The Wahoos didn’t get the result they wanted or could have had if they had played cleaner but the 19-14 loss at then-No. 11 Miami was an improvement over what the team did last weekend in Winston-Salem. Given how rough those grades were then it was no surprise to see some improvements when breaking down the data provided by PFF College.

Below is a grade card showing how the top 10 offensive and defensive players fared in loss to the Canes and also a cumulative grade through the eighth 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 was it good to see No. 5 back on the field for the Wahoos but it’s good to see him back at the top of this grade report. As you can see, he was not only the top performer on offense but he was the top performer by a wide margin. He had a team-high 83.5 in the passing game and a 73.6 in the run game, second only to Taulapapa. Elsewhere, Bissinger had a really nice game in pass pro in relief of Reinkensmeyer, with an 89.5 grade across 32 snaps. Interestingly, Reinkensmeyer put up an 84.0 in that facet followed by Olu Oluwatimi’s 82.9, Gerrik Vollmer’s 82.8, and Glaser’s 80.1. Grant Misch (79.8) and Tony Poljan (76.7) were the others to grade out north of 65 in that category. It was a rough day on the run blocking front, though. Henry had the highest grade at 62.2, which says plenty about what UVa did and didn’t do well the other night. Among the linemen, Ryan Swoboda had the top run blocking grade at just 58.4.

Takeaways: Given that UVa gave up just 19 points, it was probably right to think there might be several really nice graders here and that indeed was the case. The Hoos put four overalls above 80, led by Zandier. Interestingly, while he was solid elsewhere too it was his 81.1 coverage grade (across 29 snaps) that helped him rise to the top of this list. His was the only grade in that facet north of 65. Elsewhere, Jackson posted team highs in both run defense (88.3) and tackling (86.6). Alonso’s 86.7 was second in the former category following by Zandier’s 75.9 and Snowden’s 75.8. The Cavaliers placed five others in the 70 including Coen King, Gahm, D’Angelo Amos, Adeeb Arariwa, and Jahmeer Carter. Zandier had the second-highest grade in tackling (85.3) followed by Gahm (79.7), Grant (79.3), Bratton (79.1), Cross (79.1), Briggs (75.1), Burney (74.8), Antonio Clary (74.6), and Carter (73.2). It used to be that UVa always tackled this well, so this was a great sign. Clary also posted the best pressure grade (78.1) followed by Atariwa’s 73. In fact, the JMU transfer had an overall grade of 82.8 but didn’t make the top 10 because he only played seven snaps. Lastly, Jackson also had a 70.5 in pressure across 11 snaps.

The Virginia offense finished Week 8 with a cumulative grade of 69.3, which ranks 64th nationally (up from 69.4 when UVa was 51st last week). The Wahoos are currently ninth in the ACC on offense (eighth last week). Each facet of the unit is currently graded as such:

Running— 85.3 (up from 82.1)

Pass blocking—76.9 (up from 76.2)

Run blocking—64.1 (down from 70.0)

Passing—60.5 (down from 54.6)

Receiving—58.1 (down from 60.6)

The Cavalier defense, meanwhile, finished the Miami game with a cumulative grade of 72.6, which ranks 44th nationally (down from 68.9 and 41st). UVa currently ranks fifth in the conference (same as last week). Each facet of that unit is currently graded as such:

Run defense—79.2 (up from 70.5)

Pressure— 71.0 (down from 67.8)

Tackling— 67.6 (up from 58.6)

Coverage— 54.9 (down from 60.3)

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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.