Everything from Virginia OC Des Kitchings After Friday's Practice

Des Kitchings fielded questions from the media Friday — the only fall camp media appearance he is scheduled to make before the season opener other than Aug. 12. Here is everything Virginia’s offensive coordinator said — touching on every offensive position.

The tight ends

“Early in camp working with our first group, we got a three man rotation with Dakota Twitty, John Rogers, and Connor Cox,” Kitchings said. “There's a three-man rotation there. The second group is Willem Thurber, Justin Zames, and then working in Henry Omohundro. We got six guys right now out there, so we just try to get a good rotation with those guys. Sometimes Connor may have to get some extra reps with the second group or the third group. I just want to make sure they're getting good volume, as we're going through these early.”

“Yeah, I think [Lukas Ungar is] getting close. He's participating through [individual drills] and things of that nature and just kind of managing the team stuff. So once Ms. Kelli [Pugh] and those guys give us a green light, then I know he's ready, at least from the physical standpoint. I'm not the athletic trainer or the doctor, but I think he's in a good spot for us to return.”

“[Cox and Ungar] just fit in personality-wise with the room. It's a very close knit room. It has been that way since I've been here. And so for those guys to come in, it's meshed in very well personality wise — similar likes to the guys in the room. Both have a very, very good IQ of football and a passion, with some leadership about them. So that's also helped. Competitively throughout the summer you saw with [Twitty and Cox] working out together, both of them elevating themselves competitively.”

“John Rogers and Lukas are probably similar type [of] skills and body types. Dak and Connor are probably very similar there. And then the two young kids with Thurber and Zames are probably more similar body types to Connor and Twitty being the 6-foot-5 guys. So, there's a lot of things Dak's got to improve upon, John's got to improve upon. We need John to be a consistent contributor for us, right? I like where Connor's at through three practices. And from the 15 in the spring. And these two young kids, we talk about establishing competitive depth. We want to play for a long time. And in order to do that, we've got to have really good competitive depth throughout our roster.”

The wide receivers

“There's some guys that you can tell they put in some work. Rico [Flores Jr. is] flash, Jacquon [Gibson] is flash right? Kam Courtney has flash. You know, they all do. Josiah [Abullah], D’Shawn [Martin] right? Damari Carter. So here's the thing about it — nobody in that receiver room can say they're not going to get an opportunity. Throughout the course of practice, whether it's in one on ones, seven on seven, team segments, they're all getting opportunities. Again, going back to what I said previously, right? Got to build the competitive depth in the room. We talked about going into this fall camp, really being able to come out of camp. Our hope is to come out of camp with a six-to-eight-man kind of depth at that position, because three or four guys, it's just hard on them to say, hey, three or four receivers go play that much.”

“As a former receiver myself, we all think we could play every snap, but to play 75 snaps at the caliber we need you to play for an extended period of time, that's really just not doable, honestly. So those guys, just every day we challenge them. Everybody's been challenged. The coaches have been challenged. Because again, for us to take the next step as a program is about what's going to be our winning edge, how can we gain these next inches. We talked about [how] as you try to climb the mountain top, the air gets thinner. So the details, the precision in everything you do becomes even more magnified.”

On Jacquon Gibson

“I tell you what, I like about and appreciate with Jacquon. Obviously his experiences, but you can tell he's a football mind. He loves football. And I don't know what production he's going to have this year, so not to project anything, but his personality traits, his work habits, his positivity is very similar to Malik Washington, to Cam Ross, guys that played in the slot for us that have done very well for us here. I just think his DNA of him and his competitive spirit that he's going to do some good things for us this fall.”

And Kam Courtney

“He's consistently catching the ball better. I see that. In these first three days and just continue just the word for Kam is consistency day in and day out. And he's a competitor, he's not a big rah-rah guy so sometimes you may not hear him, but I need to feel him. Every day. I need to feel his impact in the receiver [room]. I need to feel his impact on the offense. So that's our challenge to him every day.”

Dakota Twitty

“There's been a lot of growth in him from last year's season to this fall camp. And it's not so much the physical growth is the mental growth and having a better understanding of playing the tight end position and all aspects of it. And my challenge to him this offseason was to grow mentally, understanding defensive structures, right? Alignment, secondary rotation, linebacker alignment so that, pre-snap we're getting a picture to play faster postsnap and he's showing that. He's talking football, he's asking questions in the meeting that he probably wouldn't have asked last year or the year before."

"Sage [Ennis] was a very strong personality too. So I think he absorbed and took some things from that. And he has grown within this team throughout the summer of filling his leadership abilities to come out. He's a guy that has been here when it was not good, at the start. For a lot of things, right to fill in on the field and to have a taste of some success. Last year, you tell that’s firing him to try to replicate that, not just replicate it, but to try to improve upon that as well.”

On sharing targets

“Well, one thing is the way we structure our practices, even though we're out there for roughly an hour and a half, maybe an hour and 45 minutes. The time put into, and everything's video, so our individual, seeing our coaches, training them through their individual technique and watching that tape and seeing if those techniques are being applied. And then you get, whether your offense alignment, we get an inside run every day, so you get an opportunity to evaluate them guys and like you said, there's a large group of guys, like from Cole Surber to Noah Hartsoe to Grant Ellinger to Grayson Reid, to Alex Payne, to Ben York to John Adair, right?”

“That group of kids that are in the first, second, and sometimes third year right there. Because, all right, [McKale] Boley’s played a bunch of snaps. All right, there's no secrets about that. Noah Josey has played more snaps than anybody in college football. Drake's [Metcalf] a seventh year guy, right? Makilan [Thomas], Monroe Mills. And the whole point has been to those other guys, first of all, to the first five, right? To establish a dominating mindset so that you allow your teammates to play. We got to build that in practice. But then those other guys, every opportunity they get is to earn the trust of their teammates and their coaches so that there's no drop off when we put them in. And that's what practice is geared about. Inside run, 7-on-7 for the skill guys and then to team.”

“And it could be a situation of the day where we put them into a stressful situation from an intelligence standpoint to make sure they understand why we're doing it and how we're doing it in these situations, right? Because as you all know, we're probably one of the top teams in the country in one possession games. So, and the difference with last year, intelligently, playmaking, we made plays and we finished in the fourth quarter. Whereas years before, there were two or three plays in the game that we didn't capitalize on to finish. So, it goes back to the intelligence of this team. And that's the older guys continue to excel because they can always grow and then getting the younger guys up to speed in that transition”

Quarterbacks — especially having an experienced backup

“Yeah, it adds a lot of value. And I just say that from personal experiences here and our time here. In 2023 [Tony] Muskett came out that season as a starter, got injured in the, I think it was the Tennessee game, or maybe the next one that came. And then [Anthony] Colandrea had to play as a true freshman. We took a lot of lumps, right? There were some highs and some lows, right? And going to the next season, Colandrea kind of gets dinged up, and Muskett comes in there, so the ebb and flow of that. And then, you know, was fortunate in some regards, right?”

“In 25, first game of the season, Chandler [Morris], right, gets dinged up. The ironman, he's kind of mustered through, right? But in the Wake Forest game, he gets knocked out, right? And Danny Kaelin has to come in, and Danny, who I think has an upside but didn't have any experiences prior to that, right? And it kind of showed in that game against Wake Forest. We got it to the fourth quarter, but weren't able to capitalize and finish. At least now, I don't want anybody to get hurt, but the sport happens that way, and we feel like we're very fortunate to have two guys that have won games at a Power Four level, right? Beau [Pribula] in the SEC, and Eli [Holstein] in the ACC, and both of them have thrown the ball well, they've moved their teams up and down the field to score points. And they're competitive with us. And they're competitive within each other for the betterment of each other and for the betterment of the team.”

Jekail Middlebrook

“I like Jekail as a runner, and from my history of coaching the backs too, man, you love guys that are three phase guys, runners, pass catchers and pass blockers. And Jekail, in my time being around him for now eight, seven months, I don't think the guy's ever had a bad day, right? And just being around him in the building. But his versatility, right, his ability to get skinny and when he needs to, he's shown some physicality when he needs to. He reminds me of a young man I coached back at NC State named Matthew Dayes, who was a really good running back for us back then. So, and the thing about Jekail, the man, he just, he appreciates the opportunity. Every day is a great day, which I appreciate about him, and I'm excited for what he brings to us this fall.”

Improvement on early downs

“Kind of a double edged sword, right? We were pretty good on third down conversions, but we also was one of the top teams in the country in third down attempts. So we got to do better. We have to improve obviously first and second down to where, as a guy, I just drew a blank on his name. But anyway, a gentleman was talking to me. He said, you know, the best third down offense is not to get in third downs, right? So let's take that approach. And just, hey, first down, second down, first down, or first down, first down, right?”

“And there's a lot of pieces that tie into that, right? The ability to run the ball effectively, you know, whether it's quarterback or running back, attacking defenses horizontally, pulling the ball in space and letting our playmakers make plays out in space. We just got to do a good job of stressing the defense to defend every blade of grass out there and then, training our guys to have the mentality of being a playmaker. Playmakers make plays, bottom line and that's really been kind of the next step right for us as coaches and as players within the organization.”

The offensive line

“Yeah, I mean obviously very comforting because you feel like when you step off the bus, you have an opportunity to go in there and establish your identity of being a physical team. And we talk about that physicality is not just in the run games and the pass protection. One of our core values is to protect the program. And protecting the program, that's protecting the ball and protecting the quarterback. And so everybody plays a role in that.”

“But that group, obviously, a lot of them have been around a number of years. When you talk about Boley, Josey, and Drake, having him around the last three years, it's really been refreshing and just awesome, right, to have a guy like Monroe, who's still a big guy but a kid at heart, and become like a coach, father figure type to some of these young guys. And then Makilan can't say enough about him. The guy's just he's a hell of a football player he's even better human, right? So that's what I really appreciate about those guys, and they have a passion and a fire to leave their mark on Virginia football.”

Who steps up to lead now that Ennis and Morris are gone?

“Just throughout the summer when we're talking about in our construction phase, and they spent a lot of time with Coach Smo [Adam Smotherman] and getting challenged physically in that environment, you know, you see guys like Twitty step up in some essence being the bad cop, right? Noah Josey [offensively], Jason Hammond on defense. So you're starting to see that. That’s guys understanding somebody has to be the bad cop. The coaches can't always be the bad cop.”

“The best teams are led from the locker room up. And so for those guys to see some of that leadership that took place, you know, because James Jackson was a good cop, bad cop, got to have been in the program. [Jahmeer Carter] was a good cop. We had plenty of examples of how that should unfold and work out. And I think there's guys that are starting to emerge in that fashion.”

Da’Shawn Martin, compared to Trell Harris

Yeah, you know different if I think back, you know, obviously when Trell came in I think that was the [20]24 season. Yeah, because the year after Malik [Washington]. Some similar traits in regards to that Da’Shawn has some speed ability to him. He has some play making ability to him. Then probably Trell might be a li:le bit bigger than Da’Shawn, but yeah there's some similarities.”

“I think if Da’Shawn just continues to a:ack each day and he has the versatility as a slot and an outside receiver, and as we continue to evaluate and kind of see what's the correct rotation, not just Da’Shawn, but like I said, I can't reiterate, all those guys will get these opportunities for us.”

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