle,” Mendenhall said. “And if we did have an unblocked player, their running back No. 25 [Tyler Allgeier] was either running over or through or around.”
Beginning with a 49-yard score on the first drive after halftime, Allgeier ran for 192 yards and three touchdowns in the second half alone. He finished with a career high 266 rushing yards on the night, the most by an opposing running back against the Hoos since the turn of the 21st century. Allgeier’s five rushing touchdowns were the most against UVa since Navy’s Zach Abey scored five times in the 2017 Military Bowl.
“He’s a heck of a player. That’s a matter of fact,” said Jackson. “He’s a physical runner. He goes downhill. He’s a great player.”
That BYU physicality permeated the entire game. The Cougars averaged more than 9 yards per play on first down. Virginia’s inability to slow BYU’s run game forced the Hoos to devote fewer players to pass coverage, and the Cougars won many of those one-on-one matchups on the outside. Hall’s 349 passing yards were also a career best; the Nacua brothers finished with 107 receiving yards and a score apiece. BYU finished with six plays of at least 30 yards, the most allowed by UVa this season.
The Wahoos were able to match the BYU offense score-for-score for much of the night, until Armstrong left the game in the fourth quarter with an apparent rib injury following his second pick. The injury came on the same drive that Armstrong, who threw for 337 yards and four touchdowns and ran for another 94 yards and two scores, surpassed the UVa school record for passing yards in a season.
He’s now at 3,557 passing yards for the year, though the quarterback’s status for the final month of the season was unknown in the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s loss. Armstrong’s status likely won’t be updated until Mendenhall meets with reporters again in the lead-up to the Notre Dame game following this bye week.
The other question coming off the bye will be what adjustments the Wahoos make to address their defensive woes. After Saturday night, Virginia ranks 121st in the country in total defense, allowing 466.2 yards per game. The pass defense ranks 92nd nationally (247.1 ypg) while the Hoos rank 124th of 130 teams against the run (219.1 ypg).
Schematically, the Hoos have shifted to a 3-3-5 base defense this season that has struggled to either generate pressure on opposing quarterbacks or force turnovers. BYU turned three field-tilting takeaways into touchdowns on Saturday night; the UVa defense failed to record a turnover for the fourth time this season. The Wahoos also failed to notch a sack for the third time this season.
Virginia also was held without a sack or a takeaway in the loss against Wake Forest last month. Prior to this season, that had only happened four times in Mendenhall’s first five years at UVa, and last occurred in 2018.
From a personnel standpoint, seven players—Jahmeer Carter and Mandy Alonso on the line, Jackson and Noah Taylor at linebacker, and defensive backs Anthony Johnson, De’Vante Cross and Blount—have started at least eight of the Cavaliers’ nine games. In the absence of injured corner Fentrell Cypress, who last played at Louisville, Darrius Bratton saw his role increase on Saturday at the expense of Nick Grant. Some younger or less-experienced players have also been pressed into bigger roles as the season has worn on.
Mendenhall didn’t specify what, if any, changes could be in order, though he did concede that it will be on both players and defensive coaches to improve over these next two weeks of practice.
"They'll have to be better, continue to be better down the stretch,” he said of his coaching staff, “and they know that.”
The loss did not damage UVa’s bid for another Coastal Division title. The division race actually tightened up on Saturday with first-place Pitt losing for the first time in conference play. Miami’s 38-34 victory at Heinz Field moved Virginia (6-3 overall, 4-2 ACC) a game behind the 3-1 Panthers (6-2 overall) in the loss column of the Coastal standings. The Wahoos will visit Pittsburgh on November 20th.
But that was almost an afterthought to Jackson on Saturday night.
“We’ve got to dial in,” said the linebacker, who matched his career high with 16 tackles against BYU. “We’ve got to play harder. We’ve got to play faster. We’ve got to play smarter for our offense. Our offense, there’s no way they put up 50-some, 49 points, something like that, and to lose the game. Our defense has got to be better.”
JOIN CAVSCORNER TODAY!
If you are not already a member of CavsCorner, come join us and see what all of the buzz is about.
Click HERE to subscribe and get all of the latest news and join hundreds of other UVa fans in talking about Cavalier football, basketball, and recruiting. You won't be disappointed!
