By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Ben Smiley III doesn’t need to consult a calendar to know on which spring day he walked the Lawn with his fellow graduates of the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences.
“May 20th,” Smiley said Thursday in the George Welsh Indoor Practice Facility.
Final Exercises are special for everyone who receives a degree at the University. The day was even more memorable for Smiley, who this year became the first member of his immediate family to graduate from college.
After graduating from Indian River High School in Chesapeake, Smiley enrolled at UVA in the summer of 2019 on a football scholarship. He was a celebrated defensive lineman who’d also been offered scholarships by such schools as Clemson, Oklahoma and Alabama, but his parents were more concerned with how he fared in the classroom than on the field.
“My mom and dad didn’t have a college degree,” Smiley said, “so their main goal when they had me was to make sure they put me through college and made my life better than how they grew up. When I first decided to come to UVA, they knew how prestigious the university was. They knew I loved football, but they knew the degree could carry me forever in life.”
Smiley, who received a bachelor’s degree in American studies, said he remembers walking the Lawn on May 20 and reflecting on “how much hard work I’ve put in, sleepless nights doing homework, trying to balance football and school, just seeing all of it pay off and just seeing the looks of my family’s faces seeing me be the first one to actually graduate in the family. It gave me a really loving and caring feeling, and more importantly I appreciated a lot. I appreciated my coaches. I appreciated my professors, my teachers. I appreciated my teammates for pushing me on and off the field in the classroom and things like that. Many times, when I was facing injuries, I wanted to give up. I didn’t know if I wanted to go to school any more or if I wanted to find something else. So I was just very thankful for the opportunity I had at the University of Virginia to finally walk across that Lawn.”
His football career at UVA has been marked by more setbacks than breakthroughs. In 2019, an asthma attack limited Smiley to two games. In 2020, a season played under strict COVID-19 protocols, he again played in only two games, this time because of a knee injury.
His role grew in 2021, when he played in eight games, with three starts, and Tony Elliott, who succeeded Bronco Mendenhall as head coach at the end of that season, raved about Smiley’s potential last year. But No. 10 had a modest impact in 2022. He appeared in eight of Virginia’s 10 games and totaled 13 tackles, including 1.5 sacks.
“In fairness to him, he played out of position last year,” Elliott said Monday.
Smiley bulked up to play defensive tackle, and “I didn’t feel like I was in the right place at the right time,” he recalled. “But I knew I just had to give all I had into that position. That’s where they needed me at on the field, and I’m a team player. So if the team needs me to play defensive tackle, defensive end, I’m going to play there. I made some positive plays, I did some things, but it wasn’t the expectations that I set for myself.”
Kevin Downing coaches Virginia’s defensive tackles, and Chris Slade oversees the defensive ends. In meetings with them after the season, the 6-foot-4 Smiley said, he received some welcome news: He was moving back to end.
“Last season I was 288 pounds, almost 290, and now I’m down to 270, at a weight that I feel comfortable at,” Smiley said. “I’m able to move better, I’m able to bend, I’m able to do certain things I couldn’t do at defensive tackle. I feel like I’m back in my prime position. I always played defensive end and I was always kind of an edge guy, even in high school. So I just feel like I’m in place. And having Coach Slade has been a real, real help to me, with him being a legend in this program and playing years in the NFL.”
Slade, who was an All-America defensive end at UVA and still holds the ACC record for career sacks (40), said Smiley has excelled in training camp this month.
“He plays so hard, it doesn’t take much for him to get tired,” Slade said, “but he’s in good shape. He takes pride in what he does. He’s very coachable. Football is important to him.”
The defensive line, the Hoos’ most experienced and talented position group, suffered a blow last weekend when Chico Bennett Jr. suffered a knee injury that will sideline him temporarily. Bennett started at end last season and recorded a team-best seven sacks.
Bennett had shoulder surgery after last season and didn’t participate fully in spring practice. Elliott said he feels for Bennett, because “I know how hard he’s worked and how much he put in to getting himself back right.”
Still, Elliott said, “the unfortunate reality of football is the next man has to be ready. Regardless of whether it’s two weeks, four weeks, two months, four months, the next guy has to be ready the next day, in that moment.”