Virginia defensive coordinator John Rudzinski opened fall camp with a clear message: the Cavaliers have options off the edge, and plenty of them.
After practice, Rudzinski met with the media for his first public appearance of the fall and was asked about the pass-rush group, including which newcomers might be making noise. His answer made it obvious he likes the depth he has to work with.
"Yeah, we're blessed to have Fisher Camac, he's back, shoot Nana (Anyanwu) doing a great job. We've got (Matthew) Fobbs White, goodness, Devon Baxter, Jewett Hayes, JT (Justin Townsend), and I'm probably bringing up the whole, everybody, I mean Evan (Ward), young guy, you go down that list and there's a bunch of guys that are going to be productive this fall.
Our objective is to get as many guys ready as we can. We're really fortunate we had the opportunity to roll, four guys last year, and the identity of what we want to do is see how many guys we can play.
And at that spot, it's going to be critical to be able to put guys out there that'll go be productive. But yeah, I think it's a little bit TBD.
And what's fun now is we get to get a little bit more in our exotic packages, get to see what it looks like as far as our ability to put a package together and see if these guys can work together to get to the passer."
Rudzinski also singled out Fisher Camac when asked how the edge rusher can take another step this season. He pointed to Camac’s athletic profile, his approach, and the work ahead of him.
"Yeah, naturally gifted athlete, one of those guys with NFL specs when it comes to his testing. What he'll do is he'll continue to really study his game, know himself really well, be introspective. And then ultimately he's a great student of the game and he'll do a great job of studying tackles in the ACC and he'll find a way to create a ton of pressure this fall."
Virginia’s pass-rush picture looks loaded heading into 2026, with Camac, Matthew Fobbs-White, Jewett Hayes, and Devon Baxter among the names Rudzinski highlighted as the foundation of that group.
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