Grant Eager to Carve Out Larger Role

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By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
 
CHARLOTTESVILLE –– When the opportunity arose last season for defensive back Nick Grant to do more in a game than play special teams, he failed to take advantage of it. And that drove him through the offseason that followed.
 
In Virginia’s 23-13 loss to Pitt at Scott Stadium, Grant was in at safety for nine plays, and “I just felt like I didn’t fulfill my role well,” he recalled Monday afternoon at the McCue Center. “I wasn’t ready with my mindset, and I just wasn’t ready physically.”
 
Grant, who goes by Nino, his nickname since middle school, had surgery on his right knee in the spring of 2018. He missed most of training camp last summer, and his knee continued to bother him in the fall.
 
He’s healthy now, and he’s bigger and stronger and more decisive in the secondary than he was as a redshirt sophomore in 2018. And that’s put him in position to play regularly for the Cavaliers, who often use five defensive backs at a time.
 
Virginia’s defensive coordinator, Nick Howell, oversees the secondary. Outside linebackers coach Kelly Poppinga is co-defensive coordinator, and after practice Monday morning at Lambeth Field he discussed the progress Grant has made.
 
“Nick’s always been the guy that’s going to try really hard,” Poppinga said. “He’s going to leave everything out there in anything that he does. He knows the defense as well as anybody on our team. So it wasn’t the knowledge and it wasn’t the effort, but it was the playmaking. And he showed in the spring that he was going to make more plays. He’s put himself right in the conversation to be one of the top five DBs: to be a corner, to be a nickel, to play safety. He can play it all.”
 
From its 2018 secondary, UVA lost two starters: safety Juan Thornill and cornerback Tim Harris, both of whom were NFL draft picks in April. The Wahoos’ returning defensive backs include cornerbacks Bryce Hall and Darrius Bratton, safeties Brenton Nelson, Joey Blount and Chris Moore, and De’Vante Cross, who like Grant can play multiple positions in the secondary.
 
“We’re looking good,” Poppinga said. “There’s a lot of guys that are fighting for some type of role, and there’s some guys that are coming up in the ranks as well that we’re really high on right now.”
 
During the Wahoos’ third practice of training camp, the 6-1 Grant worked extensively at cornerback with the first-team defense. 
 
“He’s a guy that we love having on our team,” Poppinga said, “and without him I don’t think we’d have the mindset that our defense has right now.”
 
Grant, who was a two-way standout at Courtland High School, redshirted at UVA in 2016. He appeared in 12 games in each of the next two seasons, playing almost exclusively on special teams. He wanted a larger role as a redshirt junior, and so he entered the new year determined to get up to 200 pounds by the Aug. 31 opener at Pitt –– Grant played at about 190 last season –– and to reach the highest level, black, in the Cavaliers’ strength and conditioning program.
 
“I wanted to do as much as I could off the field to get on the field,” he said. “The end goal was to play and to start.”
 
Grant weighed in at 197 on Monday, and he earned black workout gear late last month.
 
He’s proud of “setting a goal and then reaching it,” Grant said, “not compromising and saying, ‘Oh, I’ll get it the next testing cycle.’ “
 
The Hoos switched from a 4-3 defense to a 3-4 in 2016, their first season under head coach Bronco Mendenhall. Grant has made learning the playbook a priority, he said, “because Coach Howell puts a high premium on [that]. That’s just the first baseline thing. So I just figured if I know everything [about the defense], that won’t be a chink in my armor.
 
“I know everything down to the D-line on our defense. I feel like that’s my competitive advantage, knowing the scheme better than anybody else.”
 
The key to earning more playing time, Grant said, is “putting your head down and working. That’s always been my mindset here. Take care of what I have to take care of, and then everything will fall into place.
 
“Coming into this training camp, I recognized there was a spot to be had opposite Bryce, and there’s a pretty good opportunity there, because everybody knows Bryce is an All-American, so whoever’s on that other side is going to be tested and have plenty of opportunities to make a name for himself. But it’s just putting your head down and working and doing what’s best for this defense. We all have the same goals, and whoever’s out there is going to be holding up our standard. Yes, I want it to be me, but that’s not my primary focus.”
 
Grant, who was born in Houston, later lived briefly in Richmond before moving to the Fredericksburg area. He has an aunt, Shelby Smith-Wilson, who’s a political counselor at the United States Embassy in Madrid, and he visited her there last summer while he was studying in Spain.
 
His aunt has traveled extensively, and “I’ve always seen her as motivation, because she’s so ambitious,” Grant said.
 
That was the first time out of the U.S. for Grant, a foreign affairs major at UVA. It’s not likely to be his last.
 
“That intrigues me,” he said. “I don’t want to be in the same spot my whole life.”