Orck Keeps Offensive Line on Steady CourseOrck Keeps Offensive Line on Steady Course
Joe Main

Orck Keeps Offensive Line on Steady Course

After assisting Terry Heffernan for the past three seasons, Joey Orck is now in charge of UVA's offensive line. Heffernan left Virginia last month to become offensive coordinator at Stanford.

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — After three seasons as Virginia’s offensive line coach, Terry Heffernan accepted an offer last month to become offensive coordinator at Stanford. When he shared the news with the Cavaliers’ linemen, they told him they were happy for him but sorry he was leaving. They also made it clear that they thought head coach Tony Elliott need not look far for Heffernan’s successor.

They wanted Joey Orck to get the job.

“And I said, ‘Well, I think you guys, especially the older guys, have no problem sharing your feelings with Coach Elliott, and you know how to best go about that. So if you really feel that way, those would be really good thoughts to share,’ ” Heffernan recalled.

Players such as Drake Metcalf did so. Metcalf reached out not only to Elliott but to offensive coordinator Des Kitchings in support of Orck, who’d been Heffernan’s No. 2 man.

“That’s how all of us felt,” Metcalf said on a recent Wahoo Central Podcast. “It was a resounding: ‘We don't want to search for anyone outside of this place. We don't need to look any farther outside of this place. Joey Orck’s the guy for us.’ ”

Heffernan said the same to Elliott.

“He kind of asked me on the way out if I felt like Joey was ready, and I certainly gave him my full recommendation,” Heffernan said. “He absolutely is, and this is an opportunity he deserves and has earned.”

The office Heffernan occupied at the Hardie Center is now Orck’s. UVA made his promotion official last week, along with that of ShaDon Brown, who’ll oversee the Cavaliers’ cornerbacks.

“With ShaDon and Joey stepping into larger roles, it’s a testament to how our program is committed to the development of not only our student-athletes, but our staff as well,” Elliott said in a statement.

Orck said that knowing UVA’s offensive linemen vouched for him with Elliott “means everything. Those guys that I've been able to work with now for a couple years, for them to say that this is what they want was huge for me. But also I think it validates that what we've been doing was the right thing.”

Metcalf said it’s “great to not have to go through that phase of learning and getting to know a new offensive line coach. It’s a cool experience when you go somewhere and you meet a new line coach, because you get those new techniques and fundamentals that they teach ... But for us to be able to bring one of our own and to be able to step up to the plate as the offensive line coach is really special. And there’s not a guy that wasn't happy for him to be able to take over for us.”

After nine years as an assistant coach at Presbyterian College, Orck left his alma mater to join Elliott’s first staff at UVA. He was an offensive analyst in 2022 and ’23 and senior offensive analyst in 2024 and ’25.

Orck focused on the offensive line. He assisted Garett Tujague in 2022 and Heffernan the next three years.

“At practice, all of our drill work was split,” Heffernan said. “My belief was, you just try to maximize the amount of physical repetitions the guys got, and the best way for me to do that was to split up. I really trusted Joey to take half the group and coach the things I was looking for and accomplish the things I needed in the drill work.”

Off the practice field, “Joey had a lot of specific responsibilities from a scouting report standpoint,” Heffernan said. “There were a lot of things that were his responsibilities that he did a wonderful job with and took off my plate.”

Orck said his philosophy mirrors that of Heffernan in many ways.

“I think there's a ton of carryover,” Orck said. “Heff was a phenomenal coach. I learned a high level of details from him, but I also learned that too much can be a bad thing as a coach. I think what Heff really taught me was to focus on the important things and not try to do too much with what you’ve got, because we can [complicate things] with all kinds of drills and all kinds of schemes and all that kind of stuff. Just hone in on what you can do, what your players can do and go from there.”

In 2025, the Wahoos finished 11-3 after defeating Missouri in the Gator Bowl. The 11 wins were a single-season program record, and the offensive line was instrumental in UVA’s success.

After allowing 47 sacks in 12 games in 2024, Virginia gave up only 18 last year. Moreover, tailback J’Mari Taylor became the first Cavalier to rush for 1,000 yards in a season since Jordan Ellis in 2018.

For the O-line group, Orck said, the season was “unbelievably gratifying. We’ve all taken some lumps, and there were a lot of challenges in building this. It was great to see what can happen when you just trust in the process and what you're doing and you show up and go to work every day. And those guys bought in to us and our message and how we were doing things, and they were finally able to see what can happen if you stay the course.”

Joey OrckJoey Orck

In college football, this is an era of player movement, and after the news broke that Heffernan was returning to Stanford, where he’d previously been offensive line coach, Orck wondered if his position group might have some attrition.

“I was worried I was going to have to do some recruiting of our own guys after it happened,” he said, “but I talked to them all, and they were ready to go.”

Of Virginia’s starters on its 2025 offensive line, three are back for their final college seasons: Metcalf, Noah Josey and McKale Boley. Two other linemen who might have started in 2025—Monroe Mills and Makilan Thomas—are healthy again after missing last season while recovering from injuries.

“We’re in a great place to start with that group,” Orck said. “Ton of experience, ton of leadership too. I think that’s where we took the biggest step last year, with the leadership. You have guys like Monroe and Drake and Josey who are vocal leaders, and then you have Makilan and Boley who are lead by example-type guys, which works. It's not going to be great if you have all five vocal leaders all the time, but they're all on the same page with what they do.

“And I think the best thing is, this group is player-led. They hold everybody accountable. They have set the standard of what they want to accomplish. They want to be the best group in the ACC. They want to be the best group in the country. Anything that falls short of that standard, they're going to let each other know that. They handle everything kind of amongst themselves.”

Also back on the O-line are such key reserves as Ben York, Jon Adair, Noah Hartsoe and Grant Ellinger, and two transfers joined the group last month: Alex Payne (Southern California) and Ryan Brubaker (South Carolina).

Orck, who grew up in Columbia, S.C., played center at Presbyterian, which is in Clinton, S.C. He began his coaching career there, serving as a student assistant in the spring of 2008, before moving to Vanderbilt later that year. Orck spent five years on the Commodores’ staff—the final three as a graduate assistant—and earned a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Vandy.

During his time in Nashville, Tenn., Orck met Kitchings, who coached at Vanderbilt from 2008-10, and their friendship played a role in Orck’s eventual move to Charlottesville.

Elliott took the job at UVA in December 2021, and he hired Kitchings as offensive coordinator about a month later. Kitchings reached out to his former colleague about joining the Cavaliers’ staff, “and I was just ready for a change,” said Orck, who’d been Presbyterian’s offensive coordinator since 2018.

“I've really only been at academic-type institutions, between Virginia, Presbyterian, and Vanderbilt,” Orck said. “So that's obviously a big thing to me from that standpoint—the type of player and person you can get at a school that values education the way that Virginia does.”

Orck knew Kitchings personally and had heard great things from friends about Elliott. “Just wanting to surround myself with good people was a tremendous factor in deciding where to go,” Orck said. “Any time you can be around really good people that are also good coaches, it's a win-win from a job and quality-of-life perspective. I felt like there was a ton of potential here with everything that was in place, and with what Coach Elliott was going to be able to add to it, it just seemed like a perfect fit.”

When spring practice starts next month, Boley and Josey will line up at their customary spots of left tackle and left guard, respectively.

Metcalf started 11 games at right guard last season and, when Brady Wilson was out with an injury, three at center. Metcalf is likely to move to center this year, Orck said. Mills is the top candidate to start at right tackle, with Thomas slotted initially at right guard.

“Our goal is gonna be to get the best five guys on the field,” Orck said, “and we feel like Drake going to center and Makilan playing some guard for us is going to give us the best lineup to put our best five players out on the field. Now we've got to get other guys ready.”

Ellinger and Brubaker are expected to battle this spring for the backup center’s job, and Grayson Reid, who played in two games as a true freshman last year, “could be an option too,” Orck said.

At tackle, York and Adair showed great promise last season, and Orck is also high on Payne, who redshirted at USC in 2025 and has four years of eligibility left.

“He's got a great frame, and he’s a 6-6, 315-pound guy that can move,” Orck said. “He’s changed his body tremendously. He was 265 pounds out of high school, and he's 315 right now. So he's grown. He's going to keep developing physically, and he's got a really bright future as well.”

Also last week, Elliott announced Landon Martin has been hired as assistant offensive line coach. By the start of the season, Orck said, the coaches want to identify a two-deep of linemen who are capable of contributing.

“We were successful last year because of the depth that allowed other guys to play when the injuries happen,” he said. “We're not going to be able to play a whole season with five guys. We're going to need to get 10, 11, 12 guys that can play, and [the young linemen] have got to get experience so next year they're ready to take it over.”

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UVA's offensive line allowed only 18 sacks in 14 games last seasonUVA's offensive line allowed only 18 sacks in 14 games last season