A lot has changed in the last year for Kurt Benkert.
Beginning with a knee injury on August 25, 2015, Benkert has had season-ending surgery. He graduated. He transferred from East Carolina to Virginia. He got married. He joined a quarterback competition already in progress. And, finally, he was announced as the starting quarterback for UVA almost one year to the day since losing his starting job at ECU to that knee injury.
At the end of that one-year journey with ups and downs, Benkert is happy for the chance to lead the Cavaliers.
”It’s exciting,” Benkert said. ”It’s a good opportunity. Honestly, I really haven’t been worrying about transferring and all the negative stuff that happened last year with my injury at ECU. I’m really excited to be in this situation and be a part of this team. We’re really looking forward to exceeding expectations this year.”
To reach this point just a few short weeks after transferring to Virginia, Benkert dove into preparation. Cavalier coach Bronco Mendenhall said that Benkert regularly had arrived near 7 a.m. and put in hours to learning the system and working on his technique and conditioning. Benkert said that approach didn’t differ much from his time at East Carolina, but he did have a key motivator this summer: lost time.
While Benkert finished out his undergraduate time at ECU this spring, UVA’s quarterback battle already started. Matt Johns and Connor Brewer, who the coaches have praised for their handling of the competition and the starter decision, ended up in a close race entering the summer. Johns started all 12 games in 2015 and threw for 2,810 passing yards. He had 20 touchdowns and 17 interceptions. Brewer appeared in two games as the back-up quarterback and completed 4 of 8 passes for 34 yards with no touchdowns and one interception.
Benkert, who has completed 8 of 10 college passes as the ECU back-up in 2014, wanted to make sure that he could start preseason practice in August with a clear mind about the offensive system. He said he didn’t want to be second-guessing himself while trying to compete for the starting job.
It’s a good thing he took that approach too. UVA offensive coordinator Robert Anae said he placed high expectations on all the quarterbacks since arriving.
”I’m not easy on quarterbacks as an offensive coordinator,” Anae said. ”I think you can teach more when you expect more right now. That’s the approach that it has been. It was not an easy transition for Kurt and it wasn’t an easy transition for Matt and Connor in the spring to execute at a high level and do things we ask the quarterback to do for the team. I will say that those three were outstanding with the expectations and looking back I can’t think in recent memory of a group that embraced the culture and the direction of a new staff as well and I’ve been on a couple of new staffs.”
In the end, two things helped Benkert win the quarterback derby. First, he has some impressive physical tools – a big arm, a quick release, good size (he’s approximately 20 pounds heavier than Johns and 40 more than Brewer), and enough mobility – that let him make plays. ”I’d probably just say consistency and big play ability,” Benkert said when asked what he thought won him the job. ”We’ve had a lot of big plays throughout camp … it’s definitely helped.”
Second, Benkert worked in a system at ECU that is very similar to the style Anae is installing for the Virginia football program. Both Anae and Ruffin McNeill, the former Pirates’ head coach now at UVA as the associate head coach and defensive line coach, came through the Texas Tech program and took Air Raid concepts with them to future jobs. That included McNeill’s time at ECU where one of his offensive coordinators, Lincoln Riley, had been a Red Raider QB.
While the system has variations and wrinkles at Virginia, Benkert’s three years at East Carolina gave him an immediate working knowledge of his new team’s concepts. The key was to learn what Coach Anae and quarterbacks coach Jason Beck wanted out of their version of the offense.
”Honestly the football part was the easy part about coming in – just getting used to the town and everything was a little bit more difficult,” Benkert said. ”As far as football goes, most of the philosophy is the same, just how they teach it is maybe a little bit different. Each coach has their own pet peeves and things like that. Just getting used to how Coach Beck and Coach Anae want the offense to be run is probably the biggest challenge.”
Now that he’s won the starting job, the next big challenge is to try to help revitalize the Hoos’ offense and, perhaps, click off enough wins to go bowling. The next one-year journey begins with the final days of preparation and then the first game of the season with Richmond. The Spiders visit Scott Stadium on Sept. 3 at 3:30 p.m.
