Pitt is ranked third in the ACC in total defense and second against the run, and in case you missed it, the Panthers held Virginia Tech to exactly 100 yards of total offense, exactly nine of them (nine!) on the ground, this past Saturday.
That wouldn’t seem to portend well for a Virginia offense coming off its worst effort of the season, scoring 14 points, rushing for 40 yards and committing five turnovers, two of them pick-sixes, in the blowout home loss to Boise State two weeks ago.
The Cavs have had particular trouble getting anything going with their rush offense, gaining just 3.0 yards per carry and 93.8 yards per game, both ranked last by a long shot in the 14-team ACC.
The troubles on the ground, in an the-ankle-bone-is-connected-to-the-knee-bone kind of way, have put more pressure on junior quarterback Matt Johns, who too often seems to be dropping back to pass in second-and-long and third-and-long situations.
Johns has largely done OK in his first full season as a starter, going 76-for-121 (62.8 percent) passing for 989 yards, eight touchdowns and six interceptions, with a 143.4 passer rating, sixth in the ACC among starting quarterbacks.
You have to wonder how he’d be doing if he had even last year’s running game (3.7 yards per rush, 137.8 yards per game, 225 yards in the 24-19 win over Pitt in last season’s ACC opener) behind him.
What you want and what you have being what they are, that Pitt D doesn’t seem to be the one that you want to try to get all those negative trends turned around on.
“They’ll play a multiple front defense and get in third-down situations and they’ll give you different looks and bring pressure. It’s important for us on these first- and second-down opportunities to not be in second-and-long because they will try to we talk about dialing up defenses, and they do a good job of doing that,” UVA coach Mike London said.
Offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild talked in the spring and again in preseason camp about his commitment to get a running game going, about using fullbacks and tight ends and putting Johns under center to use power running to set up play-action passing.
That by and large hasn’t materialized, with Johns back in shotgun looks as much as he and Greyson Lambert were in 2014, and too much of the yardage on the ground seems to be coming from jet sweeps, not power runs.
The same issue that vexed Fairchild and the offense – offensive line play – last year is back at the forefront of the troubles in 2015.
“Our offensive line is what it is. We’ll have to find the best five that can go in and play,” said London, who is missing three linemen from his two-deep, Ryan Doull, Jake Fieler and Eric Tetlow, all listed this week as being out for the season, rendering an already-thin unit that much thinner.
The staff continues “to keep trying to find the right who in order to give us opportunities to be successful in running the ball. But that’s something that’s ongoing and it will continue to keep trying to make us a better football team in terms of being able to run the ball,” London said.
– Story by Chris Graham
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