As much as it shades my soul to say it, the Hoos have a pretty good team this year. And you know where Tech stands right now. Fortunately, for all of UVA’s strengths, there are also enough pressure points to make a Hokie victory possible.

Offense

OC Robert Anae runs a version of the Air Raid. If you’ve been on the Mike Leach bandwagon, it’s roughly the same thing he runs. There’s lots of emphasis on stretching the defense from sideline-to-sideline with isolated deep routes, which often forces teams into Cover-1 and Cover-4 to make sure there are enough deep defenders spaced out. The run game is simple—maybe not purist simple, but you’re going to see a lot of basic-blocked zone and draw plays. You’ll see more Pistol out of them than you would the classic Air Raid. They’ll also use the Pistol to run misdirection, especially in short-yardage, but it’s generally not an every-down thing.

QB Bryce Perkins (#3) is the Cavaliers’ offense. It’s a vanilla stick-and-zone scheme without him, but with him clicking it’s dynamic. He’s also posting a higher completion percentage than you’d expect of a guy who’s already bounced out of a P5 program.  Watching him play, he’s pretty good at hitting isolation concepts in space, which is basically half of the Air Raid playbook.

ABOVE: Here he is putting a contested fade in a good spot. He’s good for several nice sideline throws a game.

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