Johnson is on his way to the NFL while Jackson decided to transfer for his final season and is committed to Iowa.

“Those are great guys, and I love them both, AJ and Nick,” Cavaliers defensive end Paul Akere said. “But I think looking around at the defense we have right now, there’s no doubt in my mind that we have a bunch of guys who are ready to step up and lead from whatever position they’re in.”

Said defensive back Coen King: “There are a lot of seniors and a lot of vets here, so I just think I don’t see much of a drop off in terms of the energy that we’ve had or it doesn’t feel like we’ve lost anybody. But I appreciate what [Jackson and Johnson] brought when they were here.”

Jackson tallied three straight 100-tackle seasons for the Hoos, but more critically was the voice in the middle of the unit. Johnson was an All-ACC first-teamer last fall and played with undeniable enthusiasm that rubbed off on his teammates.

But to King’s point, the Hoos are old on defense and aren’t starting from scratch.

He’s a sixth-year senior who has started games at three different safety positions and is playing cornerback currently. Akere is in his fifth year in the sport, having spent three seasons at Ivy League member Columbia ahead of transferring to UVa in 2022.

“And we brought in some transfer guys [last year] that wanted to lead, but were finding their place in the locker room,” UVa coach Tony Elliott said.

Along with Akere on the D-Line, fellow defensive end Kam Butler is readying for his sixth season and has played in 50 games and logged 40 starts in his career. Bandit Chico Bennett Jr. and defensive tackles Aaron Faumui and Jahmeer Carter were all starters a season ago. Faumui has been part of UVa’s program since 2018, and he and King are the only two players on the roster left to have recorded any stats for the Cavaliers in their Orange Bowl appearance the following campaign.

Joining King in the secondary are three others who started at safety at various points this past fall — fifth-year senior Antonio Clary, junior Langston Long and junior Jonas Sanker.

“One thing I want to stress is that you don’t have to be the oldest guy on the field to be leading,” Long said. “You can lead from any position on the field, but I think Antonio Clary is definitely showing that. Coen King is definitely showing that and Kam Butler. There’s a plethora of guys, and guys lead in different ways whether it’s vocally or through their play.”

Butler said he’s adjusting to being the established one that younger defenders seek advice from.

“I’m the old guy of the group now,” Butler, who is going into his second go-around with UVa after beginning his career with four seasons at Miami (Ohio), said.

“So, I’m getting used to everybody’s tendencies and what they like to do inside and outside of football,” Butler said. “I think it’s always good to keep building camaraderie within a group and just know each other more and more each season.”

Added King about how he’s tried to evolve into someone who can guide and grab the reins: “It’s taking on the role of bringing on the younger guys and maybe meeting with them after practice. I do that pretty often with guys like [corners] Ant Fisher and Carlo Thompson and I’m helping them out with film and during walkthroughs. I’m taking on more of a role doing that in a personal one-on-one space and we have other guys who love to bring the group on vocally like Antonio, and [Long] is a big guy who does that.”

Elliott said there are other indicators he looks for to measure leadership, and noted beyond the defense he’s seeing those barometers be met.

“The way the locker room is post-practice and pre-practice,” Elliott said, “the discipline to check in for pre- and post-practice nutrition lets me know that the leadership is headed in the right direction because I’ve always said and I’ve told them that, ‘The best teams are led from the locker room up so if the coaches are the ones having to drive the accountability then obviously we got a long way to go,’ but I don’t sense that from this football team.”

Another reason the Cavaliers aren’t hesitating about taking charge on defense is because they entered the spring with belief in themselves, they said, based on how they improved under coordinator John Rudzinski last season.

UVa yielded only 24 points per game after giving up 31.8 points per contest in 2021. The Cavaliers’ three sacks per game were 13th most nationally and they forced 13 turnovers in their 10 contests.

“You look at the progress they made last year just overall from a statistic standpoint,” Elliott said, “and so yeah, they’re going to walk out here with a little bit of confidence right now.”

Said Long: “When a lot of guys are coming back, it always gets the morale really high and then knowing that we’re not done, we’re not finished because the other day Coach Rud read off our stats from the ACC and he was like, ‘I’m not satisfied with being average. I didn’t come here to be average,’ … so I think we’re excited about what we can become because we have potential from last year and we’re going to show it.”

The Hoos were seventh — in the middle of the pack — in the ACC for both scoring and total defense in spite of their significant strides from the previous year.

“There was so much room for improvement,” King said, “that when you watched the games last year there were so many missed opportunities that we could’ve had shutouts or held teams to 21 points. I think we could’ve held [North Carolina] to way less points if we would’ve locked in on minor details but just with how we were able to grow from ‘21 to ‘22, the confidence going into ‘23 is even more.”