Vegas has installed UVA Football as a 19.5-point favorite over Delaware this weekend, which seems high to me, the projected margin, given how last weekend went.
The 38-27 loss to West Virginia revealed – actually, exposed – a lot, on both sides of the football for the good guys.
What Delaware can do defensively might be a particular problem, given what WVU did, in confusing the heck out of Virginia’s QB1, Beau Pribula, a fifth-year who was bumfuzzled into delayed adjustments at the line and bad reads on read-option runs and in the passing game after the snap.
I like the matchup for the UVA defense, because Delaware, while they’ve got good skill guys, will attack you pretty much straight up.
The Blue Hens on D
“They do something that you don’t see much,” Virginia coach Tony Elliott said of the Delaware 3-3-5 base defense, which has a lot in common with what we saw from West Virginia in Week 3.
“It’s a three-man front and three-safety look and very multiple, and they constantly got linebackers blitzing from all different directions. That’s how they create a four-man front, and then from there, they can play different coverage structures. So, it adjusts your rules in terms of where your quarterback’s eye progression goes to be able to start,” Elliott said.
Everything that Elliott said there is what Pribula struggled with last week, and it seems that the offensive coordinator, Des Kitchings, was well aware going in that Pribula was going to struggle with adjustments and reads, and tried to keep the game plan and his play-calling as basic as possible.
TE cited as the key guy on the Delaware side defensively the person of defensive tackle Dominick Brogna, a fifth-year player who had four QB hurries in the 35-26 loss to Vanderbilt in Week 2, and a sack in the 22-14 win over Coastal Carolina in Week 3.
Brogna, “a twitchy, powerful guy that’s very disruptive,” can create the kind of pressure up the middle that was unsettling to Pribula last week.
Pressure up the middle, as we saw last week, throws everything off for an offense.
“They do a good job of changing the defensive techniques with their D linemen to put them in positions to be successful, and then they’re constantly moving around, right?” said Elliott, perhaps alluding to the pressure that the front gets – Delaware had 24 pressures and four sacks against Vandy, and 19 pressures and six sacks against Coastal.
Yes, holy bejeezus.
“What we have to do is, one, we have to have great identification from our center, just in terms of the front structure and the communication to the running backs in terms of protection. Stay ahead of the chains, you know, on first and second down, so that we don’t get to third down to create, you know, obvious passing downs situations, so that we don’t have to necessarily stay in six-man protections. They don’t mind rushing seven and playing cover zero on the on the back end,” Elliott said.
Again, this is everything that we saw from WVU on defense last week.
Delaware on offense
The Blue Hens offense will not look anything like what we saw from WVU, though the QB is still very talented.
Nick Minicucci is a guy in his fourth year in the system – 2026: 60.0 percent completion rate, 271.3 passing yards per game; 2025: 63.0 percent completion rate, 3,703 yards, 23 TDs/7 INTs.
His top target is a 6’0” wideout named Sean Wilson – 2026: 18 catches/24 targets, 16.0 yards/catch, two drops; 2025: 68 catches/97 targets, 12.9 yards/catch, one drop.
The guy on the other side is a sixth-year, Da’Wain Lofton – 2026: 13 catches/18 targets, 19.8 yards/catch.
Lofton, way back in 2022, had 22 catches at Virginia Tech, in Year 1 of the Brent Pry regime.
The leading rusher is a guy in his fifth year, all at Delaware, by name of Jo Silver – 2026: 156 yards, 4.7 yards/attempt; 2025: 652 yards, 5.5 yards/attempt.
The five starters on the O line all have at least 194 snaps among the 212 offensive snaps on the ledger for the season to this point.
They can move the ball, based on those numbers, but, it seems like the kind of offense that the Virginia defense will match up well with.
I say that because, Minicucci isn’t going to challenge you with his feet – he has 56 sack-adjusted yards rushing, total, through three games, 41 of those coming on seven scrambles.
Minicucci has attempted just eight designed runs, going for 15 yards.
“We’re going to have to do a good job of just making some adjustments in some of our alignments from a man coverage standpoint. I think we had some big plays that we gave up just from an alignment standpoint,” Elliott said. “You know, we got to continue to just have the awareness with the ball in the air of where it is and not get lost, stay connected to receivers. Don’t panic at the point of attack to give up any PIs. Obviously, there’s gonna be times where from a coverage standpoint, we’re gonna have space because we’re keeping everything in front. So, when that happens, we gotta make sure that we rally, and we tackle. And then also, too, we gotta have clean eyes. We jumped a double move that we shouldn’t have, and that resulted in a touchdown. So, just focus on the things we can control.”
Outlook
I sense a defensive struggle being what we get on Saturday night in Scott Stadium.
Remember last year’s Washington State game? Something along those lines.
Maybe Virginia more in control, but still, not a three-TD difference – at least it won’t feel that way when it’s over.
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Chris Graham
