Thomas Castellanos is expected back at the helm to face a UVA defense that’s made a lot of progress from last season’s bottom of the conference unit. In last year’s three-point BC win, Castellanos went 16/26 for 183 yards, two touchdown, and two interceptions. The connection with Lewis Bond was lethal, and he added 78 yards rushing.
This UVA defense has improved to now allowing about 23.5 points per game. Senior safeties Jonas Sanker and Antonio Clary have been the stars of the show. The now-healthy Clary leads the team with 41 tackles and has the team’s only interception. He’s tied for the team lead with three pass breakups and a fumble recovery. Sanker was UVA’s only preseason All-ACC player landing on the first team. He’s lived up to the billing with three PBUs, a sack, leads with 3.5 tackles for loss, and second with 32 tackles. This duo does a little bit of everything.
Still, the rest of the secondary has been just average in coverage. Opponents average about 12 yards a catch (70th), but they’re surrendering about 270 passing yards (118th). They haven’t defended many passes and only have that one interception.
It seems they’re sacrificing some coverage to balance the team’s woes bringing pressure last season. The Cavaliers defense is now sending in the secondary and linebackers on blitzes. Last year’s defensive line was the worst graded line among Power Five schools per PFF. They allowed opposing rushers five yards a carry and had a dismal 24.8% pressure rate. Now it’s become a group effort on defense and they’ve already neared last season’s sack output and dropped to around 3.5 yards per rush. Against Wake Forest alone, they generated six sacks, more than half their 2023 total. Thanks to these blitz packages, five sacks have come from non-defensive lineman. Defensive end Kam Butler is a seventh year senior and has been the top-rated played on defense thus far, largely because of his 12 QB hurries.
It might be a little tougher for Tommy to evade as these quicker guys are thrown at him. Bill O’Brien recently remarked about Castellanos needing to avoid turning a short loss to major loss in an attempt to evade everyone — at least early downs not falling to behind the sticks. One things for sure, the BC offense needs to avoid another sluggish start in this one.