Game-week press conferences have always been the official turning of the page to a new opponent and a new task at hand. For season openers, they’re when the rubber meets the road for the fall campaign. And that’s even more true this year given how close UVa has gotten to game week.

Yesterday, head coach Bronco Mendenhall spoke for more than a half an hour ahead of Virginia’s matchup against Duke (0-2, 0-2 ACC) on Saturday afternoon (4 p.m., ACC Network).

As we do each week during the season, we’ve looked at the depth chart and Mendenhall’s comments in order to break down some things we know, some questions we have, and one prediction we have for the week ahead.

Here’s the first 3-2-1 of 2020:

1. The Hoos have been on Grounds a long time and are ready for a game.

One of the initial comments that Mendenhall made once his session began was a simple framing of the situation facing his team. “I was counting or calculating today,” he said. “I think my team has been back 12 weeks. We’re anxious to play football. And they’ve done an absolutely remarkable job of managing the virus.”

That’s a pretty good summation of where things are as the Hoos get ready to host Duke this weekend. The players have been facing the same teammates on the other side of the ball over and over for a while now and the chance to finally play someone else is very much in front of them and one they’re excited about.

“As of today,” Mendenhall added, “we’re still zero at positive tests within our team. And that’s an amazing accomplishment by them. I’m looking forward to helping them play football now in a real game and hopefully get a reward for all of their hard work, so far.”

As the program prepares for the Blue Devils, Mendenhall and Co. will have sufficient film of 2020 Duke but David Cutcliffe and his staff in Durham won’t have any of UVa. It’s a quirk of the (very) revamped schedule that would give most coaches reason for frustration.

“I think the tactical advantage comes to us just simply because there isn’t much tape on Brennan Armstrong and what our offense looks like with Brennan, rather than Bryce (Perkins),” Mendenhall said later. “If I was a defensive coordinator, I'd want to know as much about the quarterback, how that might change the style of offense, what that might look like, and I’d love to have that certainty or more certainty in that regard.”

2. There are a few injuries worth keeping track of right now.

For the most part, Mendenhall said, the Hoos are in a really good spot going into the opener. Despite the longer preseason and the continued pressures therein, UVa heads into the bulk of game week with only two real injuries impacting things. Inside linebacker Rob Snyder, who figures to be among the starting rotation when healthy, is still coming back from his season-ending lower leg injury he suffered last year. Both he and offensive tackle Bobby Haskins are likely to miss Saturday’s game but Mendenhall said he is "hopeful" that they could return the following week. Not having Snyder means UVa’s extremely deep linebacking corps takes a hit but not a substantial one given the amount of playable depth. Haskins is likely in the mix to be a starter or at least in the rotation among starters when healthy, like Snyder, but Virginia isn’t nearly as deep at OT as at LB. So that’s an injury that could impact things if there’s an injury up front. Otherwise, the team remains healthy and ready to go.

3. And there’s one more opt out.

One bit of news that Mendenhall also shared which is impacting UVa’s depth on the O-line was that grad transfer Alex Gellerstedt has decided to opt out of the 2020 season. Having missed all of last year following preseason surgery to repair structural damage in his knee, the former Penn State tackle was looking to push for PT this fall. Through fall camp and the intervening practices, though, sources said that he wasn’t as greatly in the mix. As such, this is an opt out that, like the others, hurts overall depth but doesn’t appear to change things too dramatically for the Cavaliers.

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