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18 CAVALIER CORNER OFF THE FIELD Building chemistry does not always come from practice or meetings. On Thursdays during the season the group does offen- sive line-only dinners at various restaurants around Charlottesville. Each week a text message goes out to the group with a variety of restaurant options and times. The weekly dinnertime and location is decided by a vote, but it's not always the deciding factor. "If we blow out a team 31-0, you best believe we'll be back there the next week," Nelson said. How else do you build the chemistry needed to work in sync with one another? Swoboda points to the different backgrounds of the five returners. All hail from different pockets of the country, with Oluwatimi the closest to home being from Upper Marlboro, Md. The rest arrived in Charlottesville from Texas (Bissinger), California (Nelson), Ohio (Glaser) and Florida (Swoboda). "I think we learned from each other — guys like me and Chris Glaser, Olu, Joe Bissinger, Ryan Nelson, we all come from, really, really different backgrounds," Swo- boda said. "I think we can all learn from each other a lot, and we did. These guys are some of my closest friends." Glaser is both the energy and the comedic relief of the group. Oluwatimi is the brains of the operation, according to Swoboda. "Olu is one of the smartest guys I know, and we see it the way he applies himself in regard to football," Swoboda said. "He's studied so hard, and he's really, really knowl- edgeable. I think everybody is really good at learning from everybody else. Learning and going on that journey together brings us pretty close — it's a really close group." "I think that camaraderie that they have and that sense of brotherhood is really what is the strength of this group because they've been to- gether a long time," Tujague said. "They real- ize how good they are together. They are good individually, but I think they are elite together. "That's not a knock on the guys as in- dividuals, that's a credit to how well they work together." THE QUARTERBACK PERSPECTIVE Now entering his second season as the Cavalier quarterback, third-year Brennan Armstrong is ultimately the biggest bene- factor from the experienced offensive line. He raves about the communication from his teammates up front. "They have a comfortability about them," Armstrong said. "Their communication is so fast, it's like their brains are connected and it helps me play more freely." Armstrong fits head coach Bronco Men- denhall's mold of a "Thortorback," one that is just as dangerous running the ball as he is throwing the ball. In six of his nine games played in 2020, he threw for 200 yards and had 45 or more rushing yards, which was tied for the most such contests by any Foot- ball Bowl Subdivision signal-caller. Armstrong's predecessor, Bryce Perkins, thrived on the use of his legs and his arm by accounting for nearly 8,000 total yards in just two seasons. In 2020, only Perkins and Oklahoma's Jalen Hurts passed for 3,000 and rushed for another 700. "[The offensive line] has an impact on the way I play," Armstrong said. "I had the tendency to get out of the pocket in my first year quicker than I should have. We'd get back to the sideline and they'd be telling me, you're good, you don't need to slide there. Overall, it helps me in my develop- ment [as a quarterback]." From an offensive lineman's standpoint, blocking for multi-dimensional quarter- backs can be somewhat of a relief. "It's fun because it stresses defenses out a ton and sort of makes our job easier because they have to worry about so many differ- ent things with [dual-threat quarterbacks]," Swoboda said. "It's is a ton of fun to block for those guys." UNSUNG HEROES There are five people on the offensive side of the ball that are legally not able to touch the ball without the aid of a fumble or a handful of other quirky football plays. A typical post- game press conference or interview doesn't always include a member of the offensive line. The five guys on the field pave the way to success for an offense, but are hardly recog- nized publicly for their work. The character- istics of an offensive lineman are inherently unselfish by nature. What are some of the plays that an offensive lineman lives for? "There's no better feeling than blocking a guy and you get some movement up field, and you feel like a gust of wind from the running back, and you look up and he's off to the races," Swoboda said. Pancake blocks or an interior lineman pulling from the inside to square up a line- backer or defensive back are some of the plays fans see on the highlight reels. "If there is a pile up, and we're pushing the pile, those are some of my favorite mo- ments," Nelson said. "Almost like a rugby scrum and you push on those to get a first down or touchdown, and guys go nuts." NOT DONE YET The five returning starters already have earned some serious credentials, including an ACC Coastal Division championship, a bowl victory and an Orange Bowl appear- ance. By no means are they done. "We were pretty good last year, but I don't think anybody is necessarily satisfied with how any individual played," Swoboda said. "We were 5-5 last year, so there's defi- nitely room to grow. "I think that's what we want to do, we want to look and recognize some really good things that we did, but we also want to understand that there's a long way to go and we're really just scratching the surface of what we can do." A number of college football pundits have Virginia's offensive line as one of the best, and some of the advanced metrics used to grade offensive line play point to the Cavs being the best group of blockers in the ACC. Pro Football Focus graded the UVA front 11th nationally in pass blocking last season. "I addressed the fact the media has us as the best offensive line in the ACC," Tujague said. "That's great. But nobody really cares where you start. It's where you finish. "They've done a really good job of re- maining humble this summer and really working their tails off to be able to defend what it is that they want." Fourth-year Olusegun Oluwatimi has started 23 of the team's 24 contests the past two years and was named to the watch list for the Rimington Trophy, annually awarded to the nation's top center. PHOTO BY PETE EMERSON