Nick Grant has experienced a lot at the McCue Center over the years.
The early-morning lifting and conditioning sessions. Countless reps on the practice field. Position meetings and scrimmages. Teammates picking jersey numbers.
This offseason, the door was left open for Grant and several teammates to do it all again. For the cornerback from Spotsylvania, that would mean a sixth summer of conditioning and camp, of earning a number, and fighting for a starting spot in the Virginia secondary. It was a decision Grant didn’t discuss with anyone else, and a call he didn’t make until the deadline to notify the coaching staff had arrived.
He chose to run it back one final time. Heading into the season opener Saturday night against William & Mary, he’s glad he did.
“Up until this point it’s been very special,” Grant said of his sixth camp with the Cavaliers. “As a younger guy, you don’t really see what the coaches are saying and you don’t really take into consideration all of the time, all of the hard things that we do. But it just makes me appreciate the things that I’ve been through and what can come of this season.”
Grant is among the eight so-called "super seniors" on the UVa roster this season who are taking advantage of the additional year of eligibility granted by the NCAA because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He’s one of three in the secondary alone, along with safeties Joey Blount and De’Vante Cross. There’s also defensive linemen Mandy Alonso and Adeeb Atariwa, linebacker Elliott Brown, offensive lineman Chris Glaser, and receiver Ra’Shaun Henry.
When head coach Bronco Mendenhall presented those players with the option of coming back this season, his stipulation, as described to reporters at the outset of camp, was simple: “Don’t come back unless you’re passionate about this program improving and you’re improving, and really mean and want to come back.”
For some of those seniors, the decision was an easy one.
“I knew I had to come back and do what I had to do,” said Brown.
“There was never a doubt in my mind,” said Alonso. “Even on my worst practices or worst days in winter or spring, in spring ball and summer workouts, I never doubted it for a second. I thought of it as my last shot and my last season, and just trying to attack every day for an end goal. I didn’t come back just to come back and go through the process again. I came back to make a difference.”
Grant and Cross both redshirted as freshmen on Mendenhall’s two-win team in 2016, the head coach’s initial season in Charlottesville. Most of the other super seniors—Alonso, Blount, Brown, and Glaser—were part of the staff’s first true recruiting class and were first-years of the six-win Military Bowl team in 2017.
By the time Atariwa and Henry arrived as graduate transfers in 2020, the program was coming off four straight seasons of ‘unbroken growth.’ The Hoos had improved their win total each year and played in three straight bowl games, culminating in the 2019 team’s nine-win campaign that included a Coastal Division title and the school’s first-ever Orange Bowl appearance.
Amid the uniqueness of a season played during the pandemic, that unbroken growth was halted last fall. A four-game winning streak that began in late October ended with a 33-15 loss in Blacksburg. UVa finished the regular season 5-5 then opted out of playing in a postseason bowl.
“We did not end the season last year the way that we wanted to,” Grant said, “and really it’s just unfinished business and it’s very personal to all of us.”
Despite not sharing the same experiences in orange and blue as most of his fellow super seniors, Atariwa shares that motivation. He arrived at UVa last August after four seasons at James Madison, including a redshirt year in 2016. The Dukes only lost eight games total in that four-year stretch.
"I was very unhappy with the way we ended the season last year, especially losing to Tech in our last game,” he admitted. “I’m not used to losing that many games in a college career and straight up, I wanted to change that. I wanted to help to change that. I wanted to leave that mark as 5-5, that’s not good enough for me.”
Getting those seniors back gave the roster a jolt of added depth at a few positions, most notably the secondary, where Blount, Cross, and Grant have combined for 73 career starts. As safeties coach Shane Hunter pointed out recently, “All of a sudden that means the guys who would be the new 1s this year, now they’re your 2s. The guys who would be your 2s are your 3s.”
It’s the same on the defensive line, where Alonso has started 23 career games, and on the O-line, where Glaser has made 32. Atariwa started six of UVa’s 10 games last year while Henry started two.
All eight super seniors were listed on the depth chart as starters for Saturday’s opener. That includes Brown, who is back for a fifth year after making just one start in his first four UVa seasons. He originally arrived in Charlottesville in 2017 as part of a loaded linebacker class that also included Charles Snowden, Zane Zandier, and Matt Gahm.
“He’s had some good players ahead of him,” defensive coordinator Nick Howell said. “It hasn’t been lack of effort or anything like that. It’s just, you never know when your opportunity’s gonna come. None of us do in anything that we do. It’s really, do you have the mindset to be prepared when your opportunity comes? And I’ve seen that from him so far.”
Brown came back knowing nothing would be handed to him but said, “I’m still chasing a goal.”
“You’ve got to fall in love with it. It’s a difficult place,” he added. “I think Bronco would tell you too that it’s a place where if you love football you’ll be here, and if you don’t, that decision whether you love it or not, you have to decide what you want to do.”
It’s the same decision each of the super seniors had to come to over the offseason. Mendenhall could sense them reevaluating their choice throughout the course of grinding through another cycle of winter workouts and spring practices, into summer conditioning and preseason camp.
"I’ve watched each one of them kind of, not only at the beginning but along the way, ponder, ‘Wait, is this really what I want to do?’” he said during camp. “And coming out of it, then their motivation, their intent, and I think their mindset, is at a higher level than what it was, maybe even before they had the choice to come back.”
By coming back, those super seniors get a second chance to write the ending to their college careers. A few of them endured 2-10 at the outset of Mendenhall’s tenure; most were part of three straight bowl teams and a Coastal Division champion, plus the crowd-storming celebration after the Wahoos beat Virginia Tech to win that 2019 division title.
They’ve watched as the foundation was laid for the culture Mendenhall and his staff wanted to build. They’ve helped enhance that culture thanks to the influence of former teammates who, as Blount put it, taught them “what hard work looks like.”
“Making sure everyone is working hard. Total effort,” he added. “Even the little things on defense. Running to the ball, going after strips.”
Alonso has long led by example. His hard work was recognized this summer when he was picked as both the player to break the rock at the end of offseason workouts and and to get first pick of a jersey number.
He has been challenged this preseason by defensive line coach Clint Sintim to be more outspoken and “let your voice be heard and these guys will follow you.” It’s a role that Alonso is settling into.
“If I have something on my mind,” he said, “I’ll definitely speak up now.”
And Grant is ready to tackle that unfinished business that brought himself and so many of his teammates back for one final run. The sixth-year senior has started every game and picked off four passes the past two seasons. But he’s not back to pad his career stats this fall.
“A lot of the super seniors, we didn’t come back for no reason. And a lot of us are selfless,” Grant said. “If the goal was just to go on to the next level, I’m pretty sure most of us would have had a chance last year. But it’s bigger than that and it’s bigger than us.”
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