Editor’s Note: Each week, we will review UVa’s performance in the previous week’s game and break down one element that led the Hoos to victory or contributed to their defeat. This week we begin by breaking down what we saw from the Cavaliers’ passing game in Brennan Armstrong’s debut as the team’s starting quarterback.

On Saturday, Armstrong led Virginia to a 38-20 win in his first career start. The third-year signal-caller sat behind Bryce Perkins for two years and finally got his first shot at leading the offense last weekend and that first try was mostly successful.

He completed 53 percent of his 45 pass attempts, throwing for 269 yards and a pair of touchdowns. For the sake of comparison, Perkins averaged 252 passing yards per game last year, with five of 14 efforts beating Armstrong’s output on Saturday (FSU, Notre Dame, UNC, VT, and Florida). And despite Virginia’s supposed emphasis on creating a more imposing ground game, the 45 attempts against Duke were more than Perkins had in any game of his two-year Cavalier career.

While Armstrong had a decent day overall, it took quite a while for him to get going behind center. At one point in the game, he was 11-for-31 passing with two interceptions and no touchdowns before rallying with a strong fourth-quarter performance. Virginia’s offense struggled for most of the game on 3rd down, converting just six of 17 attempts. The offense performed well in the red zone but most of that success came on the ground. (It’s worth noting that Armstrong had a big impact on the game with his legs but we’re not evaluating that aspect of his game in this piece.)

The offense looked pretty similar to what we saw from UVa under Perkins. But one key difference is that Armstrong didn’t take off and run nearly as often as Perkins would have on key downs, particularly 3rd. UVa had 23 throws near the line of scrimmage, but Armstrong was more efficient in a way with his second-level throws, gaining 103 yards on 11 throws versus 109 yards on 23 shorter throws.

PFF graded Armstrong favorably despite his two turnovers. His 69.2 pass grade would’ve easily been in the top half of UVa’s passing grades last season and Perkins’ passing grade for the season last year was 58.5 for comparison. In addition, Armstrong’s NFL QB rating for Saturday’s performance is 67.7. One reason he graded out so well was his receivers’ issues with drops (more on that later), which was a much bigger problem than last year’s group had at any point.

As Armstrong got off to a bit of a slow start before hitting his stride, we will start off by looking at some of the struggles he had in Saturday’s win before getting to plays we liked from the sophomore QB.

Armstrong wasn’t widely inaccurate in Saturday’s win on throws that fell incomplete. In fact, most of his misses were “small” misses and not necessarily thrown into dangerous areas (there were two or three exceptions to this, however).

On this first example, Virginia is going for it on 4th and 4 in Duke territory, and the first read appears to be Terrell Jana flaring out after coming in motion. Armstrong sees the safety coming over top to take that throw away, and quickly goes to his second read and throws low and wide of Hayden Mitchell. It’s better to miss low than high on a throw like this but on 4th down it would have been an opportunity for Armstrong to keep going through his reads and try to find an open man. He does a great job making quick decisions but considering the lack of pressure on this play, he may have been better off waiting a beat before rushing the throw to a covered receiver.

This next play is an out route to tight end Tony Poljan, thrown a bit behind the receiver. Armstrong does a nice job anticipating Poljan being open out of his break but the ball doesn’t lead him into open space. Instead, Poljan has to stop and turn to make the catch and he can’t come up with it. This play went down as a drop but if the ball is leading Poljan towards the sideline, he probably makes the catch and picks up a good number of yards.

On both of the plays highlighted above, Armstrong throws from an “open” stance, with his chest facing the target rather than his right shoulder pointing towards the receiver. Many quarterbacks throw this way, at least on some throws, and Armstrong’s quick release and velocity on throws allows him to do this and still complete passes. But when a quarterback can’t fully step into a throw, particularly beyond five or 10 yards, accuracy can suffer.

On his first interception, an underthrown jump ball down the sideline to the diminutive Billy Kemp, Armstrong can’t step into the throw because of pressure and has to fling the ball up there. A jump ball down the sideline to a 5-foot-9 receiver is probably not going to result in success too often, and on 3rd and 10 late in the first half making this throw wasn’t a catastrophic error. But it does illustrate how pressure and the inability to step into a throw can impact where the ball ends up.

Armstrong’s second interception was his worst throw of the game, and one he surely would like to have back. The target here is Jana, who is coming in motion to run a quick in-and-out route, with Poljan clearing out the defense to create space. Duke anticipates this design well and has it completely covered. Armstrong tries to throw Jana open by lobbing the ball towards the sideline and allowing him to run underneath of it, but the Duke linebacker covering Kemp on the sideline is all over it. On review, it appears that Armstrong simply didn’t see him and thought he was throwing into empty space for Jana to make a play, but the throw was too wide and too easy for the linebacker to come up and catch. This was a mental error that happens to the best quarterbacks and unfortunately it just came at a bad time in bad field position.

It’s worth remembering that this was Armstrong’s first start, against a defense that has graded out pretty well through two games. Errors happen in every game and none of the mistakes highlighted above are indicative of a major flaw in his game, unless they happen and a higher rate going forward.

The quarterback is only half of any reception, so now we’ll take a look at how the Cavalier receivers were utilized in Saturday’s game.

It should be no surprise that Jana and Kemp were the most-used receivers, particularly since the Wahoos opened up with an ACC opponent, where experience is more valuable than it may be when opening the season against an overmatched FCS opponent, for instance. It seems that Duke did a good job neutralizing Jana, who was very involved in the game plan but caught just four passes for 29 yards on 41 routes. Kemp is primed to catch a lot of balls in this Virginia offense, and led the team in both targets (12) and receptions (seven) in the win. Lavel Davis was the other top target at wide receiver, leading the team in yards and scoring a pair of touchdowns. Tavares Kelly had a quiet day at wide receiver after fumbling the opening kickoff and his only touch came on a pop pass late in the game from Lindell Stone that was blown up in the backfield.

Transfer Ra’Shaun Henry saw 36 snaps and was involved on 22 pass plays, which may come as a surprise to viewers as he didn’t get many looks. Henry’s one target came on a deep throw from Armstrong that was just out of his reach, but his production should improve going forward if he continues to play at the same rate. Bronco Mendenhall mentioned in his Monday press conference that Henry’s lack of targets was more of an aberration than a design or a sign of things to come, so expect the grad transfer to see more of the ball going forward.

Poljan had an impact as expected, with six targets on 25 routes. UVa did run quite a few two tight-end sets, though Grant Misch wasn’t nearly as involved in the passing game. UVa’s running backs got involved as well, with four receptions for 20 yards combined, on five total targets. Virginia did use quarterbacks Keytaon Thompson and Ira Armstead at wide receiver, as expected. Thompson was involved in four passing plays, threw a pass on a trick play and was used as a run blocker quite a bit, and Armstead caught a screen pass for a five yard gain on his only action of the day.

While there were certainly plenty of highlights for the pass catchers in Saturday’s win, there was one area specifically that needs to improve: Drops.

According to the PFF data, Virginia had six, a jarring reversal from last year’s numbers when UVa’s receivers were the most sure-handed group in the nation. The Hoos nearly matched their drop total from all of 2019—eight total—in one afternoon. Those drops helped improve Armstrong’s passing grade for the day and assuming they don’t become a trend bodes well for some improvement going forward.

We mentioned Armstrong’s success on the ground in the victory, and his mobility factored into the pass game as well. Perkins was so difficult to stop on key plays because defenses had to respect the run and the pass, as well as his ability to keep plays alive long enough for receivers to come up, or run lanes to open up. We saw a bit of that from Armstrong in the win over Duke and throwing on the run could turn out to be one of the strengths of his game.

This first play is a designed roll-out to Armstrong’s left, his throwing side. The pocket rolls with him to give him space to make the throw without free defenders in his face, and he throws one of his better balls of the day, hitting Kemp on the sideline. UVa didn’t have many protection issues against Duke but as the season progresses, the Hoos would be smart to mix in some of these plays to keep the defense off-balance, and potentially neutralize a pass rush while giving Armstrong the option to run or throw once he’s out of the pocket.

The next play is an example of the other kind of roll-out, one the quarterback does on his own. As the pocket starts to break down, Armstrong makes an athletic move to slip out to his left and surveys the field. He does a nice job of picking his head up after a near stumble and finds Davis working back towards the ball. This is another well-thrown ball on a rope that gets out in a hurry.

Virginia struggled to run the ball in the traditional sense through most of last season, so in a way the short passing game became a modified run game. The offense found a lot of success in that area with Perkins and it should come as no surprise that Armstrong made a lot of similar-looking throws on Saturday. More than half of his throws against Duke were 10 yards or less.

Our first short throw example is a drag route to Kemp, coming across the face of the quarterback. This would appear to be Armstrong’s primary read, and if the defense was all over it he could go to his throw at the second level, to Henry, going left to right. Kemp has no trouble separating from the bigger and slower defensive back covering him, and with the middle of the field vacated by blitzing linebackers Armstrong has a simple toss to make to his receiver. This is also a nice blitz anticipation by No. 5, who sees the pressure coming and knows where the empty space should be in the defense as a result.

This throw is a bit deeper but is a staple of Virginia’s offense. Jana caught 74 passes last year and so many of them were on routes where he simply found a pocket in zone coverage, turned towards the quarterback, and waited for the throw. That’s exactly what he does on this play, though a little deeper than his routes often go. If the throw is on time, it’s a really difficult concept to stop without switching to man defense, which creates other problems.

Duke was certainly prepared for the short passing game and did a nice job preventing short throws from going any further than the catch. On the day, Virginia averaged just 4.2 yards after the catch. For comparison Duke, not exactly an explosive team, is averaging 6.1 yards after the catch through three games.

On this example, Armstrong targets Jana short of the sticks on 3rd and short. A great effort by Jana earns him a 1st down, but most of the time these throws aren’t going to result in 1st downs with this level of attention from the defense. If UVa can find a way to stretch the defense out or make them respect something at the second level of the defense or beyond at least, that should turn some of these five yard passes into 10 or 15 yard gains.

Over the past few years, Virginia’s passing offense has been very wide receiver heavy in terms of production and targets. Last year, Taulapapa caught just five passes for 23 yards on seven total targets. The running backs combined for just 19 targets last year, or 4.7 percent of all pass attempts. It’s a small sample size, but it seems like the running backs are going to be more involved in the passing game this year.

On Saturday, Taulapapa and Shane Simpson combined for five targets, or 8.9 percent of the pass attempts, with four catches and 20 yards. The one target that didn’t become a catch was Taulapapa’s wide open drop that certainly would’ve been a nice gain for the offense on a swing pass out of the backfield.

Virginia didn’t really run traditional running back screens in the win over Duke but did get balls to backs in ways you would expect. This first example is a nice play design that the Blue Devils covered up well. Kelly comes across on a fake jet sweep, and UVa basically runs a counter play to Armstrong’s strong side with Taulapapa out in front. Taulapapa looks like a lead blocker on the play and he could be if Armstrong takes off, but instead the QB flips him the ball for an easy completion. The Devils weren’t fooled by the fake jet sweep action, but if they were, this play could’ve turned into a nice gain. Don’t be surprised to see this play used again later in the year.

The next throw is an easy flare pattern for Taulapapa, with blockers designed in front. This play acts as a modified screen pass, where instead of inviting pressure through the line and setting up blocks for the back in vacated space, UVa gets the ball out quick and gets blockers out in front of Taulapapa to open up an alley. The play worked, and UVa ran a similar play to the left side with Simpson earlier in the game, resulting in a gain of 10 yards.

Our first Film Room piece in the summer focused on how Robert Anae’s scheme utilized the tight end, particularly Tanner Cowley, last year. Cowley had a quietly solid season and what we learned was that many of the plays that went his way were designed to go to him pre-snap, and good schemes made them work. In reviewing Poljan’s debut, his role is not quite the same. His usage on Saturday was much more as any other tight end or receiver would be used, running a lot of routes into the middle of the field and creating mismatches with linebackers in coverage. Poljan opened his Cavalier career with four receptions for 44 yards on six targets, all six of which came in the middle third of the field.

The first play we have for Poljan is as simple as they come. Duke’s defense brought pressure up the middle and Poljan was being covered about 10 yards off by a defensive back. He makes a simple out cut and the ball is delivered on time and accurately for an easy pickup.

The next play is one of my favorite throws from Armstrong on the day. Poljan runs an in-breaking route about 15 yards past the line of scrimmage, getting past the linebackers and on the inside shoulder of the Duke defender covering him (#0).

Watch Armstrong scan the field, find Poljan, understand he has inside leverage on his coverage and is headed for an empty area of the field across the middle, and time the throw perfectly with accuracy. If he throws too far in front of Poljan, or too low, the pass is likely picked off. If he throws too late, the defense has recovered in time. But he hits it just right here. This is how a quarterback-tight end connection is supposed to work.

Finally, here is another Poljan route across the middle this time against a zone defense look. This time at the snap, Poljan is on the outside shoulder of the linebacker in his area. As soon as he gets even with the defender, the defender has lost him, and he’s able to cut behind him and into open space. Armstrong reads the defense correctly, and makes a good decision.

We mentioned above that Virginia’s YAC production wasn’t great in the win over Duke, and it’s an area that the Cavaliers struggled with last season, particularly in the first half of the season. They haven't had a receiver that could take the top off the defense. Joe Reed had the speed to do it, but he wasn’t really utilized that way most of the time. But it seems that UVa may have found the answer to those problems in the 6-foot-7 freshman Davis, who exploded onto the scene in his collegiate debut, catching four passes for 101 yards and a pair of touchdowns. To further legitimize his performance, he was among the team’s leaders in targets with eight, which doesn’t include a “free play” throw Armstrong made to him that fell incomplete.

Davis’ physical tools were on display against Duke, and he clearly has the trust of his quarterback already. He is certainly going to be a threat in the red zone where he can win 50/50 balls with his size but he also seems to have a route tree that takes him deep down the field often, which could open up underneath throws once defenses start scheming to take him away.

One of the more impressive and useful skills Davis showed on Saturday was his ability to make catches without gaining separation from coverage.

This first clip is a throw made to Davis in the first half, on a 50/50 ball thrown to the corner of the end zone. Armstrong can’t quite get the ball high enough and it falls incomplete behind the defender’s back.

But on the second throw (below) Armstrong gets it right, and puts the ball up high for his rookie receiver to go get it. Ball placement is going to be key to unlocking Davis’ potential. If Armstrong can continue to put the ball up high like this and Davis can correctly time his leaps, it’s going to be tough for defenders to stop the play without drawing a penalty or using double coverage.

This next throw underscores Armstrong’s trust in his young receiver. On this play, Davis is lined up in the slot and puts a double move on the defensive back almost right away. As soon as he makes the break, before he’s gained any separation, Armstrong puts the ball up for grabs. This is a throw that he likely doesn’t make to any other receiver on the team, at least until he can see them get some separation. In fact, if he throws this a bit deeper down the field, Davis may have been able to run under it and had a better chance at a catch.

The next play is more successful, but came from a mistake. It’s pretty clear from this clip, and the post-whistle reaction of the receiver, that Davis ran the wrong route. He was likely supposed to head into the middle of the field and clear out for Jana, but instead they end up in the same place. You can see Armstrong recognize this and hesitate before making the throw. But ultimately he still puts the ball up for Davis to make the catch, knowing he will likely be able to do so in a crowd.

Finally, here is Davis’ second touchdown, which is an impressive play for both quarterback and receiver. He is running deep down the sideline again but Armstrong recognizes the throw window isn’t into the end zone for a jump ball but rather between the first and second defender in coverage.

This is a throw that many quarterbacks struggle to make, but could be Armstrong’s best of the day. He places the ball perfectly in the window and sets up Davis to make a strong play. The freshman wideout again shows off his physicality, brushing off several Duke defenders and ultimately finding the end zone.

This type of throw is encouraging because teams are going to catch on to the deep 50/50 balls to Davis, and he can take advantage by running stop or come-back routes that can result in decent gains and create opportunities to run after the catch.

All things considered, the passing game had a pretty solid day against Duke. It was a season opener after several long weeks of waiting, against a good defense that had already played a pair of games. On top of all that, Virginia’s starting quarterback and many of the primary pass catchers were either starting their first game or were new to the program and schemes altogether. While there is certainly room to improve, the passing game showed more diversity on Saturday than it had at times last year, which could help make up for the loss of experience and production from Reed and Hasise Dubois.

Armstrong made a good number of top-quality throws, and ultimately led the offense to 38 points. He was also the victim of an odd number of dropped passes and of course made a few mistakes of his own. Despite a slow start, his second-half surge showed a mature player able to put his mistakes behind him and trust himself to make challenging throws down the field.

And we haven’t even mentioned the protection for the passing game, which was quite solid against a good Duke pass rush. Armstrong was sacked just once and pressured just 14 times, despite 18 blitzes from a Blue Devils group that can easily get home without bringing extra defenders.

Going forward, there are several questions for the passing game, starting with this week’s game at Clemson. Can Davis do what he did against Duke consistently? And if he can, how much does that help the players around him get open? Can Henry have a breakout moment of his own soon after a quiet debut? How much tempo will UVa use going forward, and how does that impact personnel choices as well as route concepts?

UVa has a tall task this week and a challenging schedule beyond, but what we saw from the passing game in the opener, and the offense as a whole, was largely encouraging.

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