The priority for UVA Football coach Tony Elliott going into the 2025 transfer portal season had to be the offensive line room.
Pro Football Focus ranked the UVA O line 115th nationally in pass blocking – note: there are 134 teams in FBS, so, 115th, yeah, no, that’s not good.
Your offense is only going to be as good as the line allows it to be, so maybe it’s not the worst thing that Elliott was going to have to account for a ton of losses to attrition.
The open spots weren’t just roster spots to fill; they were opportunities to get better.
“On paper, man, you feel a lot better about the situation than years past,” Elliott told reporters at his transfer portal presser last week. “I’ve been saying that, man, we need to get to 10, 12 guys from a depth standpoint at that position, because of the wear and tear over the course of the season.”
He’s got his guys
The biggest addition, literally and figuratively, is 6’7”, 315-pound tackle Monroe Mills, late of Louisville.
Mills, who will compete as a sixth-year in the fall, was on the field for 566 snaps at Louisville in 2024, grading out at 82.3, per PFF.
Virginia will be the fourth stop for Mills, who was at Oklahoma State for two seasons, barely getting on the field there, before spending two seasons at Texas Tech.
At Texas Tech, Mills logged 1,750 snaps, and was deemed responsible for three sacks and 40 total QB pressures on 1,000 pass dropbacks.
At Louisville in 2024, Mills allowed one sack and seven total QB pressures on 300 pass dropbacks, while splitting his time between right tackle (306 total snaps) and left tackle (260 total snaps).
Mills is listed as a four-star transfer recruit by 247Sports.
The other big get is former UAB center Brady Wilson, a three-year starter whose blocking numbers were, as with Mills, off-the-charts good: no sacks allowed in 2024 on 542 pass-block snaps, and over the course of three years and 2,304 total snaps, and 1,265 pass dropbacks, he’s allowed a grand total of one.
Wilson slides in to fill the void left by the loss of two-year starting center Brian Stevens, who competed as a sixth-year senior in 2024.
UVA also added Tyshawn Wyatt, a JMU alum, who, like Mills, will compete as a sixth-year player, and Kevin Wigenton, an O lineman from Illinois.
Wyatt missed the 2024 season at JMU with an injury that he suffered toward the end of JMU’s 2023 campaign.
Wyatt was on the field for 2,157 snaps in four seasons at JMU, allowing 14 sacks and 65 total QB pressures on 1,086 pass dropbacks for a 96.2 percent efficiency rate.
Wyatt logged 900 snaps at left guard at JMU in 2021, before shifting to left tackle in 2022 and 2023.
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The O line has returning two guys who split the snaps at left tackle in 2024 – McKale Boley (463 snaps) and Jack Witmer (358 snaps) – the guy who got the bulk of the snaps at left guard, Noah Josey (703 snaps), and Blake Steen, who got 736 snaps at right tackle.
The biggest need going into the offseason was at right guard, where Ty Furnish (489 snaps) and Ugonna Nnanna (319 snaps) got the bulk of the action.
Nnanna is headed to North Texas for his final season of college football.
Furnish has still yet to land a spot with a new school.
Right guard is where Wigenton can fit in. The 6’5″, 330-pounder only got 36 snaps in three games with the Illini in 2024, after transferring from Michigan State, where he had played 470 snaps at right guard in 2023.
In 549 career snaps across three seasons in the Big Ten, Wigenton has yet to surrender a sack and has been dinged for 10 QB hurries on 308 pass dropbacks, for a 98.3 percent efficiency rate.
Two other guys of note in the O line room: Drake Metcalf and Ethan Sipe both missed the 2024 season with injuries.
Both are listed as grad students on the UVA Football roster page, so, presumably, they’d need to get approval for a medical redshirt year.
Metcalf has primarily played at center in his three college seasons, logging 200 snaps at center at Central Florida in 2023 – allowing one sack and two total QB pressures on 90 pass dropbacks.
Sipe logged 672 snaps at right tackle at Dartmouth over the 2022 and 2023 seasons, and allowed just three sacks on 282 pass dropbacks.
I count 10 guys there now in the O line room who have significant college experience.
The staff might be done with the O line for 2025.
Getting it all together
Four new guys from the portal, two guys who transferred in last spring and had to sit out the season with injuries, four guys returning with a ton of snaps and experience.
The task ahead: “we got 15 practices to really know what it’s going to look like,” Elliott said, referring to the start of spring practice next month.
“I’m excited about the experience,” Elliott said. “There is a lot of experience just from total snaps and games started. Got a couple guys that we’ve brought in at that position that even have some all-conference recognition to go along with the guys that are returning.
“I’m excited for that group to have a chance for them, one, to say we feel confident from a depth standpoint, so we can go out and compete and mesh,” Elliott said.
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Chris Graham
