Bryce Perkins Shows Plans To Shift Offense At Virginia

Virginia began spring football practice.
Bryce Perkins jumped right into the thick of things at his first Virginia practice, taking snaps with the first team. ~ Kris Wright

Following a two-year stretch where Kurt Benkert started 23 of 25 games, the Virginia football team began the preparation for a new quarterback when spring practice opened Tuesday. It didn’t take long to see how things are changing at that spot either.

With junior transfer Bryce Perkins and true freshman Brennan Armstrong among the quarterbacks getting snaps, the coaching staff’s stated plan to move toward more mobility at the position was on clear display. One of the Cavaliers’ first breakdown drills of the session featured designed quarterback runs previously seen only when De’Vante Cross split some of his practice duties there. As the day moved on, the pitches, options, and keepers that fans saw when UVA faced BYU, then led by Bronco Mendenhall, were in action too. Even sophomore Lindell Stone, a more traditional pocket passer, worked in some of those calls.

That backdrop certainly suited Perkins, who took the first snaps at quarterback. Mendenhall said last week that the transfer’s work in the conditioning sessions this winter earned him the top spot for the first day. The Cavalier head coach liked what he saw from the Arizona Western Community College transfer in his first action at Virginia.

“He’s dynamic, he’s fast, he’s athletic,” Mendenhall said. “It does not seem like the game or the pace is too fast for him. I mean we’re day one, but dynamic, fast, athletic, and poised would be the descriptors I would use.”

Perkins quickly looking comfortable may not have been too surprising, though. He made his way to UVA in part because once the coaches here saw his film, they thought he could fit into the schemes they wanted to eventually install. Last season, he helped lead Arizona Western to the NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) title game where it fell to East Mississippi, 31-28. During the season, he threw for 1,311 yards with seven touchdowns and rushed for 353 yards and four touchdowns.

Prior to that, Perkins had not played since his high school days at Chandler High School in Arizona. He joined Arizona State at the start of his college career, but redshirted in 2015 and then sat with an injury in 2016 before deciding to transfer. In high school at Chandler, he passed for 3,001 yards with 46 touchdowns and only six interceptions and rushed for 697 yards and five touchdowns too in 2014. He ended up with 5,332 passing yards and 70 career touchdown passes with only 13 interceptions to go along with 1,609 rushing yards and 26 touchdowns.

When the Cavaliers began to recruit him out of Arizona Western, he had some familiarity with the staff since his brother played at BYU previously. He quickly liked what he saw on film too when UVA showed him Taysom Hill in the offense they wanted to now install at Virginia. “It was built for someone like me,” Perkins remembered thinking. At 6’3” and 215 pounds, he’s not built the same as Hill at 6’2” and 235 pounds at BYU, but the skills looked familiar.

“Definitely the ability to make plays with the feet,” Perkins said. “He was big. He’s a freak athlete and I see that in myself too, but also the ability to stretch plays and extend the ball downfield too with his arm is also a similarity I see between him and myself. Watching that, I was like ‘wow, this is me, just in a different body’ so that got me excited.”

That’s got the Hoos excited too. While Perkins still has to beat out the likes of Armstrong, Stone, and Matthew Merrick (he’s sitting out right now with an illness), his experience at the college level gives him a leg up on the competition. If he gets even more comfortable with the schemes, that could be the boost the offense needs to finally gain consistent traction at Virginia. The Cavaliers ended last season without any points on offense in the final two games against Virginia Tech and Navy.

Mendenhall believes that a quarterback that can threaten defenses with his arm and his legs both within the scheme and on scramble plays can elevate the entire offense. It provides a ‘one play away’ possibility because the quarterback touches the ball on essentially every snap.

“There’s no limit,” Mendenhall said. “Usually a dynamic quarterback has so much control over point production and volatility, meaning any time, any place – sometimes a great tailback can do the same thing and to a little lesser extent a wide receiver, but when the quarterback, if the offense is designed appropriately to leverage that, it makes a difference.”

Snap To It

One area where Perkins showed off his athletic ability came in an unexpected category: saving bad snaps. With UVA using the shot gun on the majority of its plays, there were several times Tuesday that the snap sailed too high. Perkins erased the miscue by leaping up and pulling the ball down to avoid complete disaster.

Dillon Reinkensmeyer claimed the issue with the snaps and smiled when saying that Perkins saved him on some of those.

“I just didn’t have the greatest day I could’ve,” Reinkensmeyer said. “I’ll definitely work to fix it. I’ve got 14 more [spring] practices to work on it and I can get it corrected by Thursday.”

Count Reinkensmeyer among the Cavaliers impressed with Perkins in the early going for reasons beyond those saved snaps. During winter workouts and now with practice underway, the transfer earned respect from teammates and showed off his speed and agility.

“I think he can create a ton of problems with his feet,” Reinkensmeyer said. “He’s extremely athletic, extremely mobile, can throw the ball really well and it makes the defense have to second guess and sit back and wait to make sure they’re reading the play correctly because if not, he’s taking it to the house.”

Reinkensmeyer could have a vital role with Perkins too. He is working at center along with Tyler Fannin and Jake Fieler so it seems likely that one of those three will be the starting center this fall. Reinkensmeyer appeared in all 13 games last season with 11 starts. That included nine starts at center, but he also opened two games at left tackle. One of those came in the season opener against William & Mary when he became the first freshman, true or redshirt, to start the season-opening game on the O-Line since Will Barker in 2006. He was also the first freshman to start the season-opening game at left tackle since D’Brickashaw Ferguson in 2002.

The Colorado native said that cross-training at different spots on the line helped his development.

“I think it sped me up,” Reinkensmeyer said. “Having done so many different positions makes you really think critically about the defense and what they’re going to do, what your responsibility is on that play, what steps you have to take, how you’re going to deal with this double team, and a bunch of other stuff.”

Worth Noting

  • Dillon Reinkensmeyer said that fellow lineman Chris Glaser has “a bright future” at Virginia.
  • Receivers Terrell Jana and Shawn Smith both appeared to have a good first day, pulling in several catches in the various drills. Jana made one touchdown catch on an underthrown ball by coming back under the defensive back’s leap to make the grab and then ran it in to the end zone.
  • I’m interested to see if receiver Hayden Mitchell, a redshirt freshman, carves out a role. He made a few good cuts on routes with a couple of grabs in one-on-one drills.
  • Defensive lineman Mandy Alonso said the coaches want him to play between 290 and 295 pounds this upcoming season, but with more muscle. He’s opened the spring at 293.
  • Virginia running back PK Kier broke through the line for a touchdown run with a nice cutback move.
  • Hybrid safety/linebacker Chris Moore came down with a deflected interception one one pass.
  • It was interesting to see a lefty quarterback out there with freshman Brennan Armstrong.
  • Olamide Zaccheaus still has some shifty moves in open space. No surprise there.
  • I think senior Joe Spaziani has an important leadership voice on this team. At least one player mentioned something Spaziani had said during workouts and he’s been here for a long time while doing whatever has been asked. That includes long-snapping duties at 6’2” and 210 pounds.

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