Elliott on banged up O-Line, ‘They’re giving us all they’ve got’

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Terry Heffernan must feel like the little Dutch boy who put his finger in the dike to delay an impending disaster. Virginia’s offensive line coach tries to plug a hole every time one of his players goes down and hopes for the best, but injuries have depleted his unit’s depth.

With his entire offensive line returning intact and the addition of some transfers in the offseason, it appeared that would be one of the strengths of Virginia’s team.

However, when Drake Metcalf, Noah Hartsoe and Ethan Sipe were sidelined with injuries along with McKale Boley, Coach Heff has been scrambling to put together a patchwork line.

It didn’t help any that starting right guard Ty Furnish went down in the Maryland game and won’t be available for Saturday’s game at Coastal Carolina (2 p.m., ESPN+). Also, his backup, Charlie Patterson, is out with an ankle injury.

Starting center Brian Stevens has been nicked up since training camp and is expected to start Saturday, but he only played 54 snaps against Maryland last week.

“Overall, they’re giving us a chance, but in fairness to them, man, it’s been a chess match trying to figure out the moving parts,” Coach Tony Elliott said this week.

“As soon as you kind of get settled in, bang, one goes down, he gets banged up. Now that doesn’t just affect that position, it might affect other positions, because what you have available may be a guy that’s more versed and trained to play in another spot, but you’re having to put him in there because he’s the next man in the rotation.”

For instance, with Boley out and having missed all three games and not expected to play Saturday, former tight end Jack Witmer has started in Boley’s place.

As offensive coordinator Des Kitchings joked this week, “Witmer has probably played more football in the last three weeks than he has the rest of his career.”

“So trying to just play guys in different spots, I’m really proud of Coach Heff for managing that because you’re constantly trying to find the best five to put out there,” Elliott said. “You just don’t have the depth right now.

“But man, they’re giving everything they’ve got. Now, are there things that we’ve got to fix? Yeah, we’ve got to fix our pad level. We’ve got to make sure from a communication standpoint that we’re communicating the calls to everybody up front. But they’ve given us a chance in all three games and that’s all you can ask, and we’ll keep pressing them to improve and hopefully over the next couple weeks we’ll get some guys back and be a little bit more – have a little bit more depth to help us out.”

Virginia will get a bye week following the Coastal Carolina game, which should help. Boley seems to be close, but isn’t yet in “game shape,” having missed so much practice time.

With that in mind, Kitchings expects Coastal’s defense to blitz and pressure UVA quarterback Anthony Colandrea early to see if he can be rattled. As a counter measure, Kitchings could move the pocket to give Colandrea time to find his fleet of speedy receivers.

Analytics show that Colandrea, at least so far this season, hasn’t been as effective on the move as opposed to when he has time to throw from the natural pocket.

According to Pro Football Focus numbers, the sophomore QB has been pressured 27 times on his 114 dropbacks this season.

Of those 27 pressures, Colandrea is only 8 of 19 passing (42.1 percent) for 159 yards, 2 touchdowns, 1 interception, 5 sacks and an 85.2 NFL passer rating.

In the 87 non-pressure dropbacks, he is 63 of 84 passing (75 percent) for 742 yards, 3 TDs, 3 interceptions and a 98.4 NFL passer rating.

Elliott was right in noting that the linemen are giving Virginia a chance. In spite of the injuries and the shuffling of the line positions, the Cavaliers are ranked No. 66 of the 133 FBS teams in both pass blocking and run blocking by PFF’s analysts.

Here’s how UVA’s linemen have graded out by PFF this season:

• Noah Josey: 201 snaps, 3 QB pressures (including one sack), 66.0 PFF grade
• Brian Stevens: 192 snaps, 0 QB pressures, 70.1 PFF grade
• Jack Witmer: 183 snaps, 3 QB pressures, 70.3 PFF grade
• Blake Steen: 176 snaps, 2 QB pressures, 71.3 PFF grade
• Ty Furnish: 130 snaps, 4 QB pressures (including one sack), 60.1 PFF grade
• Ugonna Nnanna: 98 snaps, 3 QB pressures, 44.6 PFF grade
• Jimmy Christ: 33 snaps, 0 QB pressures, 59.4 PFF grade
• Ethan Sipe: 20 snaps, 0 QB pressures, 65.4 PFF grade