UVa's PFF grades for Week 3 following the loss at Carolina

First, the good news.

Through the first three weeks of the season, Virginia’s Brennan Armstrong remains the highest-graded quarterback in the country according to PFF College. He retained that distinction with a historic performance at North Carolina Saturday night, throwing for a school-record 554 yards and four touchdown passes on 72.2 percent passing.

It was Armstrong’s third 300-yard passing performance in as many games and his second straight with 400-plus. For the season, the redshirt junior southpaw ranks second nationally with 1,298 passing yards.

As offensive lineman Ryan Nelson put it on Monday, “He’s putting up Madden numbers right now. It’s ridiculous.”

Despite his record-breaking night in Chapel Hill, Armstrong’s cumulative grade from PFF dropped from 94.9 to 93.4. But that’s still best among Power 5 quarterbacks. According to PFF, Armstrong made a half-dozen ‘big-time throws’ (a pass that earns a grade of +1.0 or better) against UNC, bringing his season total to 13. That’s tied for most in the country.

But from PFF’s perspective—like just about anyone else’s—that performance by Armstrong and the UVa passing game was about the only positive to come out of Saturday night’s 59-39 loss.

Virginia’s overall grade for that game was a 59.0, the program’s worst since the 62-17 loss to Clemson in the 2019 ACC Championship earned the Hoos a 52.6. It was just the fifth time in Bronco Mendenhall’s six seasons as head coach that UVa earned a single-game overall grade below 60.

Defensively, Saturday night’s game graded out as the worst of the Mendenhall era. PFF gave the Hoos a 37.9 overall defensive grade, surpassing the 46.2 the defense earned in that ACC title game against Clemson. The defense’s tackling grade (30.3) was just slightly better than how the Hoos graded out against the Tigers (29.4) two seasons ago.

The Wahoos gave up 699 total yards—the most ever allowed by a Mendenhall team in his tenure as a head coach, at UVa or BYU—including 392 on the ground. UNC finished with eight plays of 25-plus yards and three of 50-plus, and didn’t have to punt all night. Mendenhall summarized it bluntly on Monday, saying, "“Execution was very inconsistent and poor at best."

Not surprisingly, that performance dragged Virginia’s cumulative team grades down in several categories. Heading into the UNC game, UVa’s 91.3 overall cumulative grade ranked 14th in the country; now the Hoos rank 54th with an 85.0 team grade. The defense, which had been tied for 91st out of 130 teams with a 66.2 cumulative grade, now ranks 123rd (and last in the ACC). The Wahoos’ worst grade is their run defense (39.3), which ranks 127th out of 130 teams through three weeks.

Below is a grade card showing how the top 10 offensive and defensive players fared in the loss to the Heels 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: Armstrong’s 84.6 against UNC marked the first time this season (and just the second in his last six starts) in which the QB failed to grade better than 90. His 44.1 rushing grade was Armstrong’s worst in 12 career starts. … Billy Kemp’s 71.3 was his best grade in three games this season. With 106 yards and a pair of scores, Saturday marked Kemp’s first game with either 100 receiving yards or multiple TDs. … Running back Wayne Taulapapa (79.7) and ‘football player’ Keytaon Thompson (74.8) graded as the Hoos’ best players in pass protection. Thompson (74.3) also had UVa’s best grade as a run blocker for the second time in three games. … After leading the team with just 14 rushing yards, Jacob Rodriguez (66.8) finished with the Wahoos’ top rushing grade. … Chris Glaser was the lone offensive lineman to score better than a 60 overall grade against the Tar Heels. … Armstrong and all five starting offensive linemen played all 83 snaps.

Takeaways: Corner Fentrell Cypress and linebacker Elliott Brown each received 64.7 overall grades, best among UVa players who played at least 10 defensive snaps. That grade would have ranked 11th on the defense on the William & Mary report card and 10th against Illinois. … That 64.7 is Brown’s best grade in three games this year. The fifth-year senior ranked as UVa’s best player against the run (70.4) and second behind Noah Taylor (81.4) with a 79.5 tackling grade. … Cypress (67.1) was the best player in pass coverage, while D-end Ben Smiley (70.0) graded out as the Hoos’ best pass rusher. … Six UVa starters—Jahmeer Carter (48.0), Antonio Clary (47.2), Smiley (42.2), Joey Blount (42.1) Hunter Stewart (41.2) and Nick Jackson (38.3)—finished with overall defensive grades below 50. … Cypress, Jackson and De’Vante Cross played all 70 defensive snaps on Saturday. Taylor plays all but one.

Virginia's 86.5 overall grade on offensive through three games ranks eighth in the country and second in the ACC this week. That's down slightly from last week, when the Wahoos were fifth nationally and second in the league with a cumulative 89.7 on offense. Each facet of the unit is currently graded as such:

Passing —92.7 (best in the country, last week 93.0)

Running—76.0 (last week 82.1)

Pass blocking—69.7 (last week 80.3)

Receiving—78.6 (last week 75.8)

Run blocking—66.6 (last week 66.6)

As mentioned earlier, the defense dropped to the bottom of the ACC and 123rd of 130 FBS teams in the country with a 53.2 overall grade. That's down from 66.2 a week ago and 67.9 following the season-opening shutout of William & Mary. Each facet of that unit is currently graded as such:

Coverage—66.3 (last week 72.9)

Tackling—52.7 (last week 72.0)

Pressure—63.9 (last week 63.6)

Run defense—39.3 (last week 56.2)

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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.