Virginia is running the defense that Bronco Mendenhall has wanted all along, the 3-3-5 – three down linemen, three linebackers and five defensive backs – as the base.
This just in: it’s not working.
That much was evident in the 66-49 loss at BYU, in which the Cavaliers surrendered 734 yards to the Cougars, which had been averaging 402.4 yards and 26.0 points per game coming in.
But this is no one-off kind of thing. The UVA defense, sure, has pitched two shutouts, in wins over William & Mary, an FCS team, and Duke, the doormat of the ACC this year, but it also got lit up for 59 points and 699 yards in a loss to North Carolina, 570 yards and 40 points in a win over Georgia Tech last week, 503 yards and 33 points in a come-from-behind win at Louisville last month, 473 yards and 37 points and 473 yards in a loss to #10 Wake Forest back in September.
The issues seem to be consistent across those games. Injuries and attrition have left the defensive line and linebacker corps depleted, and the secondary, slapdashed together with super seniors Joey Blount, Darrius Bratton, De’Vante Cross and Nick Grant, former walk-on Coen King and Louisville transfer Anthony Johnson playing key the bulk of the snaps at safety and corner, hasn’t been good in either pass coverage or run support.
A look at the participation chart for the loss at BYU gives you an indication of the challenges faced by the staff in trying to cobble together a two-deep on D.
D line
- Mandy Alonso (2017, 2-star): 62 snaps
- Jahmeer Carter (2020, 3-star): 57 snaps
- Aaron Faumui (2018, 2-star): 56 snaps
- Olasunkonmi Agunloye (2020, 3-star): 33 snaps
- Ben Smiley (2019, 3-star): 23 snaps
- Jordan Redmond (2018, 3-star): 22 snaps
LBs
- Nick Jackson (2019, 3-star): 78 snaps
- Josh Ahern (2019, 3-star): 66 snaps
- Noah Taylor (2018, 3-star): 62 snaps
- Elliott Brown (2017, 2-star): 30 snaps
- Hunter Stewart (2019, 4-star): 16 snaps
- West Weeks (2021, 3-star): 14 snaps
- D’Sean Perry (2019, 3-star): 3 snaps
DBs
- De’Vante Cross (2016, 2-star): 87 snaps
- Anthony Johnson (2017, 3-star): 87 snaps
- Darrius Bratton (2017, 2-star): 74 snaps
- Joey Blount (2017, 2-star): 66 snaps
- Coen King (2018, walk-on): 62 snaps
- Antonio Clary (2019, 3-star): 46 snaps
- Nick Grant (2016, 3-star): 13 snaps
Now we’ll take a look at the other 17 players who have taken snaps on the defensive side of the ball in 2021.
D line
- Nusi Malani (2020, 3-star): 120 snaps (8 games)
- Adeeb Atariwa (2016, not rated): 38 snaps (2 games)
- Michael Diatta (2021, 3-star): 33 snaps (3 games)
- Bryce Carter (2021, 3-star): 4 snaps (1 game)
- Jonathan Horton (2020, 3-star): 1 snap (1 game)
LBs
- James Jackson (2021, 3-star): 15 snaps (3 games)
- C. Harrison (2018, 3-star): 11 snaps (2 games)
- Mike Green (2021, 3-star): 16 snaps (1 game)
- Sam Brady (2020, 3-star): 4 snaps (1 game)
DBs
- Fentrell Cypress (2019, 3-star): 297 snaps (6 games)
- Langston Long (2021, 3-star): 55 snaps (4 games)
- Elijah Gaines (2020, 3-star): 41 snaps (3 games)
- Josh Hayes (2016, 2-star): 31 snaps (3 games)
- Jonas Sanker (2021, 3-star): 28 snaps (2 games)
- Dave Herard (2020, 3-star): 16 snaps (1 game)
- Joseph White (2018, 3-star): 16 snaps (1 game)
- Donovan Johnson (2020, 3-star): 5 snaps (1 game)
Atariwa is out for the season. Malani and Cypress are regulars who missed the BYU game. Hayes has entered the transfer portal.
Georgia Tech transfer Chico Bennett (2019, 3-star) was injured in the spring and is out for the season.
Aside from Harrison and White, the rest of the guys are 2020 and 2021 recruits. Young guys practicing hard, getting better, getting stronger, deemed by the staff not ready to get snaps in the meaningful portions of ACC and P5 games.
That latter list includes Josh McCarron (2021, 4-star), waiting in the wings at outside linebacker, Lorenz Terry (2020, 3-star) at D line, and Micah Gaffney (2021, 3-star), at defensive back.
You might notice a couple of things.
One, the recruiting profile of the guys getting time now vs. that of the guys still in development. The guys getting snaps now average 2.6 stars; the guys in development average 3.1 stars.
The current situation is what it is; the future, assuming development, should be better.
Two, in the here and now, there’s not a lot of depth up front, with the losses of Atariwa and Bennett. I’m not sure on the status of Malani for the remainder of 2021, but even with him, you’re at seven guys on the D line and seven guys at ‘backer with meaningful snaps this season, which isn’t enough to go 4-3 or 3-4.
If you’re going to go 3-4, which is the more likely scenario if a scheme fix would be in the works, it would have to be through elevating one or two or more of the young guys who have barely been seeing the field, which is a risk, obviously.
The biggest part of that risk: we have to presume that practice reps dating back to the spring have been in the 3-3-5. Switching that up, and then inserting guys who are green already, could be another disaster in the making.
This may be why we’ve been hearing Bronco Mendenhall say repeatedly, frustratingly, for fans, that the issue is fundamentals – assignments, tackling, basic discipline.
After doing this deep data dive, I don’t expect anything different coming out of the bye, and please, don’t shoot the messenger on this, because I’m just as flustered on this as you are.
Story by Chris Graham