The 3-2-1: Wahoos turn their attention to Illinois matchup

Saturday night’s 43-0 season-opening victory against William & Mary at Scott Stadium wasn’t a first for Bronco Mendenhall at Virginia.

It was a second.

Prior to blanking the Tribe, the only shutout in Mendenhall’s first five seasons as head coach was the 28-0 win against South Carolina in the 2018 Belk Bowl. The defense did establish a new low in total yards allowed in the Mendenhall era by limiting W&M to just 183 on the night.

Yes, the Tribe were missing a few key players for Saturday’s opener, including their starting quarterback, top running back, and longtime starter at left tackle. But as Mendenhall told the Hoos on Monday morning, that still doesn’t diminish what what the defense was able to accomplish in the opener.

“It's really hard to shut anybody out,” Mendenhall said to reporters on his Monday video news conference. “I made the comment to my team today, it's hard to shut someone out just playing against air. It's challenging. There's just so many different things that can happen.”

The last time the Hoos threw multiple shutouts in the same season? Back in 2008, when they blanked Richmond and then Maryland a month later, both at Scott Stadium. They’ve done it four times in the last 20 years. You have to go all the way back to the 1952 team that kept its first three opponents off the board for the last time UVa posted consecutive shutouts.

This weekend, the Wahoos get a 1-1 Illinois team that has scored 30 points in each of its first two games for a Saturday morning matinee in Charlottesville. Mendenhall was joined on Zoom by receiver Ra’Shaun Henry and defensive back Nick Grant on Monday, and the team also released its updated depth chart for Saturday against those Fighting Illini.

So without further adieu, another game-week edition of the 3-2-1:

1. Jelani Woods is healthy.

The one glaring injury concern to come out of Saturday’s win was the status of Jelani Woods, the 6-foot-7 tight end with the No. 0 target on his back. Needless to say, he didn’t have the UVa debut he’d hoped for after arriving to much anticipation as a grad transfer this offseason.

Woods made just one catch for 5 yards on two targets against the Tribe, and according to PFF College played just 23 snaps. Afterward, Mendenhall didn’t have many details, saying he’d only been told Woods was out for an unclear reason.

Monday’s update on the tight end was again light on details, but still the news that UVa fans were hoping to hear.

“He’s good to go,” Mendenhall said. “No ill effects and yeah, 100 percent.”

The other injury note from the head coach was less encouraging. When asked later about the status of cornerback Josh Hayes, the grad transfer from North Dakota State who has been dealing with a lower leg injury since camp, Mendenhall admitted that he didn’t have an exact time frame.

The Hoos had been hopeful that Hayes would be back in time to play last Saturday, but he remained off the depth chart heading into this weekend against Illinois.

“It looks like it's just going to be a little longer than what we thought,” Mendenhall said “but we're still hopeful that he comes back and contributes this season and certainly the beginning of the season.”

2. Hunter Stewart has Mendenhall's attention.

Stewart didn’t just set a new career high in tackles against the Tribe. The redshirt sophomore linebacker surpassed his entire career total by finishing with six on Saturday night.

It was a performance that made his head coach take note—literally.

“I send notes in my brief before we meet to the different staffs, the offensive staff, the defensive staff, the special teams,” Mendenhall said, “and that was my very first note to our defensive staff was I was impressed with Hunter Stewart's play.”

Those half-dozen tackles included the first 1.5 tackles for loss of his college career. His previous game high was three last November against Abilene Christian. Stewart finished last year with four total tackles.

Stewart is again listed as the starter at the MIKE linebacker spot for Saturday’s game. According to PFF, the 22 snaps he took against W&M were also a career high. Mendenhall said he saw “a big jump” in the linebacker’s performance compared to the limited time he saw on defense last fall.

“What a great time and what a big need that he's addressing,” Mendenhall added. “So I was impressed with his play, and of the entire team, right, he was the one to me that—I'm not going to say was unexpected, but how he played was—man, I would say probably exceeded the expectations I had of where he would be in week one, so it was great.”

3. All Ra’Shaun Henry does is catch touchdowns…for now.

When it was brought to Mendenhall’s attention that five of Henry’s nine career catches at UVa were for touchdowns, the head coach admitted that was a statistic he wasn’t aware of.

“It sounds like we need to throw it to him more,” he replied.

Henry had a pair of catches in the opener. He caught a jump ball in the corner of the end zone for a 5-yard score to give UVa a 17-point lead just before the half, then caught a 27-yard pass on the first play of the fourth quarter that set up a Brennan Armstrong touchdown run on the next play.

A graduate transfer from St. Francis who joined the program last August during the COVID-19 pandemic, Henry spent his first offseason in Charlottesville this year. He tried to transform his body this summer, adding a few pounds of muscle while cutting down on his body fat percentage. During camp, receivers coach Marques Hagans said he could see the difference in Henry in his second year at UVa.

Henry spent last fall behind receivers Terrell Jana and Lavel Davis. He finished the year with seven catches for 206 yards and four scores. Teammates would joke about how he only knew how to catch touchdowns.

But Henry caught 109 balls at St. Francis, including an NEC-leading 90 catches in 2019. With Jana now graduated and Davis out with a knee injury suffered in spring practice, the 6-foot-3 Henry sees it as his job to step into that void in the passing game.

“I feel like my role is supposed to be bigger than last year,” he said on Monday, “and I feel like I can bring a lot more than what I did last year as well.”

Mendenhall agrees, saying Henry is emerging from more of a complementary part of the offense last year to a primary threat this season.

“I would consider him the most improved player,” he said, “and I thought he was becoming a strong player through the year last year and toward the end. He's starting at a much higher level than that, so I have a lot of confidence in Ra'Shaun and really excited for him.”

1. Is Nick Grant now a full-time safety?

Despite originally being slotted at safety when he arrived on Grounds, Grant has been a mainstay at cornerback in recent years. He started all 24 games there the past two seasons, and was again listed at the field corner spot on the two-deep prior to last week’s opener.

But when the Wahoos lined up against William & Mary on Saturday, the sixth-year senior was in a different position in the secondary: free safety.

It’s a spot Grant started playing midway through fall camp. He finished with a pair of tackles against the Tribe and on Monday had been moved to first-team free safety on the updated depth chart. Joey Blount was shifted to the Sabre safety spot, while De’Vante Cross was listed as the starter at a nickel safety spot added to the two-deep this week.