Virginia Football: Cavaliers could surprise, defend Coastal title in 2021

Technically speaking, Virginia football is still the defending Coastal champion and they are out to defend their title in 2021. Since the ACC opted not to have divisions last season, there was no Coastal division making the Cavs defending champs still.

This Virginia team might look a little different than the ones that Bronco Mendenhall has had recently, as the offense appears to be the strength of the team and the defense might be retooling a little bit.

Mendenhall has done a very good job of making this Virginia program a very consistent team and one that has raised the expectations to where they want to be competing for Coastal division titles every season. Virginia used to be one of the more consistent programs in the ACC, but they made some bad hires that took the program in the wrong direction. With Mendenhall seemingly in Charlottesville for the long haul, I expect this program to only get better.

The big question that is surrounding this team specifically is if the defense is going to bounce back or not.

In three of Virginia’s five losses last season, the defenses gave up 38 or more points, and even in the upset win over North Carolina, they gave up 41 points. The defense has usually been pretty good under Mendenhall, but they are going to have to replace some of their best defensive players from a year ago.

Virginia also played musical chairs at times with the quarterback position because of injuries and they need to hope that they can get a full season out of Brennan Armstrong, who was the team’s leading passer and rusher last season.

The schedule is tough and the defense needs to show a great deal of improvement for this team to win another division title.