Virginia O line, finally, clears way for ‘Hoos to establish a ground game

Virginia had a net 376 yards rushing through five games. As in, total.

Tony Elliott challenged his team, particularly his offensive line, ahead of Saturday’s game with William & Mary, to win the war in the trenches.

“I don’t care who you’re playing against, anytime you rush for more than 200 yards, right, the big boys up front are doing something, they’re moving people around and giving you running lanes,” Elliott said after Virginia’s 27-13 win, the first W of the season for the ‘Hoos.

UVA put up 221 net yards on the ground in the win, with sixth-year senior tailback Perris Jones going for a career-high 134 yards on 12 carries.

Clemson transfer Kobe Pace added 83 yards on 20 carries as the two-back rotation averaged just a touch under seven yards per.

Coming in, Perris had been averaging 3.5 yards per carry; Pace was getting 3.3 yards per carry.

“We were able to hit a couple a couple of big plays, but then I thought the backs, you know, did a decent job of running through arm tackles,” Elliott said. “Still too many free hitters, you know, guys turned loose in the backfield, you know, some of that is going to be, you know, structurally it’s a challenge to get off to the second level. But overall, I thought the guys accepted the challenge to run the ball. And that’s what we want to do, that’s where we want our identity to be offensively. It sets the tempo for everything else.”

---

Full coverage

• Virginia rallies from early 13-3 deficit, gets first W of 2023, 27-13 over William & Mary
• Five observations from Virginia’s 27-13 win over William & Mary on Saturday
• Muskett gets back up off the deck, throws game-clinching TD after shoulder injury
• Virginia O line, finally, clears way for ‘Hoos to establish a ground game

---

Elliott has been talking about the need to establish a rushing attack since he took the job in December 2021, but last year, behind a makeshift offensive line, Virginia averaged just 123.1 yards per game, ranking 11th in the ACC, and even with Saturday’s big numbers, the Cavaliers are still last in the ACC in rushing, averaging 99.5 yards per game.

But what we saw on Saturday in the win over W&M was a big step forward.

“Coach Kitchings challenged us, and we knew from the start we had a very talented group, and we feel that we haven’t been playing to our best capabilities,” Jones told reporters after his career game.

“Today there was a huge emphasis to go out and just be who we are. No pressure, no stress. Don’t try to overdo it. I think that showed today. We had some great plays, and credit to the O line. Those guys are working their tails off and made our job easy,” Jones said.

It wasn’t all flowers for the O line. Elliott wasn’t happy, and he shouldn’t be, with the four sacks; UVA has now allowed 22 sacks this season, which comes to 3.8 per game.

“Got to see what the situations were with the sacks,” Elliott said. “Still giving away too many sacks, and you know, some of it is not, it’s not all on the O line, you know, some of it is the quarterback stepping up too early or flushing the pocket a little bit too early, but that’s where we got to get better. But pleased with the run game, but you know, overall, not pleased with the fact that we got a quarterback hit too much.”

Jones, speaking from the perspective of a 100-yard rusher, was pushing the story of how his big guys up front have made improvements from Week 1.

“Huge strides,” Jones said. “Those guys have put together complete games. Their hard work has come to fruition. They’ve gotten rewarded for it, so I couldn’t be happier for them. That’s an excellent group of guys, they’re coming together. They’re working hard every single day, and they’re making the strides that they need to make for this team.”