Virginia continued its downward spiral in the grades across the board in the 31-14 loss to Pitt with 10 of 12 operations failing to grade out above 77.4 and only one hitting championship level play. All three phases continued losing trends and Virginia’s front lines were dominated by the opposing Pitt fronts.

I have no thoughts on how to repair the problems with the Cavalier offense. The run game continues to be ineffective and the passing game (as I’ll address in the trends segment) recorded two of its three worst efficiency ratings of the season in the last two games. Pitt and Boston College manhandled the UVA offensive line and the Hoos have squandered valuable plus-field possessions – especially against the Panthers.

I think the Georgia Tech game actually comes at a good time for the Virginia defense. Now before you start drawing up papers to have me committed, hear me out. Defending the triple-option is about playing sound football, being assignment sound and gap integrity – things the Virginia defense has struggled with recently. “Exactly,” you say! It’s true that gap integrity, setting the edge to retain perimeter leverage and getting burned off blitzes because off-side players can’t seem to locate the football has been killing the Cavalier defense the last three weeks.

The Tech option attack can expose vulnerability in a defense and once discovered they will continuously exploit it. When you play Georgia Tech, identifying the football is critical and that’s what the Cavalier defense will be doing all week. It will be a week where assignment football is drilled into the defense every waking minute. Practice will focus on staying upright, tackling well and squeezing blocks and not allowing a blocker to gain outside leverage. These task are not options against Tech and must be executed. Pun intended.

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