UVa's PFF grades for Week 7 following the loss at Wake Forest

The Cavaliers started slow, came back, and made it a game into the fourth quarter before complementary football escaped them once again in a 40-23 loss at Wake Forest. Watching the game live, it seemed liked there were aspects on both sides that were working but that it just wasn’t enough. And when looking at the data provided by PFF College, it’s easy to see what that was.

Below is a grade card showing how the top 10 offensive and defensive players fared in loss to the Deacs and also a cumulative grade through the seventh 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: Not only did Thompson have a huge week but Ira Armstead did as well. Though he only played 13 snaps (two below our cutoff for being listed in the top 10), he graded out very well on the plays he was in on against Wake. The rookie put up an 85.5 overall with an 81.1 running grade. That was actually the third-best grade in that category behind Taulapapa’s 85.2 and Thompson’s 84.4. Bissinger had the team’s best pass blocking grade (87.4) across 38 of his 62 snaps. His was one of two grades along with Haskins (82.5) to be north of 80. But the Cavaliers had four other pass pro grades above 70 (Swoboda at 78.7, Grant Misch at 77.7, Dillon Reinkensmeyer at 77.3, and Ryan Nelson at 73.5). In the passing game, though, Kemp had UVa’s highest grade at 66.1 followed by Jana (65.9) and Poljan (65.8). Lastly, Kemp had the best run blocking grade at 80.9 followed by Swoboda’s 79.2 and Poljan’s 76.4, the only grades north of 68.

Takeaways: It was a rough afternoon for the D overall, as the grades above imply. Having just two overall grades above 70 is not normal for the Cavaliers. Of the four facets, run defense was the one that looked closer to what we’d expect from UVa. Zandier had a team-high 78.2 followed by Gahm at 71.4 and Burney at 71.1. Nick Grant was the other player to grade out above 70 followed closely by Brenton Nelson at 69.7 . Considering it was his first real extended time, Clary showed out well. His overall grade was solid and he had a team-high 71.6 in coverage across 15 snaps. Given his two-sack game, it’s no surprise that Briggs had UVa’s best pressure grade at 71.4 but the fact that he was just one of two (along with Taylor) to grade out above 65 says plenty. Lastly, though it might not have felt like it Virginia’s tackling grades were much better at the top end against Wake than most games this season. Zandier paced the group at 83.0 followed by Nelson at 82.1, Snowden at 81.6, and Nick Jackson at 80.6. The Hoos also had six other players grade out above 70 (Clary at 79.9, Cross at 79.6, Gahm at 78.6, Cypress at 76.2, Briggs at 74.3, and Jahmeer Carter at 70.1).

The Virginia offense finished Week 7 with a cumulative grade of 69.4, which ranks 51st nationally (down from 69.5 when UVa was 49th last week). The Wahoos are currently eighth in the ACC on offense (same as last week). Each facet of the unit is currently graded as such:

Running— 82.1 (up from 74.0)

Pass blocking—76.2 (up from 73.6)

Run blocking—70.0 (down from 74.0)

Receiving—60.6 (down from 61.6)

Passing—54.6 (down from 59.3)

The Cavalier defense, meanwhile, finished the Wake Forest game with a cumulative grade of 68.9, which ranks 41st nationally (down from 69.6 and 37th). UVa currently ranks fifth in the conference (up from sixth). Each facet of that unit is currently graded as such:

Run defense—70.5 (up from 68.6)

Pressure— 67.8. (down from 68.3)

Coverage— 60.3 (down from 65.8)

Tackling— 58.6 (up from 51.2)

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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.