Rudzinski’s top goal for UVA’s defense is to become great tacklers

By Jerry Ratcliffe

With the recent recruiting period done, Virginia’s new football staff is off the road and getting down to business. The past week has included lots and lots of film review of personnel and last season’s 6-6 effort after the team started 6-2.

While the Cavaliers’ offense broke records with a fiery quarterback and explosive playmakers at the receivers positions, the defense also set records for ineptitude. Most of the late-season collapse, resulting in a four-game losing streak, was due to poor play on the defensive side of the ball.

John Rudzinski was hired by Tony Elliott to turn the defense around.

Rudzinski inherits what’s left of a defensive unit that finished in the depths of FBS statistics:

• No. 123 (out of 130 teams) in rushing defense (225.8 ypg)
• No. 104 in scoring defense (31.8 ppg)
• No. 87 in passing yards allowed (240 per game)
• No. 121 in total defense (446 ypg)

With all that in mind and Rudzinski — a great name for a defensive coordinator who grew up in Green Bay — noting that he has spent hours looking at film, my main question to him was, “So, how do you fix it? What’s your greatest challenge?”

I can’t say I was surprised by his answer.

“I think that the biggest thing that we’re going to have to do, is we’re gonna have to be great tacklers,” Rudzinski said. “Everyone talks about it, but it’s for us making sure that we continue to focus fundamentally.”

How many times during last season’s implosion did we hear Bronco Mendenhall and defensive coordinator Nick Howell talk about the team’s inefficiency in tackling?

“When it comes down to block destruction, it comes down to the ability to pursue and finish on the football,” Rudzinski said. “And when you talk about finishing on the football, it’s being able to tackle. So it’s one thing to talk about it, but now what we’ve got to do, is we’ve got to make sure when we show up on Saturdays in the fall, that’s the type of defense we are.”

Virginia’s new staff will spend the spring installing their new systems, but the defense will likely also focus on fundamentals, including tackling.

“The focus has got to be how technically sound our players can get,” Rudzinski said. “Frankly, you can get too caught up in the X’s and O’s and forget that if we’re going to play good football, if we’re gonna play complimentary football as a team, we’ve got to make sure that we’re fundamentally sound.”

Mendenhall switched from a basic 3-4 base to a 3-3-5 before last season because the ACC had become such a wide-open league with skilled passers.

Rudzinski, who built some of the nation’s best defenses during the last few years at Air Force, wasn’t ready to commit to what he will install this spring, but said it would be decided and based on evaluation of returning and new personnel.

“We want to make sure that we have enough scheme to be able to put guys in a position to make plays,” the new coordinator said. “Ideally it’s to make it really difficult for an offense to identify what we are schematically.”

Rudzinski’s Air Force defenses were built to stop the run, and two of his units finished in the nation’s top 10 in that category. Last season, the Falcons were fourth in total defense (296 ypg), and the year before they were third in the country in scoring defense (15 ppg).

With ACC quarterbacks throwing the ball all over the yard, will Rudzinski have to make adjustments to his philosophy in order to combat such explosive, wide-open offenses?

“As far as that goes, we see with the space and speed throughout college football, it’s how can you fit the run with as few bodies as possible, and at the same time be able to get guys closer to the ball, especially as they get the ball on the perimeter,” Rudzinski said. “As far as adjusting schematically, I think that it’ll be good this spring to really be tested by our offense.”

Virginia featured one of the nation’s best passing games last season behind record-setting quarterback Brennan Armstrong, who returns along with numerous playmakers.

“Coach Elliott and Coach Kitchings (offensive coordinator) will hopefully give us a great picture as we go into the fall of what will be really effective, and things that we potentially might have to scrap,” Rudzinski said.