Cavalier Corner is the publication just for UVa sports fans!
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/174129
them. Now as the receivers coach, he's seen Watford grow. "He is just the kind of guy who rarely lets himself get down, but there were moments," Hagans recalled. "He didn't stay there long, though. He knew he needed to bounce back, and in our family, you get back up. I just told him to keep the faith, keep working, and his time would come. And now it's here." Watford notes that the two have a unique relationship because not only are they cousins and coach-player, but they're also great friends. "Every question I had, every worry, he was there to provide an answer," Watford said of Hagans. "He was someone who dealt with adversity when he was at UVa, and now as a coach, I'm so thankful to have him to talk to whenever I need anything." One of the biggest things Hagans and London did for Watford was to eliminate any chance of him becoming complacent. Being named the starter over redshirt first-year Greyson Lambert following a spring and fall camp of competition didn't change his approach. He said he still wanted to "attack" practice like he wasn't UVa's No. 1 quarterback. "I still have to work to be the best every day," he said. "Being named the starter, I keep that in the back of my mind. I'm thankful. I'm blessed to be in this position, but I still want to have the mindset and hunger to be as efficient as possible and get the best out of my teammates as well." When coaches brought in a group of Navy SEALs to assess the team's leaders, Watford was one of their picks. Leadership, he said, is his biggest job on and off the field. "Last year, there wasn't really any unity," he noted. "We didn't have too many leaders. We had to tighten it up and police ourselves more. We had to be more accountable for our own actions." Not that everything has gone according to plan. Watford admits he was shocked when of- fensive coordinator Bill Lazor left for Chip Kelly's staff with the Philadelphia Eagles. Bringing in new offensive coordinator Steve Fairchild, though, has been another in a string of blessings that Watford can see as clearly as a Cover 2 defense. "We were all, as a quarterback group, surprised when Coach Lazor left," Watford explained. "He had just given us assignments a couple of days before the news broke. When he called us in and told us he was leaving to go to the Eagles, it really caught us all off guard. "Couple days later, we heard Coach Fairchild was going to be the new coordinator, and when he came in, we sat down and he told me he was going to play the guys that could play, that he was going to install a system that would work for us, and he was just so real and honest. From that conversation between the two of us on, I knew we would be okay." Through two games, the early results tend to suggest that it remains a work in progress. In UVa's season-opening 19‑16 win over BYU Aug. 31, Watford was 18-of-32 passing for 114 yards with one touchdown and one interception. The following week, in a 59‑10 loss to No. 2-ranked Oregon, Watford set career highs in attempts (41), completions (29) and yards (161), but he turned the ball over four times, tying a career high with three interceptions. As a leader would be expected to do, he took the full brunt of the blame. "It wasn't really the offense, it was me," Watford said in the media room after the game. "I [didn't execute] to the caliber that I wanted to." Watford said he was the one making "costly" mistakes, that it wasn't Virginia's offense as a whole that played poorly: "I'll take the blame solely. The offensive line, they held up really strong today and I'm proud of them. The receivers made plays. The running backs, they ran hard … I just have to execute better and that's on me."