Veteran O-line has something to prove at UVa

The news was confirmed shortly before Virginia opened the season against Duke last fall. Offensive lineman Chris Glaser had a torn labrum in his hip. Unfortunately, the injury would require surgery as soon as the season was over.

Glaser relied on medication and rehab to get through all 10 games and the labrum was fixed shortly after the season-ending loss at Virginia Tech. The timetable for recovery was six months; Glaser was back in four and a half, in time to participate in the team's last few practices before the spring game.

“A warrior mentality,” UVa offensive line coach Garett Tujague said Monday morning when talking about Glaser’s ability to play through the injury last season.

One of the so-called ‘super seniors’ capitalizing on an additional year of eligibility granted because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Glaser is now healthy heading into his fifth season at UVa. He’s just one of the many veterans along the offensive line who have played a lot of football for Tujague and the Wahoos in recent seasons.

Glaser has been around long enough to have played two games with Kurt Benkert at quarterback. He's appeared in 41 games and started 32 the past four seasons, the team's starting right guard for every game but one the past two seasons.

Olu Oluwatimi has been the starter at center for all but one game in that stretch, while another fifth-year senior, Ryan Nelson, has started every game since the start of the 2018 season: 13 at left tackle as a redshirt freshman, 14 at left guard in 2019, then back out to left tackle for all 10 games last year. Ryan Swoboda, yet another fifth-year senior, has 13 career starts, including every game at right tackle last year.

The only spot where the Hoos didn’t start the same player every game last season was left guard, where Joe Bissinger took over for the final three games after since-departed Dillon Reinkensmeyer went down with a knee injury. A redshirt junior, Bissinger is also back this summer. So is senior Bobby Haskins, who started every game at left tackle two years ago but was limited by a back injury last fall.

Between those six linemen, that’s 121 career starts at UVa. It’s also countless drills and reps in practice over the past few preseasons. As Oluwatimi pointed out, there’s a level of anticipation and trust that comes with playing alongside one another for so long.

Tujague has liked the discipline those veterans have displayed with the work they’ve been putting in this preseason.

“In order to create something exceptional, your mindset has got to be relentless,” he said. “Be able to attack it the same way every day with that relentless mindset.”

“I don’t want to be remembered as mediocre. A mediocre player; a mediocre leader,” Oluwatimi said after the Cavaliers’ first preseason practice. “That’s not something that I want to be remembered as. Being a veteran guy on last year’s team and going 5-5, that’s a direct reflection on me and the seniors from last year.”

Behind last year’s line, the Hoos averaged 423.3 yards of total offense. That was the best per-game output at Virginia since the 2004 team that featured Marques Hagans at quarterback and Alvin Pearman and Wali Lundy at running back. Still, it ranked just eighth in the 15-team ACC. And that 5-5 record was a step back for a program that won nine games and a Coastal Division title the previous season.

One of the offseason points of emphasis for head coach Bronco Mendenhall has been improving the traditional running game. UVa’s running backs accounted for less than half of the team’s total rushing yards last year. But at the outset of camp, he stressed that making that happen is as much on the offense line as it is on UVa’s running backs.

“When the holes are bigger, when the blocking is more consistent,” Mendenhall said, “the traditional run game will be better.”

That’s why, according to Glaser, the linemen have something to prove this season.

“When you win once, you want to make sure that it’s not a fluke,” he explained. “We say that a lot with the O-line. You do well one time but you’ve always got to prove it, to make sure that it’s not just a one-time fluke. You want to be that consistent group on the team that allows your offense to succeed.”

For Tujague, these next few weeks before the Wahoos open the season against William & Mary will be about figuring out the best fit as a unit for his veteran offensive line. He said battles are ongoing at both tackle spots and at guard. With Haskins healthy again, Nelson could potentially bump back inside, recreating the left side of the line from the 2019 team. Bissinger is still in the mix at guard. With the added depth, reps in practice can be limited based on performance.

“There’s no better motivator than the bench,” Tujague said. “When you’re standing next to me on the sidelines, that’s not fun. You want to be out there.”

The depth has taken a hit with offseason injuries to a pair of tackles, junior Derek Devine and sophomore Jonathan Leech. Tujague declined to offer an update on the status of Devine, who had his right leg wrapped in a boot and propped up on a cart at the team’s first practice last week. But other players have emerged, most notably first-year Noah Josey, a former 2021 four-star recruit who drew praise from his offensive line coach on Monday for his mindset and desire to learn.

“He’s been training and modeling the older guys,” Tujague said. “He has a very good routine where he’s taking care of his body and studying plays, just like everybody should but he’s taking it to a whole other level. Getting questions from him at 11:30 at night, ‘Hey coach, on team, play 14, what’s this?’”

The foundation of fifth-year seniors along the line has also embraced a ‘pay it forward’ mentality with the Cavaliers’ next generation. As the O-line did work on the two-man sled during Friday night’s open portion of practice, for instance, Glaser was spotted talking technique with first-years Ty Furnish and Charlie Patterson.

And with his "warrior" mindset, Glaser has also led by example. According to Tujague, despite that ailing hip last year, Glaser took the biggest jump in production of his four-year career.

“It’s not even close. Went from being maybe an average player to a good player in the ACC,” he said. “I’m anticipating him taking that same jump again this year, but with a much better hip.”

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