UVa's PFF grades for Week 6's historic comeback at Louisville

Virginia has four of the top 10 receivers in the ACC in terms of yardage, and four of the top 15 in passes caught. It’s the only program in the country with four receivers with 400 receiving yards on the season. Three players caught nine passes apiece for the Wahoos at Louisville last week.

Yet it was tight end Grant Misch, who entered the season with just one catch in 23 career college games, who brought down the touchdown with just 22 seconds to play that ultimately beat the Cardinals 34-33 on Saturday.

Quarterback Brennan Armstrong worked through his progressions from right to left across the field before floating the ball up for Misch alone in the back left corner of the end zone. The junior made the catch and immediately fell to the ground before quickly sitting up and signaling touchdowns.

“When I came through the middle and no one was guarding me,” Misch recalled after the victory, “I was like, ‘Wow, he’s gonna find me.’”

According to Armstrong, Misch worked his way through three other options in the half-seconds before putting the ball up for his tight end. On Tuesday morning, offensive coordinator Robert Anae said Misch was the quarterback’s last option on the play.

It was Misch’s second catch of the game and fourth of the season, and his second career touchdown. The first came two seasons ago in the Wahoos’ ACC road win at North Carolina.

“Big players make big plays in big moments,” Anae said on Tuesday, “and dang, that was sure good to see that happen.”

According to PFF College, Misch played a career high 64 offensive snaps in the win at Louisville. That total pushed him to 304 for the season, already the most in his college career. Most of those snaps have come in pass blocking situations, and Misch ranks fifth on the offense with a 72.6 grade in pass protection for the season.

Even critical pass blocks rarely make the postgame highlights, however. But everyone remembers a last-minute, game-winning touchdown.

“There’s all those stale adages that you read in those ‘get smart’ books, and this one actually happened,” Anae said. “The guy that focuses for the long duration, and Grant is one of those guys. Works hard every day. Knows exactly what he’s doing. Studies the opponent. Knows the defense coming at him.”

Below is a grade card showing how the top 10 offensive and defensive players fared in the loss to the Deacs 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 a pair of picks, Armstrong rebounded from a 49.8 grade against Miami—his lowest as Virginia’s starter—to post an 87.3 against the Cardinals. That was the junior’s best PFF performance since a 94.7 against Illinois. For the season, Armstrong’s 91.7 cumulative grade ranks third in the country. … Receivers Keytaon Thompson (80.3) and Ra’Shaun Henry (78.0) both posted their best grades of the season. Both had their best days statistically in UVa uniforms. They caught nine passes apiece, with Henry racking up 179 yards and Thompson finishing with 132. … Ryan Nelson (83.5) graded out as the Hoos’ best player in pass protection for a second straight week. Nelson moved from left tackle to left guard during the Miami game last week. … Making his first start at left tackle, Bobby Haskins graded out at a season-low 53.4. Haskins (47.6) and right tackle Ryan Swoboda (48.2) had the lowest run blocking grades among O-linemen. … Tight end Jelani Woods earned a 45.0 overall grade, his worst since a 40.1 in the season opener. Other than six plays as a run blocker, all of Woods’s 35 snaps came as a potential receiver. He finished with two catches for 10 yards and a touchdown on six targets.

Takeaways: The four best defensive performers against Louisville according to PFF all posted the best single-game grades of their seasons. … Coen King’s 70.8 overall grade was a career best. He also topped the UVa defense with a 73.9 grade in pass coverage while playing a season-high 59 defensive snaps in place of the injured Joey Blount. King led the defense with eight tackles and forced a second-quarter fumble for the defense’s first takeaway in three games. … Aaron Faumui’s 69.7 was his best grade since posting a career-best 88.7 against Liberty as a sophomore in November 2019. Faumui was the Wahoos’ best player against the run, grading out at a 73.6. His two TFLs were half of Virginia’s total as a team. … Darrius Bratton got to break the rock after chasing down Hassan Hall on a late 53-yard run to prevent a touchdown. His 68.8 grade against the run matched Noah Taylor for second-best against the Cards. … Antonio Clary’s season-high 85.9 tackling grade was best on the team. It was the third time Clary graded as better than an 80 tackler this season. The junior safety played a season-high 64 snaps against the Cardinals… Making his 25th start, Taylor’s 84.2 tackling grade was a career best. He’s graded as better than an 80 tackler in each of the last five games. … Saturday marked the first time this season that Mandy Alonso (68.1) graded out as the Wahoos’ best pass rusher.

With the exception of run blocking, Virginia’s cumulative season grades on offense all improved coming off the Louisville win. Despite a slight rise in score, the Hoos’ 84.0 overall grade dropped five spots nationally to 20th in the country. With a 90.4 passing grade this week, UVa climbed back up to fourth among FBS teams. Through six games, each facet of the offense is currently graded as such:

Passing— 90.4 (last week 90.0)

Running—83.7 (last week 82.1)

Pass blocking—74.4 (last week 72.9)

Receiving—75.2 (last week 73.1)

Run blocking—66.2 (last week 71.8)

At the halfway point of the regular season, Virginia continues to rank among the worst teams in the country in most defensive facets. The Wahoos’ 54.2 overall cumulative defensive grade is again worst in the ACC, and 124th of 130 FBS teams. UVa’s strength defensively has been its tackling (72.1), which ranks 39th nationally and seventh in the league. Through six games, each facet of the defense is currently graded as such:

Coverage—60.1 (last week 60.5)

Tackling—72.1 (last week 69.1)

Pressure—63.1 (last week 63.3)

Run defense—50.7 (last week 51.1)

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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.