Brennan Armstrong was a pregame scratch Saturday night, Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall said after the Cavaliers’ 28-3 loss to #7 Notre Dame.
His status for next week: “We’re not ruling anything out, but it is literally day by day.”
“I made this statement last week and, at some point, the week before that: I don’t think there’s another quarterback in the country doing more for his team than what Brennan is doing for us. That was validated to me this evening,” said Mendenhall, whose #1 ranked offense was held to 278 yards and the aforementioned three points in the loss.
That was with Armstrong’s backup, true freshman Jay Woolfolk, at the helm.
Woolfolk had decent numbers – 18-of-33, 196 yards, two INTs, not bad considering that he faced intense pressure all night long, particularly on third and fourth downs.
Woolfolk was sacked by the Notre Dame front seven times, and was smacked around on countless (for now, until we get a look at the numbers from Pro Football Focus in the morning) other dropbacks.
“They did bring more pressure than they’d shown on film in the past, and I definitely think that’s because we had a freshman quarterback playing,” offensive lineman Bobby Haskins said. “I thought Jay did a great job making quick decisions when things weren’t there running the football.
“I think he did a really great job of being decisive for us and taking the throws and taking the shots when he had them and then tucking it down and getting the hard yards when he needed to,” Haskins said.
Woolfolk gained 49 yards running the ball, so he was able to move the ball with his feet, like Armstrong is so adept at doing.
But the game plan out of the gate was rather vanilla. On the first snap from scrimmage, Woolfolk motioned out from the backfield, replaced at QB by Keytaon Thompson, who took a wildcat snap for a 1-yard gain.
Thompson would take just one more wildcat snap the rest of the night.
Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly took credit afterward for having his team prepared for that from Virginia.
“We felt like if they could play [Armstrong], they would, but we had to prepare for wildcat because that was going to be option number two,” Kelly said. “We knew the backup quarterback, and that they could run their offense through the backup quarterback, but we had to prepare for wildcat.
“Once we were able to check into the defense that we needed, you saw they got out of it. They didn’t try to get back into it because we had a plan for it. It’s when you don’t have a very good plan for it that they’ll stay in wildcat, and we had a good plan for it,” Kelly said.
Virginia’s first two drives, featuring short passes and between the tackles runs, were both three-and-outs, and by the time the ‘Hoos had their first first down, they were already down 14-0.
UVA had just 92 yards of offense in the first half, and even when the offense got going in the second half, the Cavaliers came up empty on three drives that got into plus territory, before a rather meaningless field goal on their fourth drive, early in the fourth quarter.
It wasn’t all on the freshman QB, though he’s the focal point because he was in the lineup.
Keytaon Thompson, who got his first career start at QB as a true freshman at Mississippi State in the TaxSlayer Bowl back in 2017, offered praise for Woolfolk, who was playing on Friday nights this time last year.
“Jay is a young guy, not much experience yet. I have kind of been in his position; back in the earlier days in my career, being thrown in as a young guy with not much experience against a quality opponent,” said Thompson, who had nine catches on 11 targets for 110 yards. “I think he did pretty well. He didn’t get rattled. He made some great plays. I don’t think we did a good enough job as receivers or as an offense as a whole just to help him out and take some of that pressure off of Jay.
“Brennan’s a great player for us, and he makes a lot of plays. I think tonight we should have, as an offense, taken some of that pressure off Jay and made some more plays for him,” Thompson said.
This might need to be the case the rest of the way out. As much as Mendenhall tried to say that Armstrong’s status is day to day, he sure seemed to be thinking out loud about how he can scheme up wins without his number one guy.
“Everyone else now has to be better. The protection, the separation on routes from a defender, everything has to be better now, from more sources,” Mendenhall said. “This is the first missed punt [Jacob] Finn has had in I think his college career, so it surprised us all. There was also the missed field goal. So those are easy things to see, but they are more impactful when Brennan is not our quarterback.
“I don’t want us to play tight. This is just now an opportunity to challenge, and everyone needs to do more. That was basically my message after the game, and it was clear tonight,” Mendenhall said.
Story by Chris Graham
Share
Contributors
