The Virginia Cavaliers embark on a new era in some ways, but are continuing with a previous era in others. A lot of comings and goings mark this season, in which Virginia will try to find a new identity yet not fully shed the older identity it had begun to cultivate. Confused? It\u2019s a very uncertain time for the Cavaliers, so let\u2019s lay out some of the plot points surrounding this program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Virginia has a new head coach, Tony Elliott. He was previously the offensive coordinator at Clemson, where he coached Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence under the watchful eye of Dabo Swinney. Elliott is one of four new ACC head coaches this season, joining Mike Elko of Duke, Brent Pry of Virginia Tech, and Mario Cristobal of Miami. You can see that all four new ACC head coaches are from the Coastal Division, while none are in the Atlantic. This makes Virginia\u2019s situation harder to pin down, and it makes the Coastal one of the most fascinating divisions in college football for 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What has not changed at Virginia this year is that Brennan Armstrong has chosen to return for one more year at quarterback. He wasn\u2019t a Heisman Trophy finalist in 2021, but he made a legitimate run at the award. Elliott doesn\u2019t inherit a mess at quarterback; he inherits one of the best quarterback situations in the ACC. Teaching a quarterback will not be his big challenge in 2022. It will be his ability to coach the other positions and get a defense which will be much better this year, compared to 2021. More on that below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Key Personnel Lost<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cavaliers lost coach Bronco Mendenhall, who chose to retire after several seasons with the Cavaliers. Mendenhall did snap Virginia Tech\u2019s long winning streak over Virginia, though he did lose several games before that streak finally ended. Mendenhall did get Virginia to the ACC Championship Game, and he did bring the program to the Orange Bowl, so on a number of fronts, he succeeded. However, all of those accomplishments did not lead to bigger achievements for the program. Mendenhall was able to make use of quarterback Bryce Perkins, but after Perkins left, the program didn\u2019t build on his successes. Last year, Mendenhall had Armstrong in the fold, putting up huge numbers at quarterback, but the Virginia defense wasn\u2019t able to do its job. The Cavaliers gave up 66 points in a loss to BYU and were shredded in other games as well. The Cavaliers have to improve upon the low standard of play from the defense in Mendenhall\u2019s final seasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Important Incoming Freshmen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Stevie Bracey, a receiver and a four-star recruit, is the big incoming freshman prospect who will try to give Brennan Armstrong another target in a wide receiver room which is stocked with quality talent. Other Virginia recruits have signed a letter of intent but haven\u2019t yet enrolled at the school, which means they will probably not be ready for Week 1, given a lack of spring practice and other involvements which can accelerate the pace of their development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Key Position Battles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Virginia defense was a disaster last year, and the secondary was at the heart of UVA\u2019s problems. Position battles in the secondary will be central to forming an organized approach which will enable the Cavaliers to improve this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biggest Offseason Goal(s)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tony Elliott inherits an offensive line which has a number of question marks, plus a defense which is thin at multiple position groups. Identifying talent and organizing the depth chart to address these limitations are central goals for the first-year head coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Virginia Cavaliers embark on a new era in some ways, but are continuing with a previous era in others….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":7606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaaf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23031,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23019\/revisions\/23031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}