During Saturday’s 20-14 win at North Carolina, the Virginia football team scored two touchdowns. One of those belonged to a tight end for only the second time in the Bronco Mendenhall era to date.
Tight end Evan Butts hauled in the 10-yard scoring catch late in the second quarter to give his team a 10-0 lead. It’s the second time he scored since Mendenhall arrived, but the other came as the long snapper on a trick field goal play against North Carolina in 2016. The only other touchdown catch by the tight end position also came last season when Richard Burney scored against Duke.
Butts’ touchdown on Saturday is part of a career resurgence at Virginia as the offense has reincorporated the tight end spot this season. In 2016, he made just seven catches for 46 yards and that included the 29-yard touchdown catch on the trick play. This season, he’s already matched his career-high for season catches. He had 16 for 182 yards as a redshirt freshman in 2015 (he also had three touchdowns) and he already has 16 for 144 yards in 2017 through just six games.
The junior’s production has surpassed the tight end position’s statistics from all of last season. Butts, Burney, and Brendan Marshall combined for 12 catches, 78 yards, and one touchdown a year ago. Butts and Burney both saw their seasons end early due to injury as well.
This season, Butts has made a catch in five of six games (he didn’t get one against Connecticut). He has three or more catches in three of six games. That included Saturday’s win where he caught three passes for 33 yards including the aforementioned touchdown.
Offense Slowing Down
The Cavaliers rolled to a pair of high-scoring wins against UConn, 38-18, and Boise State, 42-23, before the bye week. They averaged 40 points per game and 533 yards during those two victories.
In the season’s first two ACC games after the bye week, however, the offense has taken a big step back. UVA topped Duke, 28-21, and North Carolina, 20-14, but averaged just 24 points and 357.5 yards. Those scoring numbers included a boost from the defense, which had an interception return for touchdown against the Blue Devils.
These last two outings resemble a long stretch of mediocre offense before the two-game breakout mentioned above. In fact, fans were bemoaning the predictability of UVA’s offense the week prior to the game with the Huskies. Entering the Connecticut game, the Hoos had scored 20 points or less in six of the previous eight games (including six of the previous seven games against FBS teams).
That string circled back to mid-October a year ago. In three straight games on Sept. 24, Oct. 1, and Oct. 15 during the 2016 season, Virginia rattled off 49, 34, and 31 points against Central Michigan, Duke (the defense scored a touchdown to help in this one too), and UNC. The Hoos averaged 38 points and 449.7 yards in those three games. They followed that up with the eight-game stretch heading into the UConn contest that saw the team average 18.1 points and 310.4 yards. The first three games of 2016 saw the team averaged 18.7 points and 357 yards as well.
All of which is to say, are we watching the start of another long slide offensively? Are the short streaks of offensive explosions just temporary blips on an otherwise inconsistent offensive radar? After all, the 18 games of the Bronco Mendenhall and Robert Anae offensive era divide neatly into two columns. In the five explosive games, UVA averaged 38.8 points and 483 yards. In the other 13 games, the Hoos averaged 19.2 points and 328 yards.
Virginia probably can get one more win for bowl eligibility even with the offense struggling, but any bigger goals likely need the production to pick up a little with the competition getting better in the weeks ahead.
Blanding Closing In On Record
Virginia senior safety Quin Blanding continued his consistent work with tackles Saturday. He recorded 10 stops against the Tar Heels, marking the 22nd time in 42 career games that he finished with double-digit tackles. Blanding also received credit for a quarterback hurry. That effort made him a Lott Impact Trophy Player of the Week candidate.
Blanding now owns 419 career tackles, just one tackle shy of matching Angelo Crowell for third all-time at Virginia. He needs 13 tackles to tie Charles McDaniel for second and 16 tackles to tie Jamie Sharper for first. Currently at 9.98 tackles per game for his career, Blanding is on pace to be the program’s new all-time tackle leader by the end of the month.
Interceptions Climbing
The Hoos have picked off five passes the past two weeks after grabbing three interceptions at North Carolina. That pushed the season total to nine interceptions, which matched the total from all of 2016.
That’s a category that has shown immediate dividends when compared to Mike London’s final season in 2015. UVA made only four picks that year, though it did tally 15 in 2014. Over the course of London’s tenure from 2010-2015, the Cavaliers came up with 56 picks, an average of 9.3 per season.
This year’s defense is on pace for 18 interceptions in the regular season. That would be the most since the 2001 club also finished with 18. It would also match the number of picks from the 1979 team that set the program record for take-aways in a season with 42 (18 interceptions, 24 fumble recoveries). The program record for INTs came in 1994 when the Hoos snared 27!
