It’s safe to say that the 2016 season didn’t go well for the Virginia football team as the Hoos stumbled to a 2-10 record. Bronco Mendenhall had never experienced a losing season before so the outcome could be labeled anything from disappointing to frustrating and beyond.

But what did we learn from 2016?

As we look at the 2016 grades, two things are evident. First, the Cavaliers were not as good a team as they were in 2015. Second, UVA performed worse in the second half of the season than it did in the first. Six of seven non-special team units fell below their 2014 and 2015 marks. Only the linebacker corps improved. Also , none of the seven offensive or defensive units improved their first half of 2016 grades in the final six contests of the year.

This chart shows the three-year comparison with bold/italics representing the three-year low in a category – 8 of 15 spots had the lowest output occur in 2016:

...