With Xavier Brown Injury, Jack Griese is Next Man Up in Virginia RB Room

Matt Newton | Aug 14, 2024

Jack Griese is in line to be Virginia's RB2 at the start of the season with the injury to Xavier Brown. / Virginia Athletics

To say Virginia has struggled to run the ball in the last few seasons would be a drastic understatement. In 2023, UVA ranked second to last in the ACC in rushing offense at 117.9 yards per game and last in yards per rushing attempt at 3.1. In Tony Elliott's first season, Virginia ranked 11th in the ACC in rushing offense and tied for 10th in yards per attempt. Even dating back to Bronco Mendenhall's final season as head coach, the Cavaliers ranked dead last in rushing offense in 2021.

Of course, a successful (or unsuccessful) ground game has just as much to do with the offensive line and playcalling/scheme, but the ball carriers themselves still have to produce.

Tony Elliott and Des Kitchings remain committed to achieving a balanced offense, not necessarily splitting 50-50 between pass and run plays, but establishing the ground game to the point where defenses have to respect it, and thus opening things up for the passing game, which has been much more consistently successful for the Cavaliers over the last few years. As UVA makes another attempt to get things going on the ground, major questions have arisen in fall camp as to who will be carrying the ball on those running plays.

Kobe Pace returns as the expected starter after finishing second on the team in rushing last season, but UVA's other two main running backs from a season ago - Perris Jones and Mike Hollins - will not be on the field. Xavier Brown showed immense promise as a potential star in the backfield in his freshman season in 2022, but after missing most of 2023 with an elbow injury, Brown has suffered another unfortunate setback, a shoulder injury that Tony Elliott says will sideline Brown for "a couple of weeks."

While there is hope that Brown could be back in time for the season-opener against Richmond on August 31st, someone else will have to step up into the RB2 position for the remainder of fall camp and possibly, the beginning of the season.

Who is that player? None other than former walk-on Jack Griese.

"Griese's done a good job. He's running violent and hard. He missed spring ball with his offseason surgeries that he had, but he looks like he's almost back in shape," said Tony Elliott. "He's got good command of what we're doing. Have to carry a little bit heavier workload, all of them, you know, anytime a running back goes down, you only got about five, six of them. So, you don't have many bodies, so when one goes down, the other ones gotta carry a workload. But he's been doing a good job of managing it and really pushing towards finding him a role within our offense."

Griese appeared in 10 games in 2023 and rushed 11 times for 34 yards and a touchdown over the course of the season. It's admittedly not a large sample size of real-game action, but Griese has impressed the coaching staff in practice throughout his career even dating back to the 2023 spring game, when he was a surprising standout who rushed for 90 yards and two touchdowns.

At 6'0", 217 pounds, Griese has the size to be a bruiser between the tackles but also has impressive speed for a player with his physical measurements.

"He's a 200-plus pound guy that's got deceptive speed. He's shiftier than you think," Elliott said of Griese. "So, in base downs, he can go execute all of the run schemes that we have in our offense. But then also, he's a big guy that you can put in on short yardage and he catches the ball well out of the backfield. So, he provides a lot of versatility for a guy his size, where in most cases, a guy that size is kind of one-dimensional."

Griese, whose father Scott played defensive back at Virginia and whose grandfather is Hall of Fame quarterback Bob Griese, says he and the other Cavalier running backs have made it their mission to have a 1,000-yard rusher this season, something that UVA running backs haven't done since Jordan Ellis in 2018.

"Our running back group chat is the 1K group. We gotta get there," Griese said of reaching the 1,000-yard rushing mark. "We just haven't established a good run game the last few years. And just trying to dominate. We're the people to do it. We're the room and we just need to - O-Line included, quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers - we need to establish a good run game cause that helps the pass game, helps our offense in general."

Griese acknowledged that having a successful rushing attack requires commitment and execution from the entire offense and expressed confidence in the experience of the offensive line in front of him.

"Brian [Stevens] coming back. McKale [Boley], Ty [Furnish], Blake [Steen], Noah [Josey]. All those guys are just really good," Griese said. "They're really good offensive linemen and they have a lot of experience. So, running behind them gives me a lot of confidence. Just their experience really helps them, it helps me, and just helps our run game in general."

On the topic of injuries in fall camp, Griese indicated that some injuries are inevitable and emphasized the importance of stepping up for your teammates when they get hurt. Griese finds himself in an increased role in the rushing offense with Xavier Brown sidelined and he is embracing it to the fullest.

"It's a grueling camp and we gotta get through it. Our body's gonna get nicked up, but just carrying your brother when he gets hurt, carrying the load, I feel like that's the biggest part," Griese said. "You gotta step up when you're called on."

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