On Offense, The Challenge Right Now Is To Get Jordan Ellis Going

A portion of Virginia’s bye week was devoted to tossing out unproductive plays from its offense in order to be more effective during the final seven games of the season.

Bronco Mendenhall wanted to eliminate things that simply didn’t work, part of the self scouting process.

“Sometimes plays are tied to concepts, and so I would say you could throw out a concept and that’s one thing,” the Cavaliers coach said. “The number of plays tied to [a concept] could be a handful or more.”

Virginia’s offensive staff spent time identifying concepts that tie to personnel and tie to application. Some don’t fit and that eliminates a higher volume of plays.

“In one case, concepts are added,” Mendenhall said. “They’re projections, but hopefully that will work out in our favor.”

Getting rid of bad plays is kind of like getting rid of a bad relationship without the back-and-forth bantering in Mendenhall’s view.

“Really little or no debate because of the numbers,” said Mendenhall, who is a statistically driven and numbers oriented coach. “I love the big picture and thinking about the broader perspective, but under pressure I want to know the numbers, and then I frame that for the decision.

“Some things have to go because they’re not working,” he said. “Maybe it would be like a relationship where you try as hard as you can and it’s just not going to work. It’s time to break up. Kind of like that.

“Sometimes the harder you’ve worked at it, the harder it is to let it go,” Mendenhall said. “Coaches sometimes get tied to a concept. They might have worked elsewhere and they’re working like crazy to make it go and it hasn’t yielded. My job then is to say ‘enough already.’ Kind of like a parent.”

The bye week analysis is a little more in-depth, but at Virginia it’s an ongoing thing. After every game, Mendenhall analyzes every call in terms of production, with those databases built upon every week.

Some of the things that Mendenhall and his offensive coaches likely put under the microscope is production. The Cavaliers are 10th in the 14-team ACC in scoring offense (30.2 ppg), ninth in total offense (418), eighth in both rushing offense (192 ypg) and passing offense (226), and dead last in red zone offense.

That’s why UVa is 3-2 rather than 4-1 or unbeaten.

Offensive coordinator Robert Anae knows why.

“Right now our challenge is to get Jordan Ellis going,” Anae said. “We’re not fishing around for who’s our best running back. Right now the challenge is, how come he’s not rushing for more yards.”

The answer is simple.

“The guys that are blocking, that is the issue,” Anae said. “That has been our focus this week, developing more of a mindset to block when we are handing the ball off.

“Coach [Garett] Tujague (O-Line coach), the last two-and-a-half years, had the toughest job on our staff, I believe, in developing an offensive line that is durable, effective, that’s productive,” Anae added. “That’s kind of where we’re at right now. The only way to do that is to address it, develop a mindset and hit the challenge.”

It has been no secret that during Mendenhall’s two-and-a-half seasons at UVa that the Cavaliers’ weakest link has been their offensive line. Those position numbers were well below the norm when Mendenhall came in for a variety of reasons, unbalanced recruiting (overstocked at some positions, understocked at others), injuries, suspensions, defections, graduations).

Quality and depth have been an issue as the new regime attempts to build both through recruiting. It takes time.

During the bye week there weren’t any changes in the O-Line’s two deep. There’s really not enough depth to make changes at this point.

“We are a work in progress,” Mendenhall said. “Shows up on film and shows up every week. It’s still the position that we’re not deep enough and building as fast as we can.

“We’re still considering grad transfers and all other possibilities to build that unit,” the coach said. “It’s the foundation of our offense, so it’s still at risk. It’s not stable. It’s not deep. It’s inconsistent.”

Still, the coach believes there are glimpses that the present offensive linemen are playing at a higher level than it had been.

Any program can get hit with inconsistent offensive line play or even a lack of talent. Look at Florida State for example. One of the top recruiting programs in the country has struggled mightily with its line this season. The Big Uglies have had the finger of blame pointed their way for the Seminoles’ disappointing start.

When Mendenhall arrived at UVa from BYU, he brought with him a fast-paced offense. Remember the Cavaliers attempting to run the uptempo? Didn’t work because he didn’t have the personnel to pull it off.

However, the one answer to not having an offensive line that can overpower opponents is to have the fast-paced offense, so that you can wear out those big defensive linemen and linebackers to the point of exhaustion.

At some point, Mendenhall would like to be able to do that at Virginia.

Anae wasn’t exactly forthcoming this week when reporters asked him about the production gap between slot man Olamide Zaccheaus (33 catches, 501 yards, six TDs) and wideout Hasise Dubois (22 receptions, 247 yards, two TDs) and the rest of the receiving corps.

All the others combined (excluding Dubois) don’t have as many catches or combined yards as Zaccheaus: Joe Reed (9 catches, 128 yards, 1 TD), tight end Evan Butts (8 catches, 60 yards), freshman speedster Tavares Kelly (5 catches, 83 yards), Terrell Jana (3 catches, 29 yards), fullback Chris Sharp (2 catches, 23 yards, 2 TDs), and a handful of others.

“The idea is to complete the football,” Anae said. “When you are targeted that means a couple of things: the quarterback is confident in the consistency that you’ve shown throughout the week and actually throughout the season; and, if there is a matchup with the correct leverage. All those things go into throwing and catching the ball.

“Right now our better guys, more consistent are the guys the quarterback has been targeting,” Anae said.

Asked specifically about more potential targeting of Reed, who has terrific speed and open field running ability, Anae was somewhat vague.

“You never know when you’re going to get that thing targeted at a really high level,” the OC said. “Sometimes it works your way a week, and the next week it’s not that way. Every play, if you’re on the field, you’ve got a chance.”

Anae said the coaches learned a lot about the team during the bye week.

“We learned what we can do in the conference on the road against a really good team (N.C. State),” Anae said. “We’re trying to use some of those lessons, some of the feedback we got from the game with players and with schemes.

“I think we did find out a lot about our team,” he said. “We didn’t score enough points to win the game. We had opportunities, we got down there but were not successful. During the bye week our goal was to rest certain guys that are banged up and to figure out what we can do as a group and be successful.”

One thing Anae certainly will have his eye on when 16th-ranked Miami comes to town for Saturday night’s game, is Hurricanes’ defensive tackle Gerald Willis III, who ranks second in the nation and leads the ACC in tackles for loss.

The Cavaliers have been so conscious of Willis’ impact that they have put his No. 9 on a scout team player so that the offense will be aware of his presence no matter where he lines up on the line.

“You never do get the look you’re going to get on game day no matter what you do on the scout team,” Anae said. “The idea is to prepare, do your homework, simulate in your mind, and then on game day hopefully you’re working on all cylinders.”

Miami has an extremely aggressive defense that thrives on creating turnovers, thus the “Turnover Chain” mystique that seems to spark the team, just as it did in its remarkable comeback against Florida State last week.

“I think that’s the whole [Miami] defensive scheme,” Anae said, “is to have guys create and there’s a certain level of freelance. There is some discipline but I think they give them a lot of opportunity to go, and those front four guys do that really well. They just go. They pick a side and go, and they’re really good at it.”

That may not bode well for UVa’s already suspect offensive line, and may mean that Anae may have to get quarterback Bryce Perkins into a floating pocket to help negate Miami’s aggressive pass rush.

The Hurricanes are a 7.5-point favorite in the game.