Virginia had blocked punts returned for TDs in one-score losses last season, and a third loss due to a penalty on a missed last-second field goal that set up a chip-shot game-winner.
Football coaches like to say that special teams is one-third of the game, though the data show that’s not exactly true, just in terms of the number of plays, but the point is valid.
UVA was 3-9 in 2023, with those three losses – to 11-win JMU, 10-win Louisville and nine-win NC State.
I’d argue that we could throw the loss at eight-win Maryland in here, too, and, yes, the final score was 42-14, but Virginia had an early 14-0 lead, all the momentum, then gave the momentum back by allowing a kick-return TD, in a game that was 21-14, with UVA driving in the red zone, going into the fourth quarter.
That’s the fine line between going 3-9 and maybe sneaking into a lower-tier bowl at the end of Tony Elliott’s Year 2.
“That’s where we’ve got to improve,” Elliott told reporters after practice on Monday.
The data bears him out on that point. The UVA special-teams unit ranked 105th in Pro Football Focus and 108th among the 133 teams in FBS in the ESPN FPI in 2023.
And those numbers actually represented an improvement from 2022 – PFF had Virginia’s special teams 115th in 2022, and the ESPN FPI had the unit 127th.
A particular point of focus will be on the punt team. Elliott thinks he has an all-ACC punter in Daniel Sparks, who averaged 42.9 yards per punt in 2023, though that was down from a booming 45.9 yards per punt in 2022.
The punt team “has been a point of emphasis,” Elliott said.
“Sparks is punting the ball well, and now this week, we’ll get into, really, the other phases of our kicking game, with all the kickoff and kickoff return and punt return. Coach Gaither is working extremely hard and got all the coaches involved, and we’re going to get better at punt if we don’t do anything,” Elliott said.
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Chris Graham
