The 3-2-1: Takeaways, questions, and more from camp

After opening fall camp on August 2, the Cavaliers have been hard at works on the fields outside the McCue Center (and the quickly-developing future operations center) in preparation for the season opener in Nashville against Tennessee.

Three weeks before that kickoff against the Vols, the Wahoos held their first scrimmage of camp this past weekend.

So the 3-2-1 is back with some thoughts on things coming out of that day and camp thus far.

1. We got a sneak peak at the OL two-deep in Saturday’s scrimmage but with a major asterisk.

UVa held its first scrimmage of fall camp on Saturday afternoon at Scott Stadium. Assembled media were able to watch about three drives, two with the first-team offense going against the first-team defense. It was a small sample size, but the offensive line was broken down this way:

First Team (Left to Right) Ugonna Nnanna, Noah Josey, Ty Furnish, Brian Stevens, and Blake Steen.

Second Team: Jack Witmer, Noah DeMerritt, Jestus Johnson, Noah Hartsoe, and Charlie Patterson.

The major caveat is that both McKale Boley and Jimmy Christ were in yellow and not participating, at least in the open part of the scrimmage. Boley and Christ could end up being the team’s starting tackles, which would obviously shake up the offensive line’s two-deep in a major way. Boley is certainly the odds-on favorite to play left tackle and if he does, then Nnanna should slide over to left guard. Then either Josey or Stevens would be bumped down to the second group.

It is interesting that Steen was in the first group and perhaps we shouldn’t read too much into that, and he simply had that spot for the day. Assuming Christ is ahead of him at RT, that would make Steen a potential second teamer, which would be a bit of a surprise given Patterson is a more experienced player who was in the mix last season in camp.

Saturday’s line groups may also tell us that Terry Heffernan and the staff feel better about their depth at guard than tackle, as Nnanna slid over to LT and either Josey or Stevens took the open guard spot. Otherwise, they could have gone with their top two guards, and bumped up tackles to replace Christ, Boley, or both.

Our guess, for now, is that Boley and Christ are indeed the starters at tackle, transfers Nnanna and Stevens take the guard spots, with Furnish at center. And then the first tackle inserted would be either Witmer or Steen, and the first guard called upon off the bench would be Josey.

We still have more than two weeks to sort these things out before the season opener, of course.

2. Ball security has been a major emphasis in fall camp.

The media has been granted access to a few fall camp practices with the ability to view the first few periods before the rest of practice is closed. In what we’ve been able see, there has been a big emphasis in technique and individual drills across the board, and for the skill position players on the offensive side a lot of ball security work.

In every open practice thus far, all of the receivers, running backs and quarterbacks have gone through a couple different ball security drills, pushed by their coaches, including Tony Elliott, who has often been paying close attention and getting hands on with these drills.

Every team works on ball security and they should, as turnovers determine the outcome of so many games. But this program specifically should be focused on ball security after a rough 2022 season, where the Hoos fumbled the ball 12 times and lost 10 of them. They ranked second-to-last nationally in percentage of fumbles lost at 83.3 percent, with only Miami doing worse in that category. UVa had 12 fumbles in 10 games which actually ranked 31st-best nationally, but simply wasn’t able to recover enough of them and it cost the team dearly. The Cavaliers lost three fumbles in a very narrow win over ODU that could and should have been more comfortable. The same can be said of the win over Georgia Tech, when thet lost two fumbles in another close win. UVa also had fumble losses against Richmond, Illinois, Duke, Louisville and Syracuse, surrendering 19 total turnovers in their first seven games.

If there are silver linings: UVa didn’t have a single fumble lost in the last three games of the season, and of the 10 fumbles lost, only three came from returnees (Demick Starling, Mike Hollins, and Perris Jones.)

3. Several first-years have stood out to the coaching staff through the first two weeks.

Last week, Elliott was asked which of his first-years have stood out thus far in fall camp. He mentioned the following players, by name:

LB Kam Robinson

WR Suderian Harrison

CB Keandre Walker

WR TyLyricColeman

OT Cole Surber

EDGE Mekhi Buchanan

DT Jason Hammond

DB Devin Clark

It’s worth noting that freshmen flash in camp all the time, and their mention when this topic comes up doesn’t necessarily mean they have a legitimate path to significant playing time.

Still, it’s always interesting to see which first-years are making an immediate impact and potentially putting themselves in a position to play early.

Harrison and Coleman are both options at receiver, a position with a lot of turnover. Both players have also returned kicks and punts in camp, so that’s another way they could get on the field. Walker was on the second-team defense in what we saw of Saturday’s scrimmage, and it seems like he is having a nice camp thus far. And Robinson came in as UVa’s top recruit in the 2023 class and while he has a pot of athleticism and is a promising young player, Elliott was quick to mention how much he has to learn on the mental side of the game, as the middle linebacker is responsible for so many calls and changes pre-snap.

1. At what point does playing time for Jack Griese become realistic?

Griese, a walk-on running back, was the star of the Spring Game in April, rushing for 90 yards and a touchdown. The Chantilly native flashed again in our brief access to Saturday’s scrimmage, scoring a long touchdown run off tackle right, breaking through a big hole up front and going untouched to the end zone.

As discussed recently, the running back room is very deep, and perhaps Griese took advantage of the fact that Kobe Pace and Cody Brown were not participating on Saturday. Still, it seems that every time we see Griese getting carries, he’s doing things with them.

Perhaps there isn’t a path for a walk-on becoming a major part of the rotation in a deep and talented running back room, but if he is also flashing when we aren’t able to see him play then it merits discussion.

2. What does Lex Long’s role on the defense look like this fall?

UVa has some experience and quality at the safety position, and it seems that has allowed the Cavaliers to move Long into more of a hybrid safety/linebacker role this fall as planned.

Long was already a big safety at 6-foot-3, 220 pounds, and it makes sense that they can use him more around the line of scrimmage than in deep coverage. He would be a plus athlete at the linebacker spot, and it will be interesting to see what sort of role John Rudzinski can find for Long, a player that showed some flashes last year, this fall.

Demick Starling will get opportunities to be a breakout player this fall.

We already mentioned that UVa has a lot of change in the receiver room. Starling has gone from a backup player with upside to a pass catcher that will be depended on to make big plays.

Likely the fastest player on the team, his speed has apparently shown up in fall camp as the Tennessee native strives for consistency.

Elliott mentioned that Starling has made some big plays in camp thus far and has been able to string multiple good days in a row, something that he struggled to do in the past.

UVa doesn’t have a better candidate to turn short throws into long gains or beat the defense over the top. Our guess is that the offense will find ways to get Starling the ball in space, and the rest will be up to him.