UVA defense pitches a shutout vs W&M: Secondary, tackling not a problem

By Jerry Ratcliffe

After last year’s injury-riddle season, Virginia fans were concerned heading into Saturday night’s opener about the Cavaliers defense. While there was lots of experience returning to that side of the football, could the secondary play more like it did in 2019 as opposed to 2020 when defensive backs were sitting ducks for nearly every quarterback it faced.

Bronco Mendenhall had questions, too, including the secondary and whether his strategy to have a training camp without tackling to the ground would help or hurt the preparation.

Even though the opponent was an FCS team in William & Mary, Mendenhall got his answers, well, at least some of them in UVA’s 43-0 win.

The defense tried to answer loud and clear that it’s ready to play football.

Virginia held the Tribe to 183 yards total offense, the first time the Cavaliers have held an opponent to less than 200 yards since the last time they played William & Mary in 2019 (193 yards). Plus it was UVA’s first regular season shutout since 2003 (27-0 over Duke). The last shutout came in the 2018 Belk Bowl, a 28-0 win over favored South Carolina.

“We did a really nice job with our perimeters and our depth and so everything was inside and in the front end,” Mendenhall said. “We tackled well for an opening game. We didn’t tackle much in fall camp, working to keep our depth as healthy as possible for a long season.

“That was a little bit of an unknown, except we had experienced players, so I was hoping we would see that and it looked like it was the right call.”

UVA started four seniors in the secondary, corners Darrius Bratton and Nick Grant, and safeties Joey Blount and De’Vante Cross. Backing up those veterans and getting playing time were three juniors: Anthony Johnson, Antonio Clary and Coen King, along with redshirt freshman corner Elijah Gaines.

They held W&M quarterback Darius WIlson to a 9 for 15 night passing for 83 yards. Backup Chase Hart completed his lone throw for six yards. Still, the longest two passes went for 19 and 20 yards, almost half the Tribe’s passing totals on those two completions alone.

“I think I can ready more into it than maybe what’s being presented,” Mendenhall said. “I mean there’s a lot of work that goes into fall camp and a lot of work preparing for an opponent and a lot of execution just to play a football game.

“I saw enough to be encouraged, and I thought our leverage and our tackling was strong. So yeah, I thought it was a really nice start for the secondary.”

UVA’s pass rush generated five quarterback hurries, but only one sack (Mandy Alonso), against a mobile quarterback. No interceptions, and no pass breakups, which is an unusual number for a game that ended in a rout. There was only one forced fumble, but W&M recovered its own drop.

“I really think our communication was really good,” said free safety Blount, one of the team’s super seniors. “What we saw all through the week with our reads and the formations [W&M] gave, I think [the secondary] did a really good job adjusting their effort to the ball.

“I really do think that the team that we were at the end of last year, as a secondary, to this year is like night and day. I truly believe that I think today was a good outing for us all. I think there’s things that we need to go back to the chalkboard and talk about and really get better at though.”

Mike London’s offense averaged but 2.5 yards per rush and the Tribe managed to convert only 3 of 14 third down opportunities (1 of 1 on fourth down).

Linebacker Nick Jackson led the Wahoos in tackles with 12 (four solo, eight assists), while Blount had eight (five solo). Noah Taylor and Hunter Stewart posted six each.

Blount said he was a little concerned but not too worried about the tackling heading into the season after the new strategy of not tackling to the ground in fall camp.

“I was confident in myself with tackling,” Blount said. “First game of the year, a high amount of jitters, everyone’s excited. Some people missed a couple tackles here and there but I wasn’t too worried for the defensive sake. I think everyone was  really locked in, making sure we’re really good tacklers.”