Film Room: Breaking down UVa's pass defense concerns

When the 2021 Virginia Cavaliers open camp tomorrow, a lot of attention will be paid to the starting defense. After being a strength for several years, the Wahoos started struggling to keep opponents out of the end zone in the back half of the 2019 season and for most of the COVID-stricken 2020 campaign as well.

There is plenty of blame to go around but the pass defense was at the heart of the issues throughout the season. UVa did have injury issues pop up but players that went in as projected starters played most of the campaign in the secondary, and the results were mixed at best. UVa allowed 3,044 passing yards in 10 games, with 19 touchdowns and 11 interceptions against. For comparison, UVa struggled to stop the pass late in 2019 but still allowed just 3,272 yards with four more games played.

Virginia was torched by several outstanding quarterbacks like Trevor Lawrence and Sam Howell. Those two tore up most defenses they face, so there is no shame in that. But UVa also gave up 520 yards and four touchdowns to Boston College backup quarterback Dennis Grosel in a game that was won on offense. In fairness, the secondary did grab three interceptions in that win but allowing BC to march up and down the field with an inexperienced backup was alarming.

In today’s Film Room we take a look at UVa’s pass defense, particularly the secondary, highlighting several breakdowns that led to big plays or touchdowns.

On this play above, Nick Grant has the coverage responsibility for Zay Flowers, one of the speediest receivers in the ACC. Grosel has all day to throw in a clean pocket and hits his man in stride for the touchdown. At first glance, this looks like a play where Grant simply got beat deep in single coverage for the touchdown.

This angle shows that Grant was probably supposed to get help from a safety over the top, but one of the two blew an assignment. D’Angelo Amos and Joey Blount are the safeties on this play. On this angle, you can see Blount slide over to cover the middle of the field while Amos stays put. The result is double coverage on a receiver in the middle of the field but nobody covering the deep zone. Grosel notices this, again with plenty of time to scan the field, and makes an easy throw for a touchdown. UVa’s defense features safety zone rotations after the snap, so it’s hard to say whether Blount should have taken Flowers deep or if he rotated correctly and Amos staying put was the mistake. Credit Flowers for getting a good jump on Grant but this one looks like a byproduct of a missed assignment.

Here is another clip from the shootout win over Boston College and again, it looks like a bit of a coverage bust. Eagles tight end Hunter Long runs a simple out and up, covered by Nick Jackson out to the sideline. This is a zone look from the defense and Jackson covers his area before hypothetically passing Long off to a defender behind him. De’Vante Cross is occupied by another route, leaving Long with wide open space to run into. The quarterback makes the right read, and throws an easy touchdown pass. These plays happen but the Wahoos were the victim of a few too many of these last year.

Now, let’s look at another shootout win, this one against North Carolina. Howell torched UVa, completing 23 of 28 passes for 443 yards and four touchdowns but didn’t get the win. One of his four scores came on the play below, a first quarter bomb to Dyami Brown. There isn’t a lot to break down here, honestly. Brown torched UVa in both 2019 and 2020 before getting drafted in the third round last spring. He simply out-races Cross in coverage after a quick double move and Howell spots the single coverage and delivers a well-thrown ball for six. This isn’t a complicated play, but we did see UVa’s defensive backs lose like this in single coverage more often than Nick Howell would probably like. UVa runs a lot of zone coverage which helps negate speed mismatches among other things, but on this man coverage Cross just got beat.

Here’s another touchdown from that game, this time in the second quarter. On a slant route, freshman receiver Khafre Brown beats Cross and makes the reception. Allowing the catch is one thing but Virginia’s other defenders don’t give Cross a lot of help here. With a few Cavaliers converging on Brown, nobody can make the tackle. Antonio Clary couldn’t make the stop and after that Brown was off to the races. A lot of UVa’s big plays allowed were on deep throws, but this is one where UVa’s tackling issues changed a decent gain into a touchdown for Carolina.

On this next play, Louisville gets tricky to create a big gain. Late in the game, the Cardinals needed to make something happen and go to this trick play to get into the red zone. The coverage on this play really isn’t bad. Cross picks up the receiver targeted and sticks with him to the very end of the play. But he doesn’t locate the football, and the receiver is able to work back to an underthrown ball and move Cross out of the way. These plays happen, but Virginia’s defensive backs had a few costly penalties and big gains allowed where they struggled to find the ball and the receiver came up with a big catch.

Here’s another angle of the play. Cross deserves some credit for not falling for the trickery. He initially stepped up to the line of scrimmage before recognizing the play and taking the receiver out of the backfield. The play ended badly, but this wasn’t a terrible effort from Cross.

This next play, in the season finale against Virginia Tech, was certainly a mental error. UVa’s defenders are sucked in by the run fake at the snap, with both Blount and Jackson darting up to the line of scrimmage. Then they seemed to get tangled up and recognize that they were beaten by tight end James Mitchell. By the time the mistake is realized, QB Braxton Burmeister has seen the opening and made an easy throw. The result was another big gain for the Hokies on a relatively routine play.

And finally, this may have been the most devastating big passing play allowed on the year. Just before halftime, the Cavaliers were reeling but not out of it at Tech, down 20-7. In the final minute, Burmeister found Tayvion Robinson down the field, heading to the sideline. Cross tries to force him out of bounds but whiffs big time, allowing the receiver to break down the sideline for a back-breaking touchdown. This was a very costly missed tackle in a season where UV’s defense had far too many of them as a unit.

There were several different issues that plagued the secondary last season and led to some breakdowns. From our review, the biggest problems were coverage miscommunications, poor tackling, and simply getting beat by faster receivers. The latter was a problem in the back half of the 2019 season as well after Bryce Hall went down with a season-ending ankle injury. So over the last season and a half, UVa’s secondary has allowed too many big plays, some of which were simply a faster receiver dominating his coverage. It’s also worth noting that many of these big plays were given up to pros like Brown, and future pros, like Flowers. Every team in college football will give up big plays to elite talent sometimes.

The coverage and tackling issues should be fixable, however. UVa’s defense was a strong tackling team before last season and can certainly get back there. The issues we saw last year may have been related to how COVID-19 shifted practice habits, with less full contact keeping defenders from being at their sharpest on game days. Most of the defensive backs are returning which should help with consistency, and hopefully lead to fewer mental errors and coverage mistakes as well.

UVa is also adding reinforcements in Josh Hayes from North Dakota State and Anthony Johnson from Louisville. Both of those players are capable of making significant contributions if UVa’s returning cornerbacks struggle into 2021.

There is another big factor in the secondary’s performance, and that’s the pass rush. Virginia’s defense has thrived on creating havoc in recent years but the Cavaliers didn’t get after opposing quarterbacks at the same rate in 2020. In Virginia’s five wins, the Hoos recorded 22 sacks, or 4.4 per game. In its five losses, UVa recorded just 10 sacks with two of the losses, Virginia Tech and NC State, coming in games where the defense didn’t record a single one.

In watching the clips above, a lot of the deep throws had one thing in common: A clean pocket with all day to throw. UVa relies on complimentary football and if we are going to task the secondary with improving, it’s only fair to say that the pass rush from the front seven needs to get better as well.

Virginia’s DBs need to get back on track this fall after not being quite right for almost two years. If they fail, it won’t be a lack of experience that’s the issue. This group should have something to prove this year, and soon enough, we’ll see if the swoon of late 2019 and 2020 was a blip on the radar, or more indicative of a negative trend with regards to the quality of play in the secondary.