The 3-2-1: Hoos hope to take momentum to Louisville

It’s common for Jim Daves, Virginia’s assistant athletics director for athletic communications, to be waiting for Bronco Mendenhall as he comes off the field after a win with a checklist of what it signifies.

“I've had a lot of the first time sinces in my short time here at Virginia,” Mendenhall, now in his sixth season as UVa’s head coach, told reporters on Monday. “This is the first time since. This is the first time since. This is the first time since. The last time we did that was. This was another first time since.”

The latest example came last Thursday night at Hard Rock Stadium, where the Wahoos held on for a 30-28 win against Miami. It was Virginia’s first ACC win on the road since beating North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 2019, and the program’s first win at Miami since 2011.

“Huge,” sixth-year defensive back Nick Grant said on Monday. “Never won at Miami before, so huge.”

The win at Miami also gave the Hoos their first ACC win of the season. It was the Hurricanes’ conference opener; Pitt (who hammered Georgia Tech 52-21) and Duke (who got hammered 38-7 at UNC) also played their first conference games of the season.

With the Wahoos having the weekend off, Grant spent Saturday watching other games from around the league, “and it's just as crazy as everybody painted it out to be like.”

As safety Coen King tried to break down for his family over the weekend, the win kept the Wahoos in the mix in that tightly-bundled Coastal. They avoided becoming the first team in the entire league with three ACC losses. They’re still two games behind both Pitt and Virginia Tech in the loss column, but two months of chaos remain on the schedule.

This weekend, the Wahoos will visit a place they’ve never won: Louisville, where UVa is 0-4 all-time, with three of those losses coming since the Cardinals joined the ACC in 2015. Mendenhall has been head coach for half of those defeats.

Finding ways to win consistently on the road has become a priority for Mendenhall and his staff. Prior to Thursday’s victory, the Hoos had lost five in a row away from Scott Stadium, all against conference opponents. UVa last won consecutive ACC road games in 2011, when a victory at Miami jumps-started a streak that also included wins at Maryland and Florida State.

“To have a tangible result that reflects progress is always important,” Mendenhall said of last Thursday’s win. “As you mentioned, doesn't mean we've arrived, but it was accomplished. That counts. It counts in any way that you can get it. Now we use that and build.”

After missing last week’s session on Zoom, Mendenhall was back on Monday to take questions from reporters about his 3-2 team and this weekend’s trip to visit the also 3-2 Cardinals. Grant and King were available as well.

Just like the Hoos, we’re back on schedule this week with the latest 3-2-1:

1. The Wahoos are rested heading into Louisville week.

The win at Miami ended a unique stretch of three games in a 12-day span on the UVa schedule to end September. After playing at UNC on September 18th, the Hoos had a short week to prepare for a Friday game at home against Wake Forest followed by another quick turnaround to prepare and travel to face the Canes.

The reward for enduring that compressed schedule was an extended break once the team returned to Charlottesville early Friday morning. Other than a light session in the weight room on Saturday, players were given the weekend off.

When they reconvened Monday morning to begin preparing for Louisville, “everybody came back real fresh,” said King.

"Dealing with some nagging injuries, I saw some people look a little bit more up than they usually do coming in on a regular week Monday,” he said. “The long weekend really helped.”

Mendenhall admitted that he had trouble keeping track of what day it was during the two weeks of accelerated preparation. The team’s typical routine doesn’t include practice on Mondays, but the past two weeks required bumping the schedule up a day. While coaches used the weekend to get a head start on Louisville, players were able to use the days off to recover and heal, both physically and mentally.

“Good to be recalibrated,” he said. “Doesn't mean everything is now magically fixed and healed as far as body parts or anything else, but the rest came at the right time.”

UVa is now able to get back to its normal routine with a full week of practice starting Tuesday morning at the McCue Center.

“These last couple of days have just been huge on getting our minds right, getting our mind, body, spirits right,” said Grant, “just to keep going and keep the direction that we want to head for the rest of the season.”

2. Limiting big plays remains a point of emphasis.

Virginia’s defensive collapse in Chapel Hill last month—the Wahoos gave up 699 yards of total offense, the most in program history—has been well chronicled. In the days after that 59-29 loss, Mendenhall hoped the defense could take some lessons from the way Carolina exploited some of its flaws.

“Yeah, some definite weaknesses exposed, some overestimations on my part of where we were after two weeks,” he conceded two weeks ago.

The coaching staff saw some incremental improvement in the loss to Wake Forest, though the Deacs still posted 37 points on 473 total yards and scored on their first seven possessions to put the game out of reach. Mendenhall said on Monday that the Hoos are still “chipping away” at addressing those exposed flaws coming off the win at Miami.

“It's showing yield,” he said. “We need to add consistency to it, but I see it happening, yes, from not only the Miami game but the Wake Forest game. I saw progress in both.”

For much of Thursday’s game, the defense looked like it had corrected many of its issues. Across their first 11 drives, the Canes managed just 14 points on 135 total yards. They converted just two of their first 10 third down tries.

But as Miami nearly rallied on a night when the Wahoos never trailed, the defense began to crack in critical situations. The Hurricanes put up 241 yards on their final three possessions and converted three of their final five third downs. They also scored 14 points on those final three drives—and would have added three more if Andres Borregales hadn’t hit the upright with the would-be game-winning field goal as time expired.

Finding a way to better simulate those key defensive situations will be a goal for Mendenhall and the staff in practice this week.

“In this past game what became clear is we led the game from beginning to end,” he said. “So playing from in front from beginning to end, then as teams are becoming more desperate to score, then making sure that we're aware of the down and the distance and the situation, where the sticks are. Just contextual football I think is the answer, right?”

The Hoos will also work to further minimize explosive plays by opposing offenses. The defense has surrendered at least one pass of at least 40 yards and a run of at least 50 yards in each of the last three games. Against UNC, the defense surrendered five plays of at least 30 yards including three of at least 50. Wake also had five of 30-plus; Miami had three, with two coming after halftime.

Grant believes those big plays have resulted from defensive players lining up incorrectly, often while fighting fatigue or being challenged by a hurry-up offense. He says the Hoos have been more assignment sound in recent weeks, which will continue to be emphasized.

Defensive coordinator Nick Howell has also been stressing accountability in practice, according to King.

“In practice, running to the ball, everybody getting to the ball and if not, you get subbed out,” he said. “Everybody’s being held to the same standard right now.”

3. The offensive line will have a vintage look on Saturday.

For the first time since the 2019 season, Ryan Nelson was not UVa’s starter at left tackle at Miami. Instead, Nelson was at left guard against the Hurricanes. Jonathan Leech got the start at left tackle, but it was Bobby Haskins who saw most of the snaps at that spot.

Upon further review, Mendenhall liked what he saw when Haskins and Nelson were lined up next to each other on the left side of the line.

“I really have liked Ryan Nelson at guard. That seems to be a natural and effective position for him, so I've liked that a lot,” he said. “As I was reviewing film with the team, and I do that where I'm kind of talking about all positions and all things in front of the entire team, that didn't take long on offense where Haskins kept showing up and blocking really well and playing through the whistle, just performing in a way that we knew he could, but has been a little bit hampered by injury.”

When Virginia released its latest depth chart for the Louisville game on Saturday, it listed Nelson and Haskins as co-starters at left tackle and Nelson and Joe Bissinger, who started the first four games, at left guard.

Haskins was at left tackle and Nelson at left guard for the final 13 games of the 2019 season when the Wahoos had Bryce Perkins breaking total offense records at quarterback and the team won the Coastal Division title. Nelson moved to tackle last year when Haskins was limited by a back injury. Haskins also missed two games with injury this fall.

Putting Haskins and Nelson back together on the left side would reunite four-fifths of the starting O-line from that 2019 team. Center Olu Oluwatimi and right guard Chris Glaser have each started all but one game over the past three seasons. Ryan Swoboda has started all 15 games at right tackle since the start of last year.

Mendenhall likes that chemistry, plus the added depth of Bissinger and Leech along with true freshman Logan Taylor, who has played in each of the last two games.

“Rarely do you see an offensive front that can play over 80 plays really, really effectively and really, really aggressively for that amount, at least in relation to my standards,” he said. “I would love to see Bissinger and Leech also continue to show up as they are. That gives us really about eight when you look at the different possibilities of players that can rotate through and not suffer anything execution-wise.”