The naked eye told me that Chandler Morris struggled in Saturday’s 22-20 UVA Football win over Washington State because he was under more pressure than the counting stats were measuring.
Turns out, from a look at the in-depth numbers from Saturday night, not; he just … sucked.
To be fair to our guy, yes, Morris, per head coach Tony Elliott, was dealing with a recurrence of the left shoulder injury dating from the mad scramble toward the end zone in the third quarter of UVA’s 48-7 win over Coastal Carolina in Week 1 that knocked him out of that game.
Elliott said after the Wazzu game that Morris reinjured the shoulder after a Cougars defender landed hard on him in the first quarter of Saturday night’s win.
The injury was serious enough that I saw freshman backup Daniel Kaelin warming up at least twice as if he was about to be inserted into the lineup.
Counting numbers
Morris gutted it out, but the UVA offense was nothing like we’d seen earlier in the season – putting up just 301 total yards, as Morris finished 15-of-25 passing for 179 yards, and a meh 81.9 NFL passer rating.
Going back to the Week 6 win over Louisville, Morris had pedestrian numbers there, too – 19-of-31, 149 yards, one TD, 83.9 NFL rating.
Total offense at Louisvile: (gulp!) 237 yards.
Two games, in the context of a 12-game college football regular season, constitutes a trend – it’s 17 percent of the season.
Pass blocking
In terms of the work of his O line, Morris was not sacked on Saturday night – but what else is new; the Virginia O line has allowed just five sacks all season, through seven games.
Per Pro Football Focus, Morris was pressured on just eight of his 26 pass dropbacks, and he completed three of his eight pass attempts when under pressure, for 17 yards.
With a clean pocket, Morris was 12-of-17 for 125 yards.
Going back to the Louisville win, Morris was sacked twice, and was pressured on 15 of his 36 dropbacks.
On the pressure dropbacks at UL, Morris was 3-of-11 for 14 yards and a 69.9 NFL rating.
With a clean pocket: 16-of-20, 135 yards, 94.8 NFL rating.
Depth
No deep balls against Wazzu or against Louisville – Morris was 0-of-4 on passes that traveled at least 20 yards through the air in each.
For all that Morris does well, the deep ball has not been there – on the season, Morris is 7-of-25 on passes of 20-plus yards, for 269 yards, two TDs, three INTs, and a 59.0 NFL passer rating, which ranks 92nd among the 101 FBS QBs with at least 20 deep-ball attempts this season.
Morris ranks 14th nationally among the 106 QBs with at least 50 attempts on short throws (0-9 yards from the line of scrimmage) with a 113.7 NFL rating (67-of-82, 525 yards, five TDs, no INTs) and 30th among the 109 with at least 25 attempts on intermediate throws (10-19 yards from the LOS) with 112.5 NFL rating (34-of-56, 664 yards, three TDs, one INT).
In the Wazzu game, Morris was 6-of-6 on short balls for 47 yards (99.3 NFL rating), and 5-of-9 on intermediates for 124 yards (100.5 NFL rating), so, a little off in terms of productivity.
Against Louisville: 8-of-12 on short balls for 73 yards (88.0 NFL rating), 3-of-3 for 45 yards on intermediates (158.3 NFL rating, but … three attempts?).
Ground game … grounded
Washington State held the Virginia rushing attack to 122 yards, well off its season average going into Saturday (217.5 yards/g).
The sack-adjusted rushing total for Louisville: 108 yards.
The O line did get left tackle McKale Boley back as a full-go for Washington State – Boley had gone down in the first half of the win at Louisville.
Still missing center Brady Wilson, which has forced right guard Drake Metcalf to move over.
Two guys split the snaps at right guard for Wazzu – Ethan Sipe and Kevin Wigenton.
I mention the O line shuffle to set the tone for looking at the rushing numbers.
Per PFF, Virginia had six rushing attempts to the middle-right and right guard, and gained nine yards total on those six against the Cougars.
In the Louisville game, there were six runs to the middle-right and right guard for 27 yards.
Wigenton logged 59 of the 64 snaps at right guard at Louisville.
Going back to the win over FSU in Week 5, Virginia ran 11 times to the middle-right and right guard and gained 68 yards on those runs.
Wigenton logged all 86 offensive snaps in the FSU game.
Idea time
Getting Wilson back and being able to move Metcalf back to right guard, with Wigenton as the backup, will help – if we can get Wilson back.
Elliott signaled last week in his Tuesday presser ahead of the Washington State game that he was hoping Wilson would be back soon.
Wilson has the best PFF grade of the O line unit, at 77.3 for the season, over his 231 snaps.
Wideout Cam Ross was forced out in the second quarter on Saturday night after taking a cheap shot – on a play that was initially flagged for targeting, then inexplicably was ruled to have been a clean hit.
Elliott said after the game that the move to sit Ross in the second half was precautionary, but Ross did seem a bit woozy when he got up to walk off the field.
Ross has 28 catches – tied for the team lead (with Trell Harris) – and is second on the team with 163 yards after catch, which is a solid number for a guy operating out of the slot.
As far as Morris is concerned, I don’t know that Morris will be 100 percent the rest of the season.
The bigger issue there is probably in how offensive coordinator Des Kitchings is able to use him in the ground and play-action passing game.
Kitchings, ideally, would like to use Morris more on keepers in read options, just to keep the edges honest, but you’re not going to want to do that as much with a guy who has a bum shoulder.
Support AFP
Share
Chris Graham
