UVa's PFF grades for Week 1 following the win over W&M

Demick Starling was only targeted once on Saturday against William & Mary—but it turned into the biggest play of the night for the Virginia offense.

The inside receiver in a trips right formation midway through the third quarter, Starling streaked deep across the field and found himself alone behind the defense. The 65-yard touchdown catch, the longest of the sophomore’s college career, gave the Hoos a 24-point lead in a game they eventually won 43-0.

“I just read the defense and where the safety was. He bit on it,” Starling said after the season-opening shutout. “When the ball was in the air all I could think was touchdown. I took my opportunity and I made the best of it.”

Starling only played nine snaps on offense for the Hoos on Saturday, not enough to qualify for the leaderboard of the first PFF College grades of the new season. If he had qualified, Starling would have been the top-rated player on offense for both passing game grade (85.4) and overall grade (88.7). But 10 snaps is generally the week-to-week minimum to make the chart below.

The way UVa coach Bronco Mendenhall talked following Saturday’s game, more playing time could be in Starling’s future.

“He has really good speed, and he’s aggressive and he’s tough and he can block. And he’s a deep threat,” Mendenhall said. “We’d love to see more of that.”

Below is a grade card showing how the top 10 offensive and defensive players fared in win over the Tribe and also a cumulative grade through the first 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 a performance he wasn’t satisfied with afterward, Armstrong was named ACC Co-Quarterback of the Week on Tuesday for his night against the Tribe. That 86.4 grade was better than the lefty’s grade from all but three of his nine starts last year. His best was a 93.7 posted twice last year in back-to-back games against Abilene Christian and Boston College...Haskins graded out as UVa’s best player in pass protection (82.6) while Thompson graded out as the Hoos’ best run blocker (88.3). Thompson (74.6) and Armstrong (74.4) graded best as runners. Nelson (84.2) was UVa’s best offensive lineman in run blocking, but another receiver, Henry, was third in that metric, grading out at 78.8.

Takeaways: Mendenhall talked on Monday about how linebacker Hunter Stewart impressed him on Saturday night. The grades tell a similar story, with the redshirt sophomore rated the Hoos’ top defensive player at 79.1. Stewart also got UVa’s top grade in run defense (86.1) and graded as the team’s third-best tackler (79.6)...Behind Stewart on the defensive leaderboard were a pair of third-year defensive backs. Clary ranked second in the grading in both tackling (81.0) and coverage (74.5). Cypress, a redshirt sophomore cornerback, played 30 defensive snaps, one more than he’d played in his entire career entering the game...Despite grading as UVa’s best tackler (82.5), Nick Jackson’s 52.8 overall grade was his third-lowest in 11 games since the start of last season.

The Virginia offense finished Week 1 with a cumulative grade of 81.5, which ranks 18th nationally. The Wahoos are currently second in the ACC on offense. Each facet of the unit is currently graded as such:

Passing—84.6

Running— 81.5

Pass blocking—76.9

Run blocking—69.1

Receiving—68.7

The Wahoo defense, meanwhile, finished the William & Mary game with a cumulative grade of 67.9, which ranks 73rd nationally. UVa currently ranks ninth in the conference. Each facet of that unit is currently graded as such:

Tackling— 74.6

Pressure— 63.0

Run defense—69.5

Coverage— 63.6

JOIN CAVSCORNER TODAY!

If you are not already a member of CavsCorner, come join us and see what all of the buzz is about.

Click HERE to subscribe and get all of the latest news and join hundreds of other UVa fans in talking about Cavalier football, basketball, and recruiting. You won't be disappointed!

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.