Steen Getting In Extra Work This Spring

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — After playing in only two of Virginia’s first six football games last year, offensive tackle Blake Steen shed his anonymity Oct. 21 at North Carolina’s Kenan Stadium.

With starter Jimmy Christ struggling at right tackle, offensive line coach Terry Heffernan turned to Steen, a redshirt freshman who’d come to UVA from the powerful program at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“He went in and played like the last 60 snaps and played really well,” Heffernan said.

The Wahoos knocked off the 10^th-ranked Tar Heels that night, and Steen earned a starting job that he held for the rest of the season. That doesn’t mean No. 54 was fully prepared to take on such a prominent role.

“It was hard,” Steen recalled Wednesday after UVA’s seventh practice of the spring. “They were the hardest football games I’ve ever played in. I didn’t think football could get that hard until I was thrown in the fire that late. But it was still a really fun experience, because I got to play football.”

At 6-foot-5, 325 pounds, Steen is “a very, very large human being,” as Adam Smotherman, the football program’s head coach for strength and conditioning, put it Wednesday.

“He’s a huge person,” Heffernan said. For all of his mass, though, Steen struggled in the weight room when he enrolled at UVA in the summer of 2022. His core especially needed work.

“I felt like sometimes last year I was getting thrown around pretty easily,” said Steen, a media studies major. “They were grown men. Strength is very important, especially in the core.”

And so he headed into the offseason determined to be better prepared for the challenges he’d face this fall.

“He knew his deficiencies and he’s worked hard on them, and core strength is something he works on,” Heffernan said. “He goes in on his own in the weight room a couple of times a week and targets that.”

Steen, who lives in Miami, arrived at UVA with “a willingness to work,” Smotherman said, “but when he first got here there were certain movements that he struggled with: holding a plank and things of that nature, stability-type movements. But he’s worked his tail off and gotten stronger, and he’s probably one of the top guys on the team in terms of coming in extra and really working on the things that he needs to work on.”

All six of the offensive linemen who started at least five games each for the Cavaliers last season—Steen, Brian Stevens, McKale Boley, Ty Furnish, Noah Josey and Ugonna Nnanna—are back this year. Stevens, Boley, Furnish and Josey are recovering from offseason surgeries, however, and only Steen and Nnanna are full participants this spring.

“And so they’re getting a lot of attention and a lot of opportunity to grow, evaluate themselves on tape and get better,” Heffernan said. “This is a huge spring for Blake.”

As a redshirt freshman, Steen was “far from perfect,” Heffernan said. “Lots of struggle. But one of Blake’s great traits is his resiliency, so he gets right back up and gets in there. He might get his butt kicked two plays in a row, but that’s a trait that over the long run of his career is gonna be really good for him.”

Steen said: “I gotta get better. The coaches have really high expectations for me and I gotta meet them. I have no other choice.”

The Cavaliers’ roster includes four graduates of St. Thomas Aquinas: Steen, center Dawson Alters, tight end TeKai Kirby and defensive tackle Jason Hammond. The school has turned out dozens of NFL players, including Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin and brothers Nick and Joey Bosa.

There’s a Steen on the list, too. Blake’s older brother, Tyler, starred on the offensive line at Vanderbilt and then Alabama and now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles.

“I do aspire to follow in his footsteps, but I’m gonna do it at Virginia,” Blake said, smiling. “I’m not going all over the place.”

Steen, who attended Immaculata-La Salle High School in Miami at as ninth-grader, didn’t make the varsity at St. Thomas Aquinas until his junior year, and he wasn’t heavily recruited. He committed to UVA in late January 2022.

In Charlottesville, Steen was reunited with kicker Will Bettridge, a graduate of Gulliver Prep in Miami. As middle schoolers, Steen and Bettridge played together on Team Florida in the Future Stars all-star game.

Bettridge handled extra points and field goals for the Cavaliers last season, and Steen carved out a prominent role on the team, too. He’s not yet the dominant lineman that his brother was in college, but Steen is working toward that goal.

“Blake’s got a good attitude and he’s willing to take the coaching that we give him in the weight room,” Smotherman said. “Half the battle is having an awareness of what you need to work on and the willingness to go do it, and he’s done that.

“We talk about it a lot: If you’re a guy that needs to be motivated externally every day, then you’re gonna have a hard time becoming the best version yourself. Blake is one of those guys that’s internally motivated, and he comes in and works for us.”

The Hoos are heading into their third season under head coach Tony Elliott. Spring practice will conclude April 20 with the Blue-White Game at Scott Stadium.

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