A year ago, Bryce Perkins was talking about his nerves and his excitement and his emotions. After all, he had spent years leading up to the moment, feeling that helmet go on and hearing the sounds as he ran out of the tunnel poised to start his first game at the Power 5 level.

Now, the 6-foot-3, 215-pound senior is poised to return to the field and hopefully lead UVa to the ACC title game.

“Just looking back, not even just last year but through my whole college career, it’s amazing how fast it seems like it went,” he said Monday. “But there’s a lot of events that happened in these last four years that at the time seemed like it was long. Looking back, it feels like it happened in the blink of an eye. But this time last year to now, so many things have happened.

“I think I’m hungrier because I have a kind of a baseline about what happened last year and now I know what I need to do to build off of that as opposed to just going out there and giving everything I’ve got,” Perkins added. “Now I know the point I need to reach, the point I need to exceed, for me to improve and for us to improve.”

The Queen Creek (AZ) native put up one incredible season in his first year at the helm for UVa, which opens its 2019 campaign Saturday night at Pitt (7:30 p.m., ACCN).

Perkins, of course, joined Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray as one of just two players nationally to put up more than 2,600 yards passing while running for another 900. He was the ACC’s leader with 206 points (13th most in the country) while setting the school’s single-season record for most yards of total offense and for TDs accounted for. Along the way he posted four 100-yard rushing games, tying the school record for a QB, and also tied for second at UVa with 25 passing touchdowns in a season while finishing third all-time with a 64.5 completion percentage.

And there’s no doubt that what will separate Perkins from the greats or allow him to join them is how UVa fares this fall.

“The command of the offense certainly appears to be at a higher level,” head coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “Ultimately though, we all know it’s results-oriented business, and great quarterbacks win championships. So getting to a bowl game and winning is not a championship, but it’s a significant step in the right direction for our program.

“The very best quarterbacks lead their teams to championships,” he added. “Outcome is going to determine where he’s grown. Making the critical play at the critical time in a critical game, that’s what the best guys do at that position. So hopefully Bryce has advanced to that part and that point, and we won’t know until we play.”

No. 3 agrees.

“You’ve just got to know that it comes with the position,” Perkins explained. “The great ones stand out and average ones just kind of fizzle out…I’ll never forget, Coach Mendenhall said ‘The best quarterbacks win championships. So, can you win a championship?’ So, that’s what separates the great QBs from the not-great ones, the ability to somehow no matter where the team is or how they’re playing, to have the ability to make them feel like they’re never out of the game and make them feel like they have the ability to come back and always put in a fighting effort.

“Personally,” he added, “I just try to keep regardless of what the situation is whether we need a touchdown or a field goal, I just try to keep calm and just know the situation.”

As he aims for a “calm composure” he also needs to fire up his teammates. That’s what team captains, which Perkins now is, do as well.

Given the physicality expected this weekend, it would behoove the Cavaliers to be ready and Perkins is well aware.

“We know what kind of game it’s going to be,” he said, “as far as looking at last year and how physical they play, how fast and tenacious. You could tell last year, they were probably more hungry than us just because of how they came out and played. They came out and we were basically out-physicalled in the game last year. So, looking back at that, we’ve got to come in with a different mindset, especially it being the first game of the season. We don’t have time to kind of start of slow. We’ve got to start fast because this game’s going to kind of set the pace for the rest of the season.”

The fact that the Wahoos get this season going by facing the Panthers helped drive them in the offseason.

“It definitely made things [better], from summer workouts to camp, everything had to be sharp,” Perkins said. “We had to get the fine details tuned faster than it would have been, which I think is going to benefit us because opening up with Pitt we have to start fast and carry that through the season. We don’t have time to kind of meander into it. This whole offseason has been a grind in preparation for that hard opening game.”

In terms of his own game, Perkins believes he’s got a good feel for what he needs to do in order to be even better in 2019.

“I definitely worked on seeing the field more and kind of understanding pre- and post-snap reads at a higher level so I can be quick and decisive with my delivery,” he said. “Every play, just looking and assessing and playing fast and decisive was really a main focus point. I definitely worked hard in the offseason and I think it’s paid off.

“I’m playing on the defensive side so I don’t really see him much,” fellow captain and ILB Jordan Mack said this week of Perkins. “But he’s Bryce. Each and every year, he’s getting better, running and throwing and wherever his areas of weakness are he’s improving on them. To me, he’s always Bryce. He’s fast, he’s slinging it all over the field. Honestly he’s just doing his job and doing it at a very high level.”

“I think I’m quicker with my reads and more decisive as far who to go to and when to go to it,” Perkins said. “I think I’m seeing the field better so I think delivering the balls to receivers in a timely fashion will be better just because we don’t have to wait. We’ll get a lot of man [looks] and those man throws are going to become very important.”

In his final ride and with expectations galore, don’t look for him to slow down or ease up on what he asks of himself.

“I’m obsessed with just being a better version of myself,” Perkins added.

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