Coming off bye, UVa's PFF season grades through nine games

A weekend without a football game means a week without game grades from PFF College to dive into and discuss.

But with Virginia’s bye falling at the three-quarter mark of the regular season schedule, it’s a logical point to break down some of the cumulative season grades for the Cavaliers. And not surprisingly, that conversation begins with the historic season of quarterback Brennan Armstrong through nine games.

The redshirt junior leads the country with 3,828 yards of total offense and ranks second nationally with 3,557 passing yards, a new school single-season record it took Armstrong just nine games to set. Armstrong’s 27 passing touchdowns are one shy of the school record. He has also rushed for 271 yards and seven scores.

Earlier this week, Armstrong was named a semifinalist for the Davey O’Brien Award, given to the nation’s top quarterback. He’s also a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award, given to the best player in the country, and a finalist for the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award. Despite his status for Saturday night’s game against No. 7 Notre Dame remaining in question because of a rib injury suffered at BYU, Virginia has launched a Heisman Trophy campaign for its record-breaking quarterback on social media.

That performance has earned Armstrong a cumulative 91.4 season grade from PFF College. Among quarterbacks with at least 250 drop-backs this fall, that grade ranks fourth nationally—yet just third in the ACC, behind Pitt’s Kenny Pickett (93.1) and Wake Forest’s Sam Hartman (92.4), and second in the state behind Liberty’s Malik Willis (91.9).

Armstrong leads the country with 28 ‘big time throws,’ defined by PFF as “a pass with excellent ball location and timing, generally thrown down the field and/or into a tighter window.” His 89.5 grade as a passer and 80.8 grade as a runner both rank sixth among eligible quarterbacks.

Historically, Armstrong is on pace for the best season by a UVa football player since PFF College began grading players on a weekly basis in 2014. That current distinction belongs to cornerback Bryce Hall, who graded out at a 91.3 after leading the country in pass breakups during the 2018 season. Only one other UVa players has graded out at 90 or better for a season in the PFF College era—Armstrong last year, when he finished with a 90.3.

Led by Armstrong’s record-breaking campaign, the UVa offense has other playmakers on pace to set new standards for season grades. Keytaon Thompson (considered a receiver by PFF) and Dontayvion Wicks are having the two best seasons by UVa receivers of the PFF College era, as is Jelani Woods at tight end.

Below is a grade card showing the top 10 offensive and defensive players for the Wahoos through nine games this season, as well as a cumulative grade through 10 weeks for the offense and defense with comparisons to national ranking. (For more on how Pro Football Focus grades, we post an explanation at the bottom of this story).

Takeaways: Prior to Armstrong last year, the best season grade for a UVa quarterback was Bryce Perkins’ 82.5 in 2018. … Among receivers with at least 50 targets, Thompson’s 86.6 overall grade is best in the ACC and tied for eighth nationally; Wicks ranks 22nd in the country and fifth in the league with that 82.9. … Only two UVa receivers have finished a season with a cumulative grade of 80 or better: Olamide Zaccheaus (80.7) in 2018 and Canaan Severin (80.6) in 2015. … That 79.5 overall grade would be a career-best for a full season for center Olu Oluwatimi. He’s on pace to finish as UVa’s best-graded offensive lineman for the third straight season. … Only one UVa O-lineman has ever finished with a season grade better than 80: center Jackson Matteo (81.5) in 2015. Eric Smith in 2016 (78.3) was only other to grade better than 75. … Oluwatimi is also atop the UVa snap counter on offense, having played 693 of 710 snaps. … On either side of Oluwatimi on the O-line, tackles Bobby Haskins and Ryan Swoboda and guards Ryan Nelson and Chris Glaser are also having the best seasons of their college careers in the eyes of PFF evaluators. … Tony Poljan (71.0 last year) is the only UVa tight end to grade out better than 70 for a season. With a 79.4, Woods ranks fourth in the country and atop the ACC among tight ends with at least 40 targets. … FBP Jacob Rodriguez leads all UVa freshmen with 166 snaps played.

Takeaways: It’s been an up-and-down season for safety Joey Blount. His 92.0 game grade against Georgia Tech was the best for a UVa defensive player since the arrival of head coach Bronco Mendenhall and staff in 2016. But Blount also graded out poorly in the Hoos’ two worst defensive performances, against UNC (42.5) and BYU (46.9). … Blount’s 81.6 grade in coverage is also tops on the defense for the season. … Nick Grant’s overall cumulative grade is buoyed by his 85.9 against the run, best on the defense. … With a 90.3 as a tackler, Noah Taylor is on pace to become just the second UVa player to grade out at 90 or better in that category. Quin Blanding did it twice: in 2014 (90.4) and 2016 (91.7). … Despite that strong tackling score, Taylor’s 66.1 overall grade would be a career low for a full season. … Inside linebacker West Weeks leads has played 153 defensive snaps, most among first-years on that side of the ball. … Fellow linebacker Nick Jackson has played 594 snaps, most among defensive players. … The last UVa defensive player to grade out at 80 or better for a full season was lineman Eli Hanback (81.7) in 2019. Four defensive backs—Hall, Blount (87.5), Juan Thornhill (85.6) and Tim Harris (82.2)—surpassed that mark in 2018.

With no game last weekend, Virginia’s cumulative season grades remain unchanged from a week ago. The Wahoos continue to be a top-5 unit in the ACC and top-25 nationally in each offensive category graded by PFF:

Passing—86.5 (last week 90.0)

Running—90.6 (last week 88.8)

Pass blocking—74.6 (last week 74.0)

Receiving—80.0 (last week 77.7)

Run blocking—74.6 (last week 72.2)

The UVa defense remains at the bottom of the ACC and among the worst in the country based on the PFF grades. Among 130 FBS teams, Virginia sits at No. 115 in overall defense, No. 122 in pass rushing grade and No. 125 against the run:

Coverage—72.2 (last week 73.2)

Tackling—71.8 (last week 78.9)

Pressure—63.3 (last week 63.9)

Run defense—42.5 (last week 50.8)

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An explanation from PFF on how the grading scale works:

On every play, a PFF analyst will grade each player on a scale of -2 to +2 according to what he did on the play.

At one end of the scale you have a catastrophic game-ending interception or pick-six from a quarterback, and at the other a perfect deep bomb into a tight window in a critical game situation, with the middle of that scale being 0-graded, or ‘expected’ plays that are neither positive nor negative.

Each game is also graded by a second PFF analyst independent of the first, and those grades are compared by a third, Senior Analyst, who rules on any differences between the two. These grades are verified by the Pro Coach Network, a group of former and current NFL coaches with over 700 combined years of NFL coaching experience, to get them as accurate as they can be.

From there, the grades are normalized to better account for game situation; this ranges from where a player lined up to the dropback depth of the quarterback or the length of time he had the ball in his hand and everything in between. They are finally converted to a 0-100 scale and appear in our Player Grades Tool.

Season-level grades aren’t simply an average of every game-grade a player compiles over a season, but rather factor in the duration at which a player performed at that level. Achieving a grade of 90.0 in a game once is impressive, doing it (12) times in a row is more impressive.

It is entirely possible that a player will have a season grade higher than any individual single-game grade he achieved, because playing well for an extended period of time is harder to do than for a short period, Similarly, playing badly for a long time is a greater problem than playing badly once, so the grade can also be compounded negatively.

Each week, grades are subject to change while we run through our extensive review process including All-22 tape runs and coaching audit, so you may notice discrepancies among grades published in earlier articles compared with those in the Player Grades tool until grade lock each week.