There is an old saying that perfectly sums up the 2024 Virginia football team as of late — “when it rains, it pours.” Well, the Cavaliers are practically underwater at this point. Just about everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong in two blowout losses to Clemson and North Carolina. Offensive coordinator Des Kitchings and his offense have faced their fair share of criticism for those defeats, but the top culprit is not on that end. It is team defense. Unimpactful pass rush, porous pass coverage and a lack of talent have doomed this unit that ranks 92nd in points per game allowed. Over its past three contests, Virginia’s defense has gotten even worse and allowed nearly 38 points per game, good for 114th in the country.
A strong pass rush is essential for any defensive success. This 2024 team has drastically underperformed in that department. No Cavalier has more than three sacks across their first eight games. As a team, they have just 12 sacks — which ranks outside the top 100 teams — and have recorded more than three sacks in a game just once this year.
This ineffective pass rush leads to extended opponent drives. The defense just cannot get off the field as much as it needs to in order to help its offense out. These Cavaliers rank 100th in terms of opponent third down conversions per game. Virginia’s defense is hurting its offense a lot more than the other way around. Even if the defense does make the occasional stop or two, they are the fifth-worst scoring defense in the ACC. Allowing touchdowns at an alarmingly high rate usually spells defeat for the Cavaliers. Furthermore, because the pass rush is lacking, pass coverage becomes more difficult.
Opposing quarterbacks receive ample time to throw and defensive backs are put in a difficult situation. It is worth noting that despite little help up front, senior safety Jonas Sanker has performed well and is not part of the problem. The glaring hole is that the Cavaliers have a few atrocious weak spots at cornerback.
Ever since Fentrell Cypress and Anthony Johnson departed after the 2022 season, the Cavaliers have not been able to replicate their once elite production at the cornerback position. This year, Virginia has allowed 298.7 passing yards per game — good for fifth worst nationally.
The primary culprit is junior cornerback Jam Jackson, who has consistently graded poorly as one of the worst Cavalier defenders. Graduate cornerback Malcolm Greene has been prone to allowing big gains through the air as well. Graduate cornerback Kempton Shine has performed better than his peers, but often allows excruciatingly bad missed tackles.
More often than not, these defensive backs will get beat in coverage. Ultimately, it is extremely hard to win football games when opponents can throw for 300 yards with ease. To make matters worse, Virginia has snagged just five interceptions all year, and two of those were not even from defensive backs.
Because the Cavaliers have dismal pass coverage and have not fared much better in terms of forcing turnovers, this defense has floundered. Sure, a pair of forced fumbles helped them steal wins against Louisville and the Demon Deacons, but Virginia ranks outside the top 40 teams in total forced fumbles, interceptions, third down percentage, fourth down percentage, touchdowns allowed, red zone defense, total tackles for loss and seemingly every other possible defensive statistic. There is nothing that this defense does exceptionally well.
The cornerback room has performed so horribly that the best fix is to acquire more transfers after the 2024 season. Fixing these issues will be an incredibly difficult venture, and there is a strong chance that sufficient repair will be impossible until the offseason. But even this may be difficult to accomplish. Virginia has failed to repair its cornerback room over the past few offseasons — the current trio of transfer cornerbacks was expected to help return the pass defense to its 2022 level but has instead been borderline unplayable. This coaching staff has continually failed to acquire better cornerbacks in the transfer portal and has also not recruited any top-notch high school recruits at that position. But alas, the only path forward is to continue trying to recruit better players.
The big question of the rest of 2024 still awaits though — whether or not Virginia can win two of its final four games to earn a bowl game berth. In order to do that, the Cavalier defense must improve. With all of their glaring issues, improvement appears to be a daunting task. But, if Virginia can string together clutch plays like it did against Wake Forest and Boston College, there is always hope for an upset victory or two. Any given game is not over until the final whistle blows. For the Cavaliers, their season is not officially over until the final game concludes.
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