Virginia defensive coordinator John Rudzinski is noting his unit’s slow starts in training camp, which was something that plagued the UVA defense last season.
“There’s a lot to teach from those situations, and it’s always tough because you’re moving different guys in and out of those scrimmage situations, playing with multiple groups. It’s always really hard to get a true feel of really what the flow of the game was until you watch the film,” Rudzinski said after practice on Thursday.
The Virginia defense allowed 466.0 yards per game a year ago, a key reason the Cavaliers, with a record-setting offense, limped home to a 6-6 finish.
Slow starts were maybe the biggest issue on the defensive side of the ball – UNC gained 239 yards in a 21-point first quarter in a 59-39 win over the ‘Hoos; BYU put up 226 yards in a 21-point first quarter in a 66-49 win.
It came to feel like the Virginia offense needed to score on every possession, impacting play-calling on offense, as we saw in the 37-17 loss to Wake Forest in September, when Bronco Mendenhall decided to go for it on a fourth-and-goal from the Wake 5 after the Demon Deacons had scored on their opening possession.
When the Brennan Armstrong pass fell incomplete, it was as if the game was already over, and indeed, Wake Forest scored on its next possession on its way to posting a 20-3 lead at the half.
Fast forward back to the present, “there’s a lot of things for us to learn from, and we’re going to continue to continue to grow and learn. That’s why we’re in camp,” Rudzinzki said.
“When you watch the film, it’s never as good and it’s never as bad usually as you think it is,” Rudzinski said. “And so that’s always, you know, a fun thing for us as a coaching staff to do, is to go digest exactly what we put on the field and, you know, and then be able to be really, really good teacher. So that that’s kind of where we’re at in camp design.”
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Chris Graham
