UVa's Pro Football Focus grades for Week 9 after the victory over UNC

The No. 23-ranked Cavaliers have won three straight league games for the first time 2011 and are sitting in first place in the Coastal Division. Bronco Mendenhall said during his presser yesterday that for the second week in a row, the team played another complete game with plenty of complimentary football from all three phases.

Coming out of the 31-21 victory over North Carolina, junior cornerback Bryce Hall was again named to the Pro Football Focus National Team of the Week as he continues his All-ACC type of season.

Below is a grade card showing how the top 10 offensive and defensive players fared after UVa's win over Carolina and also a cumulative grade through nine weeks of the season for the offense and defense with comparisons to national ranking. (For more on how PFF grades, there's an explanation at the bottom of this story).

Takeaways: That Zaccheaus had the highest overall grade on this side of the ball isn't a surprise, though he has had great games without great grades before. The pass block numbers were better at the high than most would expect given the production, as Marcus Applefield (76.8) and Nelson (72.6) each put up grades in the 70s. Jamari Peacock and PK Kier each had strong pass blocking grades (74.1 and 73, respectively) as well. Though his numbers in the past haven't been very good here, credit Atkins for his improved blocking because he graded out with a team-high 87.9 in run blocking. Still, the line didn't put up anything near that close with Reinkensmeyer's 66.8 the high among the five as none of the remaining starters (plus Chris Glaser) were above the 60s. Lastly, it's interesting that of the four players who played all 72 snaps this week, three (Nelson, Applefield, and Reinkensmeyer) are on the O-line.That's continued progress from the beginning of the season.

Takeaways: Hall has had just an incredible year thus far and his stats tell the story. In this game, he not only posted an 89.3 in coverage but he also had an 82 in tackling (best on the team) and a 71.8 in pressure (also best on the team). Elsewhere, Peace having a 73.5 in coverage is an interesting turn given that it's not exactly his strongest suit. It was also another good week for the defense on the tackling grades, as 10 players had a 70 or higher including Hall, Snyder, Peace, Cross, Harris, Alonso, Hanback, Snowden, Matt Gahm, and Faumui. Lastly, while Harris was obviously having a good game before taking that shot to the ribs, Bratton did well in his first extended action in a while. Though he and Harris have split reps for most of the past few games, he played all but three against the Heels.

The Virginia offense finished the Week 9 with a cumulative grade of 73.0, which ranks 71st nationally and is up from 71.6 (77th) after the Duke win. Each facet of the unit is currently graded as such:

Running—78.5 (down from 79.0)

Passing—75.2 (up from 71.1)

Receiving— 68.1 (up from 65.8)

Run blocking—61.9 (down from 62.5)

Pass blocking— 59.3 (down from 61.0)

The Cavalier defense, meanwhile, finished the UNC game with a cumulative grade of 91.6, which ranks 42nd nationally, which is up from 91.1 and 43rd respectively. Each facet of that unit is currently graded as such:

Coverage— 93.4 (down slightly from 93.6)

Tackling—83.7 (down slightly from 83.9)

Run defense— 80.9 (up from 80.0)

Pressure—64.6 (down from 65.0)

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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.