Virginia Football Leftovers: Brennan Armstrong, Underdogs, Captains, & More

Virginia won 9 games last season.
Brennan Armstrong throws a pass in practice. ~ Photo courtesy Virginia Athletics Media Relations/Jim Daves

The Virginia football team announced that Brennan Armstrong had been named the starting quarterback last Thursday. That makes him the third starter of the Bronco Mendenhall era and the first to start as an under classman and non-transfer. Kurt Benkert and Bryce Perkins each transferred in to the program, while Armstrong joined the program as a high school recruit.

Armstrong served as the primary backup to Perkins the past two seasons. He retained his redshirt under NCAA guidelines that allow a player to appear in four or fewer games in a single season. (That rule is not in play this season due to the NCAA’s decision to freeze eligibility for fall sports during the pandemic.) For his career, he has posted 258 passing yards and 2 touchdowns on 17-of-25 passing. He has 16 carries for 93 yards too. Overall, he’s played in 11 games as a Cavalier.

While Virginia fans have some idea about Armstrong’s ability and style from those games, he’s moving into a new role now and will be on the field more frequently. UVA offensive lineman Olu Oluwatimi said earlier this month that Armstrong played at a different tempo than Perkins.

“Bryce was very patient. As you guys watched the game when we’d break the huddle, you’d see him dissecting things and just looking around. That’s something I always saw on film before we even snapped the ball,” Oluwatimi said. “BA is trying to get the most plays in the game. He’s just trying to put the pressure on the defense and just go, go, go. We love that about Brennan. If it’s a draw and he doesn’t see his first read, he’s gone. Bryce is going to hold it and try to make play. Brennan is just go, go, go. We love that about Brennan.”

It remains to be seen if that means the Cavaliers might be picking up the pace overall offensively (remember, the coaching staff came to UVA with an up-tempo pace in its latter years at BYU), but that’s the latest quote that indicates Armstrong’s style is a decisive one. Perkins praised Armstrong’s feel for the game, for example, and said “he just feels areas and feels spaces so well.” Corner Bryce Hall said that Armstrong would make plays with his feet in practice when things broke down.

The limited cameo appearances for Armstrong have given glimpses of a decisive player too. In his ACC debut, he came in for Perkins briefly due to an injury and ripped off a 34-yard run. On that play, you could see that he decided that the opening would be there quickly and got through the hole before juking a second-level defender. On certain seam type throws, he got the ball out of his hands quickly to connect with someone like Hayden Mitchell. That showed up against William & Mary when Armstrong went 9-10 passing for 103 yards.

As opponents gather more film and Armstrong faces the inevitable ups and downs within a game, it will be interesting to see how he evolves in the starting role. For now, however, he’s someone that stands out at a Virginia practice. Central Michigan transfer tight end Tony Poljan noticed him quickly, though he joked it took him three days to realize he was a left-handed quarterback.

“Brennan’s a really, really hard, smart working guy,” Poljan said. “I showed up and it was like ‘wow, which one’s that?’ He really turned my eyes right away. I’m really, really excited to play and keep building the chemistry with him.”

Underdogs?

A year ago, Virginia won its first ever ACC Coastal Division title and earned a trip to the Orange Bowl. Some names gone from that team include quarterback Bryce Perkins, receivers Joe Reed and Hasise Dubois, corner Bryce Hall, linebacker Jordan Mack, and defensive lineman Eli Hanback. Hall missed the latter half of the season after getting injured at Miami, while Mack played hurt down the stretch and missed the Orange Bowl.

In other words, UVA certainly lost some high profile names and an electric playmaker in Perkins. On the other hand, the Cavaliers return their entire offensive line, their leading running back that led the team in rushing touchdowns, almost every starter on defense, and their specialists in the kicking game. The Hoos believe they have a good mix of ingredients to help transition to new starting quarterback Brennan Armstrong, but those returning parts have not kept Virginia on media radars even for middle-of-the-pack consideration.

Take ESPN’s David Hale, for example. He placed the Hoos 13th in his predicted order of finish just ahead of Duke and Georgia Tech and behind Syracuse and NC State, all of which had losing records in 2019.

Virginia safety Joey Blount said the team has put 2019’s run behind them and that the Hoos are focused on sustaining the success the program has built the past four years.

“Last year was last year,” Blount said. “It was a cool experience to be in. Now that we’ve had a taste of that level of play, the level of success, that we want to be better than that if not get to there again. … I want to play in another Orange Bowl. I want to play in another big bowl game like we were. That was an unforgettable experience. The type of team we have this year is going to surprise a lot of people because we’re underdogs, we’re overlooked right now, we’re taken out of the picture, but that’s all good because we were that before the season last year and look where that took us. At the same time, I think where we were last year is going to help us with a stepping stone to be somewhere better this year.”

Captains

UVA named its captains for the 2020 season on Friday. The team elected Brennan Armstrong, Richard Burney, Terrell Jana, and Charles Snowden as its choices.

None of those choices are surprising. All four players selected numbers during the first round of the annual jersey draft with Burney getting the first overall pick. Burney also was chosen by the strength and conditioning staff to break the rock to end the preseason training camp portion of the season. He is a sixth year senior due to receiving a medical hardship waiver.

Armstrong recently earned the nod as the starting quarterback entering the season. The sophomore worked as the primary backup at that position the last two seasons. Jana is the leading returner receiver on the team after piling up 74 catches with only one drop (No. 2 in the nation behind teammate Hasise Dubois). He has been an active and vocal leader throughout the offseason. The same can be said of Snowden, the fourth choice for captain. Snowden enters his senior season after earning honorable mention All-ACC honors last fall.

One More Game?

The Cavaliers expect to open their season with Virginia Tech on Sept. 19 in Blacksburg after the coronavirus pandemic led to cancellations against Georgia (Sept. 7) and VMI (Sept. 12). UVA coach Bronco Mendenhall told reporters recently that the Hoos were moving in a direction that would not replace VMI on that date, thus leading to the opener in Blacksburg.

During UVA’s virtual “Meet The Team Day” this past weekend, however, Mendenhall did say that Virginia is being encouraged to add a non-conference opponent and still actively looking. The potential dates for any non-con addition would be Saturday, Sept. 12, Saturday, Sept. 26 and Saturday, Nov. 21 (or in those weeks) since those are the open dates built into the Hoos’ schedule currently. Mendenhall said how to focus on preparations for Virginia Tech and still managing the possible changes requires a balancing act.

“Really, I would say it’s risk assessment or likelihood assessment of what’s the chance another game is scheduled in that spot and then trying to predict how much time do we devote to that knowing it’s not certain,” Mendenhall said. “Just to be blunt, I was hopeful to only play 10 conference games – 10 keeps us safer than 11 and I wanted our team to have every chance to do that. We’re now the only team left without a plus-one game and we’re being encouraged to do that and so we’re looking right now. We have two open dates as well plus a week before our opener so we’re actively working, that doesn’t mean I’m promising, but we’re actively working. There could be another game scheduled and hopefully it’s a game that fits really well with our existing schedule within a place that would be safe for that team to be coming from [somewhere else] with protocols in place certainly that they would commit to or otherwise we wouldn’t consider them. So that’s a work in progress still.”

Other ACC teams that have replaced lost non-conference games include Boston College (Texas State for Ohio), Florida State (Jacksonville State for Samford), and Wake Forest (Campbell for ODU).

If you missed the virtual event, it is embedded below.

Worth Quoting

Another interesting note coming out of Mendenhall’s session of the “Meet The Team Day” event focused on contingency planning. UVA only has two eligible scholarship running backs currently (the Hoos are waiting on a waiver appeal for transfer Ronnie Walker Jr.) so the depth at that position is thin, prompting a fan-submitted question asking if there are any position switch candidates.

In light of the ongoing challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic – a report, for example, indicated that the majority of LSU’s offensive line had to quarantine recently – Mendenhall’s answer provided a close look at how his program is planning behind the scenes. He indicated that approximately three different players are cross-training at different positions already and said that number could increase significantly (at least double potentially) over the next three weeks.

Mendenhall said:

“We’ve already taken measures for a lot of different positions. Offensive line, defensive line. Because we’re never going to know on a week-to-week basis if and how and who might be exposed. Even during a game. We have crossover offensive line and defensive line that we’ve already started on. We have crossover receiver slash quarterback, we have skill players crossing over. So part of the succession planning is already going. At running back, we have a plan or two different plans that are kind of in the works right now but we have to do it. Not only at running back, even though that position is thin, we’re doing it everywhere because as we’re watching college football there are entire position groups being eliminated for practice. But what if you have three defensive linemen that you’ve already started to train and they could fill in the gaps and you could still function. So we’re working hard on succession planning so not only do we start the season, we can finish it.”

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