Left tackle Jonathan Leech could be in the starting lineup for Virginia’s road opener at Illinois on Saturday.
Head coach Tony Elliott said Tuesday that the senior was available for the Week 1 win over Richmond in an emergency situation, but the decision was made to go with true freshman McKale Boley, and Boley was on the field for all 79 offensive snaps.
The final stat line was what you’d expect from a true freshman in his first college start: he allowed six QB pressures on 41 pass snaps, and was given a low 42.5 grade by Pro Football Focus.
“Boley is physically gifted as a young guy. We’ve just got to pull him through the knothole at times of being a freshman,” Elliott said. “Sometimes a freshman is like, man, I just want to be a freshman. But hey, buddy, you’re the starting left tackle. You don’t have time to be a freshman. You’ve got to be ready to go. So, coaching him through that, and being able to get him to stay locked in the entire practice, the entire game, he’s still a young guy, but he cares. He wants to. He just has to mentally be able to push himself.”
Leech was on the field for 183 snaps last year as a junior, and had a season PFF grade of 62.0, allowing 15 pressures on 120 pass snaps, and no missed blocks on 63 run snaps.
He was the projected starter at left tackle coming out of camp before suffering a hand injury that put him in a soft cast.
“This week he’s back in practice, so I’m excited to finish up here and then go back and watch practice and see how he did. But talking to him coming off the field, he said he felt good. He said the cast that he was in made his hand still very functional for him. We anticipate that he’ll be ready to be in the rotation and see where his conditioning is by the end of the week to determine the breakdown,” Elliott said.
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