Virginia assistant coach Marques Hagans didn’t hesitate. When asked who the leaders for his receivers group would be for the 2020 season, the answer was succinct: Terrell Jana.
Hagans said the receivers will go where Jana leads them.
“He is the leader. He is the guy of the group,” Hagans said. “Even though Joe [Reed] and Hasise [Dubois] got a lot of notoriety from last year, he was really the leader of the group. He really assumes that role again this season. It’s a natural thing to him. Everything that you want in a player is Terrell Jana. He’s made himself through hard work, sacrifice, and dedication. I couldn’t pick a better leader to lead this group going into this season because on and off the field, he’s everything that you want.”
That role is something apparent even for a newcomer like Ra’Shaun Henry. A graduate transfer from St. Francis in Pennsylvania, Herny joined the UVA program just a few months ago. Still, that leadership mantle is something he noticed.
“Jana is everything I want to be,” Henry said. “I’m not really that vocal like him but seeing him take leadership the majority of the time is great to see and it’s something I want to start taking up on as well.”
For Jana, feeling comfortable in that role took time. He describes himself as someone that prefers individual interactions to speaking in front of a group. During the team’s Zoom calls this spring, something created by the program as alternative to practice once it was cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic, he said that’s still the role he preferred. He tried to step back and let others have their turn to speak.
Overall, however, Jana has grown into both the lead by example type he started as and a voice the team needs. He and Charles Snowden have become two of the most recognizable faces for the program during the course of 2020 and its challenges with both the coronavirus and social unrest. Those two players are featured on the program’s annual Fact Book (the new media guide), the cover of which featured the two Bryces, Hall and Perkins, last fall.
“I think I’ve been a lead by example guy my whole life, but then as I got older I learned how you’ve got to use your voice more and step into a more vocal and a more prominent role as a leader,” Jana said. “Last year was definitely the start of it. The big thing is being around other great leaders, seeing how they carry themselves both on and off the field, learning from them, seeing what I like and don’t like, and then do my best to apply that with my own teammates. I think my type of leadership is very one on one, individual. Hopefully for each person, I’m the type of leader that they need whether it be vocal or personal one on one stuff. I’m just trying to mold myself to them so I can make them the best player they can be.”
Jana emerged as more than a leader over the past two seasons. He became one of the most productive players on the roster last fall. While he had appeared in 25 games prior to the 2019 campaign, his role had been limited – he had 13 catches for 172 yards and a touchdown in 2017 and 2018. Entering his upperclass years last fall, however, Virginia needed someone to step up and complement Joe Reed and Hasise Dubois, who had each been solid along side Olamide Zaccheaus previously.
The signs that Jana could be that player started toward the end of the 2018 season. He had three catches for 77 yards against Pitt, three more catches for 32 yards against Georgia Tech, and two catches for 19 yards at Virginia Tech. So of his 13 career catches to that point, eight had come in that final month. He missed the Belk Bowl with an injury but started to add to his rise in spring ball last year. By the time the season rolled around, coaches and teammates were already talking about him as a potential breakthrough candidate.
Those multi-catch games that started to pop up in November the previous year carried right into 2019. Jana had multiple catches in 13 of the 14 games, the Duke game being the outlier where he had a single reception. Much like the year before, he really started to turn it up later in the year. Starting with the Louisville game on Oct. 26, he rattled off games with at least four catches the rest of the way, which included three 100-yard receiving days. He capped his year off with 7 catches, 126 yards, and a touchdown in the Orange Bowl game with Florida.
For the season, Jana tallied 73 catches for 878 yards and 3 touchdowns. He had at least one 20+yard catch in 8 of 14 games (and at least one catch of 17+ yards in 10 of 14). He was one of just five FBS receivers with 100+ targets, a 70%+ catch rate, and 10+ yards per target.
Of course, Jana will now try to push his development further with his senior season and a new quarterback. Brennan Armstrong and Keytaon Thompson, a graduate transfer from Mississippi State, are the main options to replaced the departed Perkins. Unfortunately, the Hoos lost out on spring practice so they’ve been trying to build up the chemistry with the new quarterbacks as quickly as possible in the preseason.
“With the quarterbacks, missing spring ball hurt and the summer time, but I think Coach Mendenhall has done a great job with our format of practice and how we’ve been doing things and giving us an opportunity to be in a competitive setting and build that chemistry because you know it’s important,” Jana said. “I’m glad where we’re going especially with the competition going because we’re getting a lot of reps with both quarterbacks. I’m happy with the path we’re on right now.”
Hagans is comfortable with the amount of time available before the first game.
“I think there’s plenty of time before we play to continue to develop that chemistry, but there’s new players in all kinds of positions,” Hagans sa id. “Finding that connection with the quarterbacks – we’ve got new quarterbacks, we’ve got new receivers, so everybody’s working on finding that timing and chemistry but I feel confident with the time that we have, we’ll be able to be where we need to be for the first game.”
Armstrong has an experience edge within the system after serving as Perkins’ backup the past two seasons. Plus, Thompson was not able to join the team for the spring Zoom sessions until he finished his coursework at Mississippi State per NCAA rules. So he first joined the team for any activities early in the summer. Still, Thompson showed flashes of his running ability during his days at MSU and he has speed that will be an asset potentially.
Mendenhall said when Thompson signed that he believed the roster needed two starter-caliber quarterbacks in order to remain an ACC contender. Prior to adding the grad transfer, the Hoos had a significant gap between Armstrong, veteran Lindell Stone, and incoming freshman Ira Armstead.
The competition so far in camp is helping the team, Jana said.
“Keytaon’s great. Him and BA, there’s a good competition going right now. They’re both showing great things,” Jana said. “Keytaon, I think the big thing is to learn the offense for him because our offense is complicated. If he can get all the shifts and motions and all that stuff down, I think he can do something special here. I’m excited to keep going and for him and BA to keep competing. They’re making each other better right now, which is great for the team.”
Shield Adjustments
The Cavaliers, like many football teams around the country, have adopted the use of full face shields this season as part of trying to mitigate risks related to COVID-19. The face shield combines the typical visor that some players wear in front of their eyes and a second shield that covers the facemask bars on the lower part of the helmet.
The players said that the full shield can create fogging and condensation at times, but they are adjusting to the change.
“I’ve never worn a visor. I didn’t like visors. So it took getting used to,” Jana said. “It’s fine now. It fogs up a little bit every now and then, but we’re used to it now. Our big thing with our culture here is hard things together so I’ve done harder things than wear a mask in practice.”
“I’ve always worn a visor. I love a visor,” Henry said. “The bottom part, I’m not used to that. Breathing is very hard. That’s something I’m going to have to get adjusted to.”
Worth Quoting
Jana on the receiving corps while training away from the program:
“I think the big thing that was kind of helpful being apart was everyone was doing their own thing and they were working their own crafts and when they came back it was almost a new beginning for a lot of people. They can kind of come back here and re-establish themselves as a player, they weren’t in a role we had seen them as for the past couple of years. I think on arrival was a big opportunity for guys to reinvent themselves and we’ve seen that. I’ve seen guys that have been working really hard. While they’re at home, they were sending us videos but we couldn’t tell what they were doing but it’s showing out here, which is awesome to see.”
Schedule Gap
The schedules changes brought on by the coronavirus left room for one non-conference opponent if ACC teams wanted to play that additional game. UVA thought it had that piece of its schedule lined up with VMI remaining on the schedule in the same week as before. That seemed ideal because it gave the Hoos a game prior to facing Virginia Tech, which became the ACC opener when the league released the new outline.
VMI, however, opted out of the game when the Southern Conference cancelled fall sports. The Cavaliers have yet to announce a replacement. That’s set up an interesting schedule quirk for Virginia. If the schedule stays as is, not only will the Hoos open the season in Blacksburg, they won’t play a home game until October when NC State visits on Oct. 10. That would be the program’s only home game between Sept. 1 and Oct. 30 because UVA’s second home game is against UNC on Halloween.
Plus, there’s the whole starting with the Hokies thing.
“I’m trying to get as many games in as we can so ideally I’d like to play someone week one, but if not then week two just got that much more interesting,” Virginia linebacker Charles Snowden said.
