UVa's PFF grades following Week 11 loss at home to Notre Dame

Robert Anae is in his 15th year as an offensive coordinator, including a pair of stints at BYU prior to the last six seasons at Virginia. In that time, he can’t recall ever having to play a true freshman quarterback in a spot like the one Jay Woolfolk faced on Saturday night.

When the decision was made in pregame warmups that Brennan Armstrong would be unable to play because of his rib injury, it meant Woolfolk would have to make his first college start against then-No. 7 Notre Dame. Armstrong was hurt two weeks earlier at then-No. 25 BYU, forcing Woolfolk to play the final offensive series of that game.

“You’d rather bring in a true freshman in a different arrangement, but man, the fourth quarter there at BYU and then Notre Dame, these are really good teams,” Anae said Tuesday morning. “And to get in a situation where we’ve got to produce, that’s a tough deal. But I do believe we grew. I do believe we got better. I do believe that stage, hopefully going forward, is not gonna be that big and that overwhelming for him.”

The night went about as well as expected for a first-year quarterback pressed into action against a top-10 team. Woolfolk finished 18-of-33 for 196 yards and a pair of interceptions, and added 15 rushing yards on 16 carries. He showed poise and made some strong throws as he got more comfortable, but also locked onto receivers and had some overthrows. He was sacked seven times in UVa’s 28-3 loss, the first time in two years that the Hoos were held without a touchdown.

That performance earned Woolfolk, the first true freshman to start at quarterback for the Wahoos since 1977, a 58.2 overall game grade from PFF College. Since PFF didn’t exist in 1977, the transcripts from Bryan Shumock’s first start that year, a 14-0 loss to NC State in the season opener, are not available.

But here is how Woolfolk’s overall and passing and run grades compared to the other UVa QBs of the PFF College era (the outlet started doing game-by-game grades in 2014) in their first starts:

As mentioned, Woolfolk is the lone true freshman on the list. He'd appeared in mop-up duty in wins against Illinois and Duke prior to Armstrong's injury in the fourth quarter at BYU.

Johns and Lambert were both in their third seasons at UVa in 2014; Lambert had appeared in seven games as David Watford’s backup the previous season. Benkert played in three games as a redshirt freshman at East Carolina in 2014, and was slated to be the Pirates’ starter in 2015 until a preseason knee injury. Perkins never played in two years at Arizona State, but had just spent a season as the starter at Arizona Western Community College. Armstrong played in eight games as Perkins' backup his first two years at UVa; Stone was in his fourth year in the program when he started in place of Armstrong last October.

Woolfolk is also one of just two QBs on the list to make his starting debut against a ranked team; UCLA was also the No. 7 team in the country when they came to Scott Stadium to face Lambert and the Hoos to open the 2014 season.

(Anecdotally, those grades for both Lambert and Johns may require asterisks. PFF College was still in its game-grading infancy in 2014 and, based on how the grades compare with the stat lines, may have still been refining the process for grading players. Lambert was actually benched in favor of Johns in that UCLA game.)

But Woolfolk’s numbers are comparable to those of the other QBs on that list. All seven threw at least one pick; Woolfolk was one of five to throw a pair. The overall game grades for both Armstrong and, in particular Perkins, were boosted by strong performances as runners.

Interestingly, Armstrong is the only quarterback on the list who graded out better in his second start than in his first. It’s still not clear whether Woolfolk’s second start will come this weekend with first place in the Coastal Division at stake.

Just like a week ago, the Wahoos don’t plan to reveal anything about Armstrong’s status prior to Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. kickoff at No. 20 Pitt. On Monday, head coach Bronco Mendenhall said he was hopeful Armstrong would be a more active participant in practice this week, but Anae indicated that once again no decision was likely to be made until kickoff at Heinz Field approaches.

If Woolfolk does get the nod again, Anae believes the freshman will be better for the experience he got last weekend at Scott Stadium.

"It was a building process and I thought that as the game grew, the young man grew with it, and with a play or a call here to there, I think we’re in it better than we were,” Anae said. “But from a collective, man, if that’s the first block that we have, I think there’s gonna be a bright future with Jay.”

Below is a grade card showing how the top 10 offensive and defensive players fared against the Fighting Irish and also a cumulative grade through the third week of the season 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: Despite giving up a season-high seven sacks, Week 11 marked the second time this season that all five starting offensive linemen graded out among UVa’s 10 best offensive players. It also happened in the win at Miami. … According to PFF evaluators, fifth-year guard Chris Glaser is playing his best football. The super senior has now graded out at 70 or better in each of the last three games, the best stretch of his UVa career. Against the Irish, Glaser graded out as the Hoos’ best O-lineman in pass protection (74.4) and second-best as a run blocker (76.8). … Center Olu Oluwatimi (76.8) was the Wahoos’ best O-lineman in the run game. Receivers Ra’Shaun Henry (79.4) and Dontayvion Wicks (78.8) earned the best run blocking grades on the offense. … The Notre Dame game marked the first time this season that no UVa receiver or tight end graded out at at least 70. Both Wicks (57.5 on Saturday) and Keytaon Thompson had eclipsed 70 in three straight games. … Devin Darrington’s 11 snaps were the most he’d played since getting a season-high 12 snaps against Wake Forest.

Takeaways: With the Wahoos going to a four-man front more frequently on Saturday, lineman Mandy Alonso finished with his best game grade of the season. Alonso also graded out as the Hoos’ best pass rusher (66.8) and logged two of the defense’s five QB hurries. … Linebacker Hunter Stewart also finished with two hurries. Stewart’s 30 snaps were the most he’d played since the Duke game; his overall grade was his best since the season opener against W&M. … Stewart (75.6), Alonso (74.3) and safety Antonio Clary (73.3) graded out as UVa’s best defenders against the run. … PFF charged the defense with 19 missed tackles, matching the total for UVa’s last game at BYU. Alonso, Joey Blount and Nick Grant were charged with three apiece. … Linebackers Nick Jackson (83.5) and Josh Ahern (80.0) graded out as the Hoos’ best tacklers. … Corner Anthony Johnson finished with his best overall grade and his best in coverage (73.1) since the loss to Wake Forest. Johnson logged his second interception of the year on Saturday, was beaten for a touchdown for the first time since the UNC loss. … Johnson played all but one snap on defense against the Irish. Fellow corner Darrius Bratton was the lone defensive player to play every snap.

Coming off a game in which the Wahoos produced their fewest points and fewest total yards of the year, each season grade on offense took a slight hit except in run blocking. As a result, for the first time in a month UVa’s cumulative grade doesn’t rank in the top 5 in the ACC in each offensive category (down to seventh in pass blocking). The Hoos remain in the top 30 in each category, including an 86.8 overall cumulative offensive grade that sits 18th in the country and third in the ACC. Those grades through Week 11:

Passing—85.1 (last week 86.5)

Running—88.5 (last week 90.6)

Pass blocking—73.8 (last week 74.6)

Receiving—78.7 (last week 80.0)

Run blocking—76.0 (last week 74.6)

This weekend, Virginia’s defense will face a Pitt offense that has graded out as the best pass offense in the country (93.5) through 11 weeks. Pitt’s overall season grade (90.5) is tied for 14th nationally. The Wahoos will counter with a defense that ranks 114th in overall grade (56.8), and no better than 63rd nationally in any individual category. UVa’s cumulative defensive grades heading into Saturday’s showdown:

Coverage—72.2 (last week 72.2)

Tackling—67.9 (last week 71.8)

Pressure—62.7 (last week 63.3)

Run defense—43.1 (last week 42.5)

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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.