Virginia football entered the 2015 campaign with question marks — big question marks — surrounding its defense. The early departures of Eli Harold and Max Valles coupled with the graduation of Daquan Romero and Henry Coley shrouded the front seven in a cloud of uncertainty.
Now three games into the season, the Cavaliers (1-2) remain without solutions in the team’s defensive deficiencies. Virginia’s unnecessarily close contest against William & Mary serves to underscore the point — the defense needs to stiffen up for the team to put W’s in the column.
“We got the win, but it wasn’t our best performance,” sophomore linebacker Micah Kiser said.
Kiser’s teammate, junior safety Kelvin Rainey echoed that sentiment.
“It was really sloppy out there, but a win’s a win,” Rainey said.
The Tribe (1-1), which competes in the Football Championship Subdivision, moved the ball effortlessly throughout the majority of the game, racking up 371 yards of total offense. This comes on the heels of a 460-yard effort by then-No. 9 Notre Dame. Then-No. 13 UCLA also gained 503 yards of offense in Virginia’s season opener.
“We’ve played three games, lost two of them and given up some points,” coach Mike London said. “You have to keep the points down. … We need to improve in that category.”
Through three games, the Cavaliers have allowed an average of 444.7 yards per game. If this trend continues, Virginia’s defense will allow 5,336 yards of total offense by the end of 2015, which would be the most yards surrendered since the Wahoos ceded 5,001 in 2003.
Much of the yardage allowed has come by way of the run. Behind senior Mikal Abdul-Saboor’s 100-yard effort William & Mary rushed for 145 yards. The Fighting Irish rumbled on the ground for 253 yards. The Bruins ran for a comparatively meager 152.
Virginia enjoyed an advantage against the rushing attack in 2014 because Harold and Valles were able to preoccupy the offensive line, which allowed linebackers Coley and Romero to plug rushing lanes. So far, the Cavaliers have been unable to replicate this.
The unit’s suspect tackling only compounds this issue. Virginia’s defense has struggled to take ball carriers to the ground, and modest four-yard rushes up the middle have turned into 20-plus-yard gashers as a result.
“We didn’t really tackle well,” Kiser said. “But we played tough and got the win.”
The big play has haunted Virginia early on. Against the Tribe, the Cavaliers allowed four rushes of 10-plus yards and four passes of 15 or more yards. Fans will painfully remember that it was the big play — a 39-yard pass reception by Will Fuller — that gave Notre Dame the victory.
“We have to perform better, but that’s a good football team that executed better than we did,” London said.
Now a quarter through the schedule, Virginia is still searching for its first forced turnover. The defense did force two William & Mary fumbles, but both were recovered by the Tribe.
A turnover is the quickest way to get the defense off the field. Unless Virginia does this consistently, there is considerable pressure to play efficiently on third down. Against the Fighting Irish, the Cavaliers did not allow a third-down completion. The Tribe were 7-for-19 on such conversions and wore Virginia down.
“It was pretty tiring, but if we did what we needed to do on first and second down, it wouldn’t have been that tiring,” Kiser said. “So we will just try to get better.”
The Cavaliers played with fire by turning in a lackluster defensive performance against William & Mary, and they nearly got burned. The improved offense carried the team past the Tribe, but Virginia is not the type of team that can consistently win ballgames by putting up 40-plus points.
With that being said, the potential for improvement exists. With its back against its own goal line, Virginia turned away Abdul-Saboor before snuffing out a William & Mary trick play on fourth down.
Virginia’s next opponent, Boise State, is yet another team that can put up points in bunches. The outcome of that game will almost assuredly be decided by the Cavalier defense.
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