Heffernan and Co. looking to rebuild UVa's offensive line

With spring football more than halfway done and the spring game just over a week away, UVa’s 2023 football team is moving closer and closer to what everyone will see when the Hoos take the field against Tennessee on September 2.

There are plenty of position groups going through changes and seeking improvement, but the offensive line is more under the microscope this than most.

Virginia’s five-man front went through a transition year in 2022, as the Cavaliers switched coaching staffs and schemes while also looking to replace most of the starters on the line. And now, UVa looks to turn the page again, hoping to see growth in a young group and find a few new starters.

The man tasked with making the offensive line more formidable is Terry Heffernan, who was hired in mid-January to replace outgoing line coach Garett Tujague following seven seasons in Charlottesville. Heffernan has plenty of coaching experience at both the college and pro level, most recently as the OL coach at Stanford. Before that, he had stops with the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions in the NFL, along with college jobs at Wayne State and Eastern Kentucky.

While Heffernan is now nearly done with his first spring at UVa, he’s still new to Charlottesville and is taking advantage of time he’s had to get to know his players.

“The moving truck comes this week, so my kids and my wife will be out here pretty soon,” Heffernan said this week. “But I’ve had nothing to do besides hang out with these guys, be in the office, spend time, have them swing by the office and sit down and talk to them, since I moved here.”

Heffernan learned quickly what the perception of the offensive line play was from the outside once getting to Charlottesville, apparently running into a Virginia fan who recognized him at a local grocery store and told him that the line needed a lot of work. The veteran coach was quick to relay that story to his players, hoping they could use that doubt as motivation.

“There’s a lot of chatter and to think that these kids don’t hear the chatter about what the expectations for this line is would be naive of me,” he explained. “So I think the way I’ve approached it and the way they’ve approached it is let’s use that as fuel. I know I work better when I’m pushing against odds and people are doubting me. So that’s something we try to embrace.

“We’ve got a chance every single day we come out here to improve, and we know we need to improve,” he added. “We’re building this line, we’re building this product, and nobody else is going to be able to see it until we hit the field against Tennessee.”

There has been a lot of talk about buy-in around the program and that has apparently translated to the offensive line room, where Heffernan has been pleased with how the linemen have handled the transition.

“They’re out here working hard and they’ve been incredibly receptive,” Heffernan said. “I do things differently. I didn’t really come in and ask and say ‘Hey what was done previously,’ I just said ‘Hey here’s how we’re going to do things.’ And there’s been no pushback, just acceptance.”

Heffernan’s biggest focus as he looks to rebuild the line is on the little things. Both Ty Furnish and McKale Boley commented this week on Heffernan’s relentless attention to detail, which is clearly an area in which the new offensive line coach takes pride.

“Everybody can improve by diving into fundamentals, working their tails off. I try to improve every day as a coach even though it’s 21 years for me,” Heffernan said. “I hit the field thinking I’m going to be better today than I was in the last practice. So that’s the attitude we’re seeking.”

So then the question becomes: As spring winds down where is this group when it comes to the details?

“Fundamentally, we’re a work in progress, Heffernan said. “I’ll tell you a secret, so is every group I’ve ever worked with. You’re always trying to get better. You always can improve; your pads can get lower, your hands can get tighter, your feet can move in phase more. And that’s something we’re working on every single day. It’s a young group, so some guys have more screws that they need to tighten on their technique than others. But every group I’ve ever worked with, you try to dive into that technique to build your foundation.”

The line, like all position groups, is going to have good days and bad, particularly in the spring when some players are out with injuries or recovering from offseason surgeries. Still, it seems that Heffernan is optimistic about the growth he has seen to date.

“We’ve shown a lot of improvement,” he said. “We’ve grown in our pass protection, most recently. We had a major emphasis on running off the ball and knocking defenders back early, and as we got into some more third down periods, it’s a young group and not a ton of people played together. So you have to build that bond and that shared experience in pass protection to be able to pass off twist games and be able to pick up blitzes. So I think we made a jump there.”

When asked what jumped out to him about the roster he inherited once he got to Grounds, Heffernan said that the team has a higher ceiling athletically, which bodes well for the group’s development.

“We’re more athletic in certain positions than I saw on tape a year ago,” he said. “I think more athletic overall and some of those guys have lost a significant amount of weight to get there. Some of those guys have changed their bodies and I think it’s showed up as us being more athletic overall.”

Heffernan did receive a boost to the position group with the Hoos adding a pair of transfers, one of whom was available for spring ball. Ugonna Nnanna came over from Houston and appears to be the projected starter at left guard. In such a young group, Nnanna’s experience and presence has been a big lift for the O-Line.

“He’s a great guy, which helps,” Heffernan said of Nnanna. “He works his tail off and I think everybody has looked and seen that, and appreciated that. And this is a young group, so bringing in an older guy I think there’s a lot of young guys that look to him and say ‘Hey, how do you get ready for a lift? How do you get ready for practice? How do you study your football, what questions do you ask?’ And he’s done a wonderful job having a great process on all of those things. And I think in a lot of ways he’s helped to mentor and bring along some of our younger guys.”

Next to Nnanna on the left side is the rising sophomore Boley, who saw some playing time as a freshman and appears to have a high ceiling as he continues to learn the game. Boley has only played offensive line for a few years and is still learning but he has certainly turned the head of his position coach.

“McKale Boley, he can play,” Heffernan said of his 6-foot-4, 331-pound tackle. “He can really play. He’s a very, very talented, smart, conscientious young man. He’s working his tail off, getting in here and watching extra tape, loves the game of football, loves to study it, and has been just a very willing participant in everything we’ve done and has stood out in every phase. He’s got to make a huge jump if he’s going to be out on the field for us as a starter this year, he’s got to make a huge jump.

“That’s being assignment sound to start, and physical in his play, and being in the right position, using the right technique,” he added. “Those are all things he’s working on every single day. I’ve just been just ecstatic with what we’ve gotten out of McKale thus far, but there’s a lot, lot more left for him.”

Heffernan went on to explain that every player on the line has had a good practice, or flashes of good play, but not every practice or rep has been up to the standard. As the group matures and plays more together, the hope is that they’ll be able to raise the bar and make good plays a routine.

“What we seek now is consistency,” Heffernan said of the line as spring practice enters it’s final week. “There’s been plenty of guys who have had a good practice, or two or three good practices. What I tell them is that the guys that are going to play for us this year are the guys we can trust. When I put you out there in the big environment that our first game is, I want to know the product that we’re going to get. That’s from built trust together, and that comes from consistency and showing up every single day.”

When explaining his philosophy around what makes an offensive line click and how to find that consistency, Heffernan used a food analogy, which any offensive lineman should love.

“Building an offensive line, it’s not grilling or baking,” he said. “It’s kind of like a slow cooker. You have to have all of those ingredients around each other for a long time. And when you put them in the slow cooker in the morning you might say that doesn't look very good, and then you come home from work and you smell it when you come in the kitchen and you’re like ‘Okay, now we’re rolling.’ So right now we’ve got our ingredients in there, and the more they can be around each other, whether that’s out at dinner, whether that’s in the cafeteria, whether that’s in the film room, whether that’s on the practice field, the more they can interact and build those bonds and communication, the better off we’re going to be.”

Heffernan is trying to accomplish a few key things this spring and fall. First, find the right five guys. Then, teach them the techniques to be successful until they have mastered them. And then, get those players enough reps together to really know each other, so they can work as one unit. But even then, the work doesn’t stop, as he will always be chasing better.

“I’ll never like where we are,” Heffernan said of his motivation, coaching his new group of linemen. “I’ll always want more, I’ll always push these guys to be better because there’s so much left in the tank for this group. I hope they have that same attitude that we can improve every day and need to improve every day. Being satisfied and happy with where we are is going to work against us.”