Cabbell sees much improvement on Cavs’ O-line

For the second straight year, B.J. Cabbell is working on the first team's offensive line. Weeks ago, Virginia right guard B.J. Cabbell threw in a video from last season's opening game against Southern Cal.

He cringed.

Sure, the miserable outcome was painful, but it was individual play that created the biggest regret.

"It was awful to watch," he recounted. "It was rough to watch. I am so much better now than I was then at everything."

That realization, according to offensive-line coach Dave Borbely, is critical in a player's development.

"B.J. said the same thing to me and I said, 'Well, I'm glad it only took a year for you to believe me when I told you that,'" Borbely said. "I think self-discovery is really important for the players. Will Barker has said the same thing to me in the past."

It was the time off from football that created the discovery for Cabbell, a former standout at Nelson County High who is working for a second straight year with the first-team line.

"When guys get away from it for a little bit, they realize how much improvement they can make in their game," Borbely said. "When your play is as important to you as it is to your coach, then you are going to start to make some progress.

"Then you realize that I wasn't as good as I thought I was, especially if they are really honest with themselves and it is really important to them."

Cabbell will need to be better. Virginia lost left tackle Eugene Monroe to the NFL, and a new scheme is in place that will spread the offensive linemen apart further than in years past, something Cabbell first learned while prepping for Texas Tech on the scout team two years ago.

"It was scary at first because we are on an island you really don't have anybody next to you when you are in a tight situation, but mainly it is all about confidence," Cabbell said. "If you are confident in your ability, you shouldn't have a problem.

"For myself, despite it being like I am on an island, I know that we are athletic enough as a line to really split ourselves out like that."

Cabbell's progression has not gone unnoticed among his fellow starters on the line.

"B.J. was a great athlete coming in, but obviously he had to pick up the whole offensive mentality, that mindset," said right tackle Will Barker. "It took some time, but he has come a long, long way. I have complete confidence lining up next to him."

Cabbell has tried to simplify things in practice thus far, focusing on one drill and one session at a time.

"Every day in practice we just drill ourselves to be better than we were the previous day," he said. "Each day we are trying to get five percent better.

"There is no room to regress with what we do if we want to be better than what we were last year."

Jay Jenkins writes for The Daily