Bronco Knows Exactly How He Will Use Bye Week To Improve Team

No sooner had Virginia dropped a 35-21 decision at N.C. State last Saturday than Bronco Mendenhall was already looking ahead.
The Cavaliers enter their bye week with a 3-2 overall record, 1-1 in the ACC, just about where I thought they would be after five games. They have two weeks to prepare for Miami coming to Scott Stadium in a game where UVa will definitely be an underdog.
As organized as Mendenhall is, he knows exactly how he’ll use this week. He will break it down into three catagories:
1. Recovery. The Cavaliers, like most teams, have a lot of players injured or nicked up.
“Any player we can get back will help,” Mendenhall said.
Two possibilities are linebacker Malcolm Cook, who did not play in Raleigh, and strong safety Brenton Nelson, who left the N.C. State game due to a concussion.
Starting defensive end Richard Burney is done for the season due to an unspecified medical condition. Inside linebacker Jordan Mack is out for an estimated five weeks with a shoulder problem.
2. Practice. That’s a given, but Virginia will have to work on some issues. More on that later.
3. Analysis. Mendenhall said he will be getting rid of dead plays, dead calls.
“That means yield,” the coach said. “Even though we do it each week – what players and/or what calls are not yielding – that can be eliminated to be wasted plays during a game.
“We might think the concept is great, and “just one more time,” and we’ll make it work,” Mendenhall said. “There are some of those that just have to go away.”
The coach believes the staff is going to face some tough decisions in terms of shaping his team’s identity.
“We have a lot of work to do,” he said.
Clearly, N.C. State exposed a familiar wound in Saturday’s game. Well, actually two UVa shortcomings. The Wolfpack dominated the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, somewhat similar to Indiana.
The Cavaliers were good enough to do likewise to FCS Richmond, to a Ohio U., and to struggling Louisville. Not the case in a step up in competition.
Indiana and State both had experienced quarterbacks. Both used strong rushing attacks even though both of those opponents run games were considered highly suspect entering those contests.
Part of the issue for UVa was that a mostly young and inexperienced defensive line was dominated for most of the game. The Cavaliers couldn’t keep gap integrity as more dominant offensive linemen blocked UVa’s defenders out of position, putting added pressure on the linebackers.
Virginia’s defensive front seven presently features only one senior, Chris Peace (outside linebacker), one junior, Eli Hanback (defensive end and nose tackle), and all the rest – nine players – either freshmen, redshirt freshmen, or sophomores.
Conversely, the Cavaliers struggled to run the ball against Indiana’s and N.C. State’s defenses, and also failed to protect high value quarterback Bryce Perkins. Even though Perkins is very mobile, he was under duress much of the game in Raleigh. He was sacked four times by the Wolfpack and chased from the pocket with regularity.
Meanwhile, the Cavaliers couldn’t mount a decent ground game against either the Hoosiers or the Wolfpack.
Mendenhall said he will do his customary reevaluating of pretty much everything the program is doing on offense, defense, and special teams during the break.
“I watch every play of every practice of every player, and feedback goes out to my entire organization,” Mendenhall commented. “The same thing happens after games.”
While he was happy with the defensive play calling by coordinator Nick Howell and co-coordinator Kelly Poppinga in last week’s win over Louisville, that wasn’t totally the case against State.
“What was good a week ago, cannot be good the next week, and it wasn’t,” Mendenhall said. “We did not play good enough defense to win the [State] game, and that’s just kind of matter of fact.”
Virginia’s offense didn’t really click until some time in the third quarter against State, and the Cavaliers can’t afford for that to happen against upcoming Miami.
Certainly, Mendenhall is going to take a closer look at some of the offensive operation.
The Cavaliers rank 10th out of 14 ACC teams in scoring offense (30.2 ppg), ninth in total offense (418.0), eighth in pass offense (226), and eighth in rushing offense (196.8). Virginia is next to last in the league in red zone offensive efficiency..
Their highest rankings in offensive categories in the conference are third down conversions (UVa is second at 50.7 percent), and surprisingly in time of possession (second at 31 minutes, 59 seconds average per game).
As Al Groh once pointed out, in the coaching world, the only two real statistical categories that coaches really care about are points per game and points allowed per game.
In that case, UVa’s defense is in fairly good shape overall, fifth place at 20.4 ppg, a number that Mendenhall can pretty much live with in today’s video gamesque statistics.
The offense, however, has issues in the 10th-place ranking.