What is the root cause of UVA's offensive downfall?

The Virginia Cavaliers began the 2025 football season with fireworks offensively. Through the first five games of the season, the Hoos averaged 45.6 points per game. In that five-game span included the 46-38 win over Florida State. Since then, however, the offense has not been the same, really not even close. Virginia scored 30 in its overtime win against Louisville, but you have to remember, there were two defensive touchdowns in that game. The Hoos then jumped into the second half of the season after the bye week coming out completely flat, scoring 22 against Washington State, 17 in an OT win against UNC, 31 against California, and scoring a mighty total of 9 points in its recent loss to Wake Forest. So, why have the Wahoos not been producing recently like they were in September? Is it a mix of injuries between the Offensive line and Chandler Morris? Playcalling by Offensive Coordinator Des Kitchings? A mix of both? Or is it plain and simple, UVA just is not as good as it once was this season? Let's look closer.

Offensive line musical chairs

It is no secret the injury bug has been all over the Cavaliers this season, whether it was before the season even started or during games now. The offensive line has been one of the biggest culprits. Luckily, Virginia was more prepared than ever before for situations like this with an amazing transfer portal, especially at the offensive line position group. Virginia brought in eight new offensive linemen through the transfer portal in the offseason, adding on to around four to six names that stayed after last season that had significant playing time. However, with preseason injuries to Makilan Thomas, Monroe Mills, David Wohlabaugh, and Kevin Wigenton; mixed in with injuries during the season to Ben York, Brady Wilson (Huge), McKale Boley, and Ethan Sipe, there has been an astronomical amount of movement and rotation of the offensive line. Not to mention RT Wallace Unamba who was dismissed from the team a couple of weeks ago for disobeying a team policy.

No matter how good an offensive lineman is, it is so tough for one to rotate to different positions constantly throughout the season, it puts these athletes in vulnerable positions having to try and cover for a lost starter. For example, when Brady Wilson went down against Florida State, it prompted Drake Metcalf to move to Center. Metcalf held up alright, but it led to a shift on the right side of the line and plugging in Jack Witmer or a couple of others into a starting role in which they are not quite ready for. Building a chemistry as an offensive line is near impossible when it is a new starter at a different position every week.

So how does the effect the offense? No matter how good your skilled position players are, or if you have a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes, it all starts in the trenches. The run game for Virginia was unstoppable early in the season, while some of the credit goes to the UVA tailbacks, the holes and gaps that were built by the line were excellent. No matter how good of a quarterback Chandler Morris is, he needs time to throw the ball and to stay off his back. So, ultimately when you have musical chairs at the offensive line, it can easily affect the offenses quality and rebuilding chemistry on a weekly basis.

Chandler Morris can't stay 100%

If we are being honest with ourselves, Chandler Morris has not been 100% since the Coastal Carolina game before he took a hit to his left shoulder trying to get into the endzone in week one. That same injury has lingered throughout the entire season; Morris has struggled to make certain throws he could before. Overthrowing short routes and making inaccurate throws deep are things that have been bringing down his overall performances. With that being said, talking about the left shoulder injury, he still has been excellent at QB and one of the main reasons for Virginia to have eight wins right now. His ability to navigate the pocket, throw on the run, and knowing when to tuck it and run are all things Morris has exceled in all season long.

With all of that being said, last Saturday night during the Wake Forest game, Chandler Morris took off scrambling in the second quarter and took a shot to the head when being sandwiched between two Demon Deacon defenders AFTER sliding. Now whether that was targeting, ejection worthy is another story for another time. The bottom line was Morris was down on the field for what felt like forever. Morris exited the game and did not return. He did return to the sideline in the second half in street clothes. Coach Tony Elliott commented, "It looked like when he came back out in street clothes on the sidelines, he’d be okay, but they’ll have to further evaluate it the next few days." There is no telling what the status of Morris will be in the coming weeks, as Virginia travels to play Duke this Saturday, a bye week, then takes on Virginia Tech at home.

Once Morris exited the game Saturday, backup QB Daniel Kaelin came in. Kaelin did not look near as good as Morris and struggled immensely. Almost as if he was afraid to take a hit or was scared to throw the ball more than five yards. Kaelin finished with 145 passing yards never getting into the endzone. The bright spot was a third down on his first possession when he ran down the Wake Forest sideline for 54 yards and a first down. He does have good speed but has not quite proven himself as a passer just yet. It is not crazy to believe that if Morris is out for the Duke game and maybe even the Virginia Tech game, the Cavaliers could be in trouble. Hopefully getting the full game experience under Kaelin's belt will work out some kinks and nerves in case he does need to go again.

With all of that being said, it makes you wonder... was Chandler Morris' great level of play covering up that there has been a playcalling issue?

The playcalling

Offensive Coordinator Des Kitchings was brought on the staff with Head Coach Tony Elliott in January of 2022. This is his fourth year handling the playcalling and he has discouraged a lot of fans at different points of his tenure. Fans were always skeptical about Kitchings between his first two seasons at UVA and not producing great offense. However, with the tragedy at the end of 2022, just like Coach Tony Elliott, Kitchings gets a pass too which is completely understandable. With Virginia's offense fading in the back half of last season and struggling now, you can't help but to ask the question, is he the right man for the job?

There have been many moments in the last few weeks that have led to head scratchers when it comes to play-calling. A couple of times where Des elects to run the ball on 3rd and medium/long and then when Virginia does not get it, punt it away. Some weird formations and trick plays that have resulted in disasters. Or some short yardage situations that seem like a rushing situation, but Virginia proceeds to throw the ball. Now I will say this, as someone who typically defends this staff. Coaches can only do so much, players have to make plays. Des Kitchings sort of looked like a genius early in the season when Virginia's offense looked unstoppable. But now that the offense can't move, he gets a lot of, if not all of the blame. While some of the wonky formations and trick plays have looked terrible, there has been a select couple of times where they do work, and when they do? Des looks like the best OC in the ACC. What I am getting at is it is very easy to blame the OC, and easy to forget that the playcalling may be good, but the players are not executing to its potential.

With all of that being said, there still has to be some question marks around the playcalling. Virginia has been in a very bad slump offensively recently. This is clearly the most talented roster this coaching staff has had since taking over in 2022. So, with that talent, you would expect the offense to be rolling and competing at an extremely high level. While Virginia began the year that way, it has not been consistent since. So, what is the solution? Should Coach Elliott take over the playcalling? Should Kitchings be fired at the end of the season? Something has to change.

Final thoughts

Without a doubt there is some issues with the Cavalier offense right now. Out of the three issues I discussed in this article, which one is the most prevalent? It is easy to say it is a healthy mixture of all three which probably is the case. However, you can't help but to start to point fingers at coaching. Whatever the issue is, it needs to be resolved and quickly as Virginia is entering two really important games to close the year. Hopefully we will receive an update on QB Chandler Morris at Coach Elliott's press conference Tuesday and cross fingers it is good news.

Photo credit: Tyler Phillips