99 Virginia Football Thoughts Before Kickoff

By: Chris Horne |
Carla Williams, who officially began her job as Virginia Director of Athletics last December, boosted the football staff earlier this year and is eyeing a new football facility in five years.

Carla Williams’ tenure as Virginia Director of Athletics began last December. According to the Charlottesville Daily Progress, her first day officially on the job included a two-hour meeting with Cavalier head football coach Bronco Mendenhall.

Mendenhall’s praise of his new boss has been effusive. Given what she has done to improve the football program and what she plans to do, it’s easy to see why. It’s reason to be optimistic if you’re a supporter of the Cavalier football program.

No. 5 – With Williams, Virginia Football Future Seems Bright

Williams was an athletics administrator at the University of Georgia for 13 years before getting tabbed as the Bulldogs’ deputy director of athletics in 2015. Among countless other responsibilities in that time, she served as an administrator for a successful Georgia football program. Less than a year into her new gig in Charlottesville, there are positive signs that she knows what it takes to help Virginia football become successful.

Football Structural Changes

Coach Mendenhall mentioned the need for a facilities upgrade when he was introduced as Virginia head coach in December of 2015.

“What I do know after now seeing our team and seeing this institution, I’m fiercely committed now to not only change on the field but for the infrastructure and the physical structures,” Mendenhall said during his introductory remarks. “A football building is absolutely necessary to dedicate or to show our dedication that we’re serious. And by not only having a coach that’s willing to do that on the field and players that are willing to do it, a facility is a tangible form of announcing our presence that we don’t intend to be taking a backseat to anybody, and so I’m willing to work with that, also, and help in any way that I can.”

Williams agreed, discussing the topic when she met with media this spring. Not only did she acknowledge the need for a new physical structure, though, she mentioned the necessity for personnel improvements, saying, “we’re understaffed in some areas.”

“I knew that before any shovel went into the ground for a facility, that we had serious deficiencies that we had to address now,” Williams said in this article by Mike Barber of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Since Williams took over, Virginia has raised $500,000 for a short-term emergency fund that, according to the Times-Dispatch, doubled the number of football staff analysts from “three to six” and provided the football program with five strength coaches, up from three.

“It didn’t take me very long to start to realize that we’ve got a structural problem in football,” Williams said. “We’re understaffed in some areas. Obviously we’ve got some facilities issues in some areas. Our budget isn’t where it needs to be, so all of those things need to change to have a consistently competitive football program.”

While the staffing changes may not be as visible to the fans or recruits, they are certainly significant and impactful. What will be visible, of course, will be a football facility upgrade from the 27-year-old McCue Center. At Georgia, Williams helped to oversee $162 million in facility additions, upgrades and improvements for the Bulldogs athletics program. That experience should be beneficial as Virginia makes upgrades of its own.

Gene Wang of The Washington Post reported that “the Virginia Board of Visitors authorized fundraising and planning for a football operations center at an estimated cost of $55 million to $60 million. The building would house all the necessities and amenities to attract top recruits, an area in which the Cavaliers have been lagging behind their ACC counterparts, most notably in-state rival Virginia Tech.”

In Roanoke earlier this month, Williams further discussed the plans to upgrade Virginia football.

“What we’re doing at Virginia is not an arms race,” she said in this article by the Roanoke Times. “I was part of an arms race at Georgia and an arms race is when you have what you need and you continue to build because competitors are doing that.

“For us, our construction is to meet a need, not just for recruiting but for our current student-athletes. Five years from now, I hope we have a football operations center and I hope we have an Olympic sports operation center.”

What Williams has done personnel-wise and in terms of taking early steps towards the building of a new football facility should be heartening to Cavalier fans. There are other areas that have impressed me as well, including …

Recruiting

“You cannot thrive without great talent,” Williams said in the Richmond Times-Dispatch article. “I love recruiting. I love talking to parents. I love talking to prospects. And I’ve done a lot of that.”

Former Virginia Director of Athletics Craig Littlepage played a role in recruiting. How frequently he met with potential recruits I’m not exactly sure, but he did play a role. Williams, the first female African-American athletics director at a Power Five conference, could be a powerful voice in the recruiting game. Her past experience as a coach and involvement with student development and life skills is a positive, too, in terms of connecting to recruits and their families.

Returning Alumni

Herman Moore is a recent example, but according to Mendenhall there has been an “uptick” of Virginia football alumni returning for an up-close look at the current program. He credits Williams for this.

“I think there has been a significant uptick because there has been a significant emphasis uptick. Carla has done a really nice job with that,” Mendenhall said during his August 27 press conference.

“In a team meeting [the morning of August 27], in fact, I believe the number was — as part of our team meeting, there were 22 former UVA players that were Super Bowl champions,” Mendenhall continued. “There has been some very special people on the field, and, man, there have been some amazing people off the field in terms of what they’ve accomplished.

“That, in essence, is what UVA football is,” Mendenhall concluded. “I want the success on the field desperately. I also want those successes off the field and quality lives, too. So the players that are coming back, they see that and it resonates and they’re aligned with that.”

Around any program, it’s important for the current players – potential recruits, too – to see examples of success. For me, this is a big reason why it’s important to have alumni return to Grounds on a consistent basis. I think it inspires the team both on and off the field, and for a program in the foundational stages for what hopefully will become consistent success, it only helps build the positive culture.

Time will tell just how successful the football program will be. We’ll see if Mendenhall is able to build the program into a consistent winner. But so far I like what Virginia football has with Williams as the Director of Athletics. Where she came from, her track record with what is needed to build the program, and what she has done so far give me confidence that Virginia is on the right path.

The “99 Virginia Football Thoughts Before Kickoff” series has discussed much more. The previous articles are below. Click away.

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  1. Great stuff as usual! I had not seen the underlying articles, so this synopsis was fantastic. Thank you. It also increased my confidence that Carla was an outstanding hire — love it!

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