Plenty of time off his feet and in the cold tub. Some extra time to rehab and recharge for the season’s stretch run. A weekend without the physical punishment that comes from playing on the defensive line.

Mandy Alonso believes he and his teammates made the most of Virginia’s week off.

“I think a lot of guys really used that time really wisely,” the fifth-year defensive lineman told reporters on Monday, “and we were able to get ahead and get a jump start to this game week.”

UVa is 5-2 coming off bye weeks in the first five seasons of coach Bronco Mendenhall’s tenure. All five of those wins have come at Scott Stadium, including victories against both Louisville and Boston College in the midst of last year’s COVID-19 altered schedule.

This weekend, No. 7 Notre Dame will make just the second all-time visit to Scott Stadium in that program’s storied history. The Fighting Irish are the first top-10 opponent to visit UVa since No. 5 Louisville in 2016. The Irish were ranked No. 9 when they beat the Wahoos in a memorable 34-27 game in Charlottesville in 2015.

With his team’s lone bye coming so late in the schedule, Mendenhall decided that the top priority last week was "getting our players physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy in every possible way we can, and then start to blend in some of the things that need to happen.” The team addressed the 66-49 loss at BYU early in the week, then Virginia’s coaches spent a few days recruiting before reconvening late in the week to start working on what needed to be corrected before facing Notre Dame.

Jelani Woods has been dealing with a an ankle injury that kept him out of UVa’s late September win at Miami and has been nagging the tight end for the last month. The added down time last week gave the 6-foot-7 Woods a chance to get extra treatment on that ankle.

“Right now I feel like I'm pretty much there,” Woods said on Monday. “Feel kind of confident, more confident in my injury, and I feel like I'm pretty much getting back to normal.”

But with all due respect to Woods and his ankle, that’s not the injury update UVa fans were clamoring for after the week off. The latest on quarterback Brennan Armstrong and more is in this edition of the 3-2-1: