The Cavaliers have finally opened the 2020 season and did so with a 38-20 victory over Duke on Saturday afternoon. Now, technically, this was Week 4 of the college football season, which is how we’ll track the games for this feature since that’s also how things line up when PFF College presents its data.
And overall, the Wahoos fared pretty well when it came to the grades.
Below is a grade card showing how the top 10 offensive and defensive players fared in win over the Blue Devils and also a cumulative grade through the fourth 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).
UVa Offense
Takeaways: How can we start with anything on offense other than Davis and his breakout performance? Not only did he explode on the scene statistically but he was by far the highest grader on the offense. His 87.2 overall grade was surely made possible by his 84.3 in the passing game and his 77 grade across 15 run-blocking plays. That he was able to play north of 44 snaps (so, essentially, half the game) and performed as consistently well as he did is very impressive. Elsewhere, both Glaser (85.1) and Taulapapa (84.9) graded out extremely well in pass pro, the only two Cavaliers north of 70. Kemp (69.8), Armstrong (69.2), and Poljan (66.1) were the only Wahoos above 65 in the passing game. Taulapapa also put up a team-high 78.8 in the running game, followed by Armstrong’s 72.8. Lastly, outside of Davis’ big number, Reinkensmeyer led the way among the linemen in run blocking at 69.6 followed by Oluwatimi’s 69.0, Glaser’s 68, and Poljan’s 65.9.
UVa Defense
Takeaways: Nelson was to the D what Davis was to the offense, though with much more experience and not nearly as large a lead over the second-highest grade. Nelson put up an impressive 82.4 grade in coverage, the only Virginia grade north of 75 and one of just two above 70 (Snowden posted a 73.6). Nelson also put up a respectable 70.3 in run D, though Zandier (87.2) and Jackson (86.4) really led the way there as the only two above a 75 grade. Jackson surprisingly had the team’s highest pressure grade, with an 76.8 and just enough to edge Elliott Brown’s 75.1. Briggs, who was third in pressure at 74.0 across 22 snaps, was one of eight Cavaliers to grade out in the 70s in tackling, which was led by Jackson’s 84.7 and Noah Taylor’s 81.7. Speaking of DTs, Carter had a solid rookie showing, posting a 73.4 in tackling. The issue with the team tackle grade, as you’ll see below, is that several starters were at 51.1 or below. And finally, a stellar UVa debut for the two JMU transfers as Atariwa had a 72.2 grade in run D, third best on the team, while Amos was fourth in coverage at 69.6.
Overall
The Virginia offense finished Week 4 with a cumulative grade of 70.7, which ranks 36th nationally. The Wahoos are currently eighth in the ACC on offense. Each facet of the unit is currently graded as such:
Running— 79.3
Run blocking—68.4
Passing—65.7
Pass blocking—62.1
Receiving—60.7
The Cavalier defense, meanwhile, finished the Duke game with a cumulative grade of 79.6, which ranks ninth nationally. UVa currently ranks third in the conference. Each facet of that unit is currently graded as such:
Run defense—83.1
Pressure— 73.6
Coverage— 72.7
Tackling— 59.5
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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.
