UVa's PFF grades for wild Week 8 win against Georgia Tech

Joey Blount has now appeared in 50 games at Virginia. According to the evaluators at PFF College, last Saturday’s performance against Georgia Tech was the fifth-year safety’s best in a UVa uniform.

The free safety was on the field for a career-high 81 snaps against the Yellow Jackets, all but two of the total plays run by the UVa defense. Blount made eight tackles, tied for most on the team, and broke a pair of passes.

He made his eighth career interception midway through the first quarter—then made his eighth career interception again about a quarter later. The first pick was negated by a dubious roughing the passer penalty. The second, made deep in UVa territory, gave the ball back to the offense, which scored the go-ahead touchdown just three plays later.

“Joey is really, really productive and makes critical plays,” head coach Bronco Mendenhall said afterward, ”and I think is a really good football player.”

That production earned Blount a spot as one of the safeties on the PFF College Team of the Week. His 92.0 overall grade wasn't just the best of Blount’s career or the highest for a UVa defensive player this season—since the arrival of head coach Mendenhall and his staff in 2016, it’s the best grade from PFF for a Virginia defensive player who played at least half of his team’s total snaps.

Micah Kiser never broke a 90 under Mendenhall. Neither did Quin Blanding or Juan Thornhill or Bryce Hall. In fact, over the past six seasons, only two other UVa defensive players have earned a 90 grade while playing at least 50 snaps in a game.

In 2017, Chris Peace graded out at a 90.9 after logging seven tackles, including 1.5 for a loss, and forcing a fumble in the Wahoos’ loss to Boston college. The next season, Charles Snowden earned a 90.2 for his career day against Louisville. Snowden finished that game with eight tackles, with a sack included in his 1.5 for a loss, plus a fumble recovery and his first career interception.

Through his first seven games (he missed the win at Louisville), Blount has also graded out as UVa’s best defensive player on the season, both in overall performance (83.1) and in pass coverage (83.7). Based on PFF’s cumulative grades, it’s been Blount’s best season at UVa since he graded out at 87.5 in 11 games as a sophomore in 2018.

“I’ve seen him training really, really hard and studying really, really hard,” UVa defensive coordinator Nick Howell said on Tuesday. “He knows what he’s doing, well. He knows what he’s doing.”

Below is a grade card showing how the top 10 offensive and defensive players fared in the 48-40 win against the Yellow Jackets 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: Blount graded out as UVa’s best player in both pass coverage (92.7) and, despite just one snap as a blitzer, as a pass rusher (71.8). … Elliott Brown, who recorded his first sack of the year, posted his best grades both overall and in four sub-categories: as a tackler (79.6) and pass rusher (71.1), and in coverage (67.5). That tackling grade was best on the defense against the Yellow Jackets. … After moving to safety to start the year, Nick Grant has played the last two games at his old cornerback spot. On Saturday, Grant was the Wahoos’ best player against the run (68.3) but posted just a 59.9 in coverage. … The corner opposite Grant, Anthony Johnson, graded out second behind Blount in coverage (71.2) and behind Brown as a tackler (78.2). Johnson and inside linebacker Nick Jackson (55.0 overall) were the only two players to log all 83 defensive snaps. … Saturday’s game was first-year linebacker Mike Green’s third of the season, but his first time playing on defense. Both Green and D’Sean Perry saw their roles as pass rushers increase when Noah Taylor left the game with an injury. … Corner Darrius Bratton matched a season low by playing just six snaps. Linebacker Hunter Stewart’s seven snaps were his season low.

Takeaways: Saturday night marked the sixth time in eight games this season that quarterback Brennan Armstrong graded out as the Hoos’ best offensive player. It was the first time since back-to-back 90-plus performances to open the season that Armstrong broke that benchmark. For the season, Armstrong’s 91.9 cumulative grade sits fourth nationally among QBs. … Saturday marked the first time this season that UVa had four offensive players grade out at 80 or better. Keytaon Thompson and Dontayvion Wicks both posted their best grades of the season. It was the first time Jelani Woods cracked 80 since earning a 91.8 for his day against Illinois. … Thompson (77.7) and Armstrong (72.7) earned Virginia’s top two marks as ball-carriers, while running back Wayne Taulpapa (81.2) graded out as the Hoos’ best pass blocker. … Guard Chris Glaser had his best performance of the season, earning both his top overall grade and his best as a run blocker (74.7). Glaser’s 79.4 in pass protection was just a fraction of a point behind his season-best 79.8 against Illinois. … Center Olu Oluwatimi was the Hoos’ best O-lineman in run blocking with an 81.0 grade. The top run blocker on the offense was first-year receiver Malachi Fields, who scored a 90.0. … Making his first start in place of Ryan Swoboda, right tackle Jonathan Leech earned a 73.0 as a run blocker and a 53.2 in pass pro.

For the first time since prior to the Wake Forest game a month ago, Virginia’s offense once again ranks among the top 10 in the country, sitting at No. 10 with an 86.9 overall season grade. UVa’s 90.0 passing grade sits seventh nationally. Both of those grades rank second in the ACC. The Wahoos are top five in the conference in every offensive facet graded by PFF. Those cumulative grades through eight games:

Passing— 90.0 (last week 87.8)

Running—88.8 (last week 85.8)

Pass blocking—74.0 (last week 74.1)

Receiving—77.7 (last week 74.6)

Run blocking—72.2 (last week 68.8)

Despite ticking up slightly from a 61.1 to a 61.5 for the season, UVa’s defense fell a spot to 109th among 130 FBS team in PFF’s cumulative overall ranking. Buoyed by Blount’s performance, the Wahoos’ season grade in coverage hit a new season high, but the Hoos continue to rank near the bottom of the country in both run defense (116th) and pass rush (120th). Through eight games, each facet of the defense is graded as such:

Coverage—73.2 (last week 67.8)

Tackling—78.9 (last week 79.7)

Pressure—63.9 (last week 64.6)

Run defense—50.8 (last week 55.1)

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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.