The knock on the new UVA Football starting QB, Beau Pribula, per The Athletic, which ranked him 46th among the 138 FBS starting quarterbacks in a rendering released earlier in the week, was: “he didn’t throw a touchdown pass after Oct. 11.”
Left unsaid there: Pribula only played one fully healthy game for Missouri after Oct. 11.
Pribula dislocated his left ankle on Oct. 25 in a 17-10 loss to Vanderbilt, an injury that an ESPN.com report called “a gruesome injury that somehow did not result in a fracture.”
The injury came on a failed fourth-and-goal from the 1 play early in the third quarter.
Pribula rehabbed his way back into the starting lineup for the Nov. 22 game at #8 Oklahoma, a 17-6 loss in which he was 20-of-36 through the air for 231 yards, with two INTs.
“I thought he distributed the ball well,” Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said after the loss at OU, which went on to earn a College Football Playoff berth. “I thought he made good decisions, for the most part. You know, ultimately the two takeaways, or two turnovers, hurt at the end, but I was proud of the courage he showed to play.”
Speaking of courage: the next week, Pribula, still gimpy, ran for 78 yards and a TD on 16 totes on that bad ankle in a 31-17 win at Arkansas.
Mizzou ran for 322 yards in the win.
Pribula only threw the ball seven times.
You take what the defense gives you.
So, about that knock – no TD passes after Oct. 11, which was, incidentally, a 27-24 OT loss to another Top 10 team, Alabama, that also went on to earn a CFP berth; Pribula, in that one, was 16-of-28, 162 yards, two TDs/two INTs, with 61 yards and a TD on the ground.
No TD passes after Oct. 11 – after what should have been a season-ending injury.
The comment from an SEC general manager quoted anonymously in The Athletic article was:
“At times, saw a tough competitor, but that’s kind of it. Overall, just thought he was average.”
The SEC general manager saw “average”; Justin Speros, the GM at Virginia, saw something else.
Toughness
“For an injury that that likely would have taken most guys out for the year, he battled back and returned three games later, you know, on a hobbled leg,” Speros recounted, in a meeting with reporters on Friday.
Virginia was on a bye week when Missouri played Oklahoma, “so I had a chance to sit there and watch that game live,” Speros said, “and I remember watching that game live before, you know, it was even rumored that he was going to hit the portal, and I you know, and I told Beau this when he came on his visit, I said, you gained a fan in in me by watching you battle your tail off of your team.”
“Where where most guys would have just, you know, taken their time to get back from such a serious injury. We saw a competitor,” Speros said. “We saw a guy that, you know, teammates rallied around him, and then obviously just the skill set, you know, he’s a dynamic athlete, dynamic runner, and then as you’ve gotten to know him, just what an unbelievable person and human being and leader he is.”
What do we have here?
The hard part for the offensive brain trust will be, knowing exactly what they have in Pribula, who was used as a running QB in special packages in his two years at Penn State, before getting his first shot at being the full-time starter at Missouri in 2025.
“In spring he’s got an orange jersey on. In fall camp, he’ll have an orange jersey on. So, you won’t really see him get hit until Game 1, or Week 0. So, you’re just kind of seeing that off the tape last three years or two years,” said Taylor Lamb, the quarterbacks coach.
It’s obvious from the tape and the game logs that Pribula can move the chains with his feet – he’s over 1,000 sack-adjusted rushing yards for his career, averaging 6.1 yards per attempt.
Most of that, when you dive into his numbers, actually comes on designed runs – 758 yards across his three seasons, averaging 5.7 yards per attempt on designed runs.
His scrambles average out at 8.2 yards per.
“I mean, he can really extend plays. He can run. He’s a physical runner as well,” Lamb said. “I think he’s a really good passer of the football. Just what I’ve seen in the spring and throughout the summer, the kid can really throw it sideline to sideline, hash to hash, he can extend plays with his feet and his arm, so I’m excited to see what he does kind of in the air.”
Diving into the passing numbers, Pribula completed 67.4 percent of his pass attempts last season at Mizzou, with his best work on quick hitters (80.3 percent completion rate, 7.4 yards per attempt, 107.6 NFL passer rating on passes of 0-9 yards) and screens (96.7 percent completion rate, 6.7 yards per attempt, 94.4 NFL passer rating).
This would seem to fit well with how Des Kitchings, the offensive coordinator, wants to do things – last year, his QB1, Chandler Morris, was also most effective between 0-9 yards (77.8 percent completion rate, 6.2 yards per attempt, 101.4 NFL passer rating) and on screens (84.1 percent completion rate, 4.3 yards per attempt, 83.4 NFL passer rating).
There were similar usage rates in play-actions – 27.0 percent of Pribula’s pass attempts were off play-action (67.6 percent completion rate, 6.7 yards per attempt, 88.7 NFL passer rating) vs. 27.6 percent of Morris’s pass attempt coming off play-action (58.9 percent completion rate, 7.7 yards per attempt, 86.9 NFL passer rating).
Bottom line
Long story short, the offense should look a lot the same as last year’s offense, with maybe a little more accuracy through the air, and more potential for the QB to gain yards on the ground – by design or when things break down.
“There’s certain defenses you can’t play against” Pribula, Lamb said, “because he’s in the pocket, and he goes through his progression, it’s not there, and he’s gone for 10-plus, and that can change the game, just like a completion can.
“I always say there’s a ton of ways to move the offense down the field into the end zone, and whatever way fits both the best, right, that’s what we should do,” Lamb said.
Video
Support AFP
Share
Chris Graham
