Quarterbacks

Christian Olsen is at the top of the depth chart. The battle for the back-up spot is between Jameel Sewell and Kevin McCabe .

Coming from a football family (his father was his high school football coach and his brother is Greg Olsen of Miami), it comes as no surprise that Olsen is an extremely smart quarterback who appears to know the Virginia offense, reads the defense well to make his pre-snap calls, and does a good job of working through progressions to find the second and third targets. From practice, he appears to do a nice job of locating the spots where the blitzer(s) have vacated and is adept at finding the “hot” receiver or coming back to dump-off passes to the running backs if he cannot find an open receiver.

He has decent quickness in his release but is somewhat deliberate in letting go, often waiting too long for receivers to clear the coverage which can lead to tipped passes at the line of scrimmage, although that has not appeared to be a big issue in camp. The biggest concerns here are relying too often on check-downs to backs or creating situations where defensive backs are allowed to get a good break into the passing lanes to make pass disruptions or interceptions.

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