The Air Raid offense is coming to Charlottesville, and the new UVA starting quarterback is ready to sound the sirens.
“A few philosophies are a little bit different, some of the plays are a little bit different, but the core of the offense is Air Raid stuff, so I’m really comfortable with that,” said Kurt Benkert, the junior transfer from East Carolina who was named the starter at QB by first-year UVA head coach Bronco Mendenhall on Wednesday.
Benkert said he was informed a week ago that he was going to be the starter, after winning a three-man competition with last year’s starter, Matt Johns, and Arizona transfer Connor Brewer, who will be listed as co-#2s on the depth chart heading into the Sept. 3 opener with Richmond.
The anointed starter at ECU a year ago, Benkert went down to a season-ending knee injury in training camp and missed the 2015 season.
After the Pirates flailed to a 5-7 finish, coach Ruffin McNeill was surprisingly given the heave-ho, and ended up on Mendenhall’s staff.
The system that came east with Mendenhall and offensive coordinator Robert Anae from BYU has a lot of similarities with what McNeill ran at ECU.
“His knowledge of the offense, similar offense, not identical offense, similar offense, gave him a much faster transition than what it would have been if it was not as similar,” Mendenhall told reporters on Wednesday, confirming the news regarding Benkert.
The ‘Hoos had finished training camp earlier in the day on Wednesday, with the focus now on game prep for Richmond.
Johns, who threw for 2,810 yards and 20 touchdowns, with an FCS-high 17 interceptions, in 2015, and Brewer, a former top recruit at Texas before transferring to Arizona before ending up at Virginia last summer, had competed for the starting job in the spring without a clearcut favorite emerging.
Benkert participated in spring practice at ECU under new coach Scottie Montgomery, throwing for 216 yards and a touchdown and adding another score on the ground in the Pirates’ spring game, and was still in the running for the starting slot before deciding in April that he wanted to transfer.
He earned his degree from East Carolina in three years, and thus was able to transfer and compete immediately at his next school. The unsettled situation at quarterback factored into his decision to come to Virginia, as did his relationship with McNeill.
Mendenhall praised Benkert’s work ethic.
“Kurt is, as much of a cliché as this sounds, he’s a student of the game. Meaning that from the minute that he arrived on campus, 7 a.m., each and every day, at the office, much like it was a professional thing, that’s where he was spending the day,” Mendenhall said. “He’s married, and he came here with a sense of purpose, not only to further his education, and he’s an A student, but to start his family, and to play great football.”
Benkert, for his part, is ready, after all the hard work, to get out on the field and play.
“It’s been a lot of work, a lot of hard work and long days. Just to be able to get on the field and just have fun doing what all this hard work is for, it’s going to be really fun,” said Benkert, who has two years of eligibility remaining, an important consideration for Mendenhall.
“I’m really intrigued by the idea that he has two seasons, not just one, in terms of where our program currently is,” said Mendenhall, who inherits a program coming off a 4-8 season in 2015, the fourth straight losing season for the Cavs, and the eighth in the past 10 seasons for a one-time top-flight ACC program.
Benkert appeared to be the favorite going into camp, with the main holdup being his lack of game experience at the college level.
“Any time you have a quarterback that’s new as a starter, game experience is always something that makes you feel better,” Mendenhall said.
To counter that, the coaching staff “put a lot of emphasis on situational football, putting our players under duress, under pressure, and recreating the most elaborate and most taxing football scenarios that we can come up with, to uncover where the kinks in our armor might be, if we have some,” Mendenhall said.
The coach liked what he saw out of Benkert in those situations.
“I’ve been really impressed with how he’s moved the team,” Mendenhall said. “When I look at a quarterback, what I look at, first and foremost, is do they move the team into the end zone? Because points determine outcome. Kurt has been the one who I think has been consistently and can continue to be consistent in being able to move our team forward in terms of the type and caliber of opponent that we play. He’s a good decision-maker with a very strong arm, and he has natural leadership skills.”
So Benkert is the starter, but it will be important for the program this year that Johns and Brewer, both seniors, continue to develop in case they hear their names called.
“The number and percentage of quarterbacks, starting quarterbacks, that make it through a year, on a yearly basis, very few make it all the way through the entire year,” Mendenhall said. “When you have two players of that caliber as well behind, I think we have more depth there. We made a potential weakness, with depth and succession planning, a potential strength.”
Story by Chris Graham
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