Malachi Fields leads Virginia and the ACC with 248 receiving yards. ~ Photo by Kris Wright/TheSabre.com
Virginia receiver Malachi Fields has jumped out to a lightning fast start for the football team this season. Fields set new career-best marks in both games so far this season and that helped the Hoos open with 2-0 record for the first time under Tony Elliott.
Fields currently leads the ACC with 248 receiving yards. That ranks 11th in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Against Richmond, he posted 5 receptions for 100 yards. He followed it up with 11 catches for 148 yards against Wake Forest. Prior to those two 100-yard performances, the senior’s best game came against Virginia Tech in the finale last year when he had 89 yards. That, of course, means he’s on a three-game run of setting new career-high yardage numbers.
For his career, Fields now sits at 90 catches for 1,289 yards and 6 touchdowns. That’s pushed him into range of the top 15 all-time at Virginia. To get to 15th place in receptions, he’ll need 30 more by season’s end to match Dave Sullivan (1970-72) with 120. For the same spot on the career yardage lists, the target 302 more yards to tie the 1,591 yards from Tim Smith (2009-2013).
Fields and the Cavaliers face Maryland next on the schedule. The 8 p.m. kickoff on Saturday at Scott Stadium is a ‘true blue’ game where fans are asked to wear blue. Before the game rolls around, here are what some of the Hoos have had to say about Fields this week.
Virginia coach Tony Elliott
Malachi [Fields] is off to a monster start. You’ve talked about him trying to use his size advantage. How will defenses react? It seems like at times having to take a pass interference instead of not being able to cover him?
“Yeah, he’s such a big body. He corrected me the other day. I said he was 6’3″, he’s like, ‘no, Coach, I’m 6’4”’. He’s 6’4″, 220 pounds and hard to tackle, and what you’re seeing is that he’s getting a lot of yards after contact because getting the ball in his hands, he’s making people miss, something that we didn’t see a ton of last year but we knew he was capable of.
Whenever they give us soft coverage we’re going to try and take that gift, and then when we get a chance to go down the field, it’s going to be interesting to see because you’ve got Malachi but then you’ve also got Trell [Harris] on the other side that’s balancing it out because you’ve got to honor and respect the speed and his ability to make plays. … But Malachi is just playing his side, and Des [Kitchings] and AC [Anthony Colandrea] are doing a great job of just taking what they’re giving us.
There were times where we were playing with tempo and they couldn’t get lined up, so not as much [Malachi Fields] as it was just the system, playing fast and catching him off balance, and then he’s doing a much better job after the catch just running with a passion and a violence that we’ve been challenging him to do for his size.”
UVA offensive coordinator Des Kitchings
The way Malachi is producing for you guys, what is it doing for the rest of the offense? Is it opening things up the way you thought it would? Is it changing the options you have?
“I don’t know if it’s necessarily opened things up, it’s really what we expected out of him coming into his second year playing football and being with us. It’s just a reflection of his work this offseason.”
On that fourth down catch he had on the crossing route, were you pretty sure that’s who you wanted to go to and what did you think of the catch watching it back?
“That was the plan. The ball was either going to Kobe [Pace] if they didn’t cover the back in the flat or to Mal. So we prepped that pretty good. Actually installed it last week, guys handled it that, and it worked out for us.”
Are teams having such a hard time now that they’d rather just take a pass interference?
“I wouldn’t say hard time because I think this week will be a different challenge. The previous two weeks of Richmond and Wake Forest weren’t big man teams so it was a lot of access throws and playing off coverage. We’re going to get some man this week, which will be a different challenge and try to take aways some of those easy throws to Mal. We’ll just see how he handles those one on one battles. I feel good about him in that situation. That will be the determination of whether they’ll roll coverage to Mal.”
Cavalier running back Xavier Brown
Malachi is off to kind of a ridiculous start. What’s the mood around him in the locker room?
“That’s a guy we just knew was going to make plays from the jump. Malachi is a guy that’s dedicated, comes out works hard every day, no hesitation. How he practices, he practices how he plays. What you’re seeing on the field on Saturday is what he’s doing here from Monday to Thursday.”
Does he seem different than when he first came back from injury two years now?
“He’s more confident and he’s more of a vocal leader. He’s one of those guys everybody on the team looks up to so he’s pushing us forward together.”
Virginia offensive tackle Jack Witmer
Malachi is killing it out of the gates here. What do you guys think about that being on offense with him?
“Love it. I mean as an offensive lineman blocking your [tail] off and you see a wide receiver like that putting up yards and making those amazing catches, we’re so happy that we have Malachi on our team and he’s killing it for us. You couldn’t be more excited to block for a guy like that who’s so electric. You see him catching the ball for a little 5-yard gain and turning it into a 45-yard run, you couldn’t be happier as an offensive lineman blocking for someone like that.”
On that fourth down catch that he had on the crossing route, he said he knew yeah that’s coming to me. Do you like that kind of confidence from one of your lead guys?
“I love it. Especially for Malachi, that’s a guy that’s super humble, super confident. I know he’ll make that play and I’m ready to block for him. I’m very confident he knew that ball was coming to him and he was going to make the play regardless of what happened.”
UVA safety Antonio Clary
Malachi is off to a crazy start. You deal with him some in practice, less now probably than in camp, but did you see this coming?
“Yeah, I mean Malachi is a workhorse. He shows up willing to work and wanting to get better each and every single day no matter how his body’s feeling, no matter what the situation is, he comes in ready to work. He’s a big, physical, strong receiver. He can take the top off the defense and he can go inside and do the dirty work. Malachi, I’m not surprised at all he’s doing this just because of the work he puts in.”
He went to high school ( Monticello), within sight of Scott Stadium.