Three things to know about Notre Dame’s Week 11 opponent, Virginia
Virginia starting quarterback Brennan Armstrong’s potential unavailability for Saturday’s game vs. No. 9 Notre Dame (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC) makes this matchup a difficult one to predict.
Armstrong leads the country in total offense (425.3 yards per game) and is the pilot of a high-scoring, explosive Virginia offense.
He suffered a rib injury in the second half of the Cavaliers’ 66-49 loss at BYU Oct. 30, though. They had an open date last weekend. Coach Bronco Mendenhall has neither ruled him out nor declared him fully available.
Lose a player like Armstrong, and a lot changes. But not everything. Here are three other things to know about Virginia, which takes a 6-3 record into its home date with 8-1 Notre Dame.
1. A premier deep threat
Find a quarterback with gaudy passing stats and there’s usually a receiver with impressive numbers among his top targets.
In Virginia’s case, sophomore wide receiver Dontayvion Wicks is often on the other end of Armstrong’s highlights. Armstrong ranks second nationally in passing yards per game (395.2). He has 27 touchdown passes, averages 8.8 yards per attempt and had thrown the ball more times than any Football Bowl Subdivision quarterback except three.
Wicks has his own list of impressive national rankings. His 23.14 yards per catch led all FBS players with at least 40 receptions through Oct. 30. He has 972 yards (10th nationally) and nine touchdowns on just 42 catches. His 19.9 average depth of target paces all FBS receivers who have been targeted at least 50 times. He has 30 targets on passes that traveled at least 20 yards downfield. Six of those have resulted in touchdowns.
All told, he is arguably college football’s premier downfield threat and has 16 deep-ball receptions, which ranks second in the FBS.
Wicks is the fourth wide receiver Notre Dame has faced who ranked in the nation’s top 10 in yards per game heading into Week 10. The Irish previously matched up with Purdue’s David Bell (fourth), USC’s Drake London (third) and North Carolina’s Josh Downs (sixth). They held Bell to 64 yards. London and Downs each cleared 10 catches and 140 yards, but did not score.
Armstrong’s possible absence could make Notre Dame’s task of defending Wicks a bit less daunting. The Cavaliers replaced him with freshman Jay Woolfolk at BYU. They also have “offensive weapon” Keytaon Thompson, a converted quarterback from his time at Mississippi State, as an option.
2. Suspect defense
Despite the high-scoring offense, Virginia is outscoring its opponents by just 8.1 points per game and outgaining them by 0.62 yards per play. (For reference, a two-yard difference in a team’s own yards per play versus its opponents is considered the mark of a dominant team). The Cavaliers’ offense can score with most teams. Their leaky defense, though, can turn games into shootouts rather than blowouts.
Virginia ranks 115th nationally in yards allowed per play (6.56) and 105th in defensive Fremeau Efficiency Index (FEI) rating. It also was 80th in defensive SP+. The Cavaliers’ run defense is especially troublesome, allowing 5.72 yards per carry (123rd). They ranked 115th in tackles for loss per game (4.44) and 120th in sacks per game (1.22).
Four of Virginia’s eight FBS opponents have scored at least 40 points. Most recently, BYU hung 66 on the Cavaliers. North Carolina put up 59 on them in September. The only two teams to produce fewer than 28 points against Virginia are Illinois (14) and Duke (0), both of which rank 90th or worse in scoring and offensive FEI.
3. A personal connection
Junior safety Kyle Hamilton surely had this game circled as a special one before the season.
A Notre Dame vs. Virginia matchup provides the chance to play against close friend and Cavaliers linebacker Nick Jackson — though Hamilton’s injured knee might not allow it. They’re Atlanta natives and friends since grade school. They’re offseason workout partners. They have trained together at The Rack, a facility in Atlanta, and in Jackson’s makeshift basement gym during the height of the pandemic.
Both were Year 1 impact players for their respective teams. Now in their junior seasons, they’re team captains and defensive standouts.
Jackson played in all 14 of Virginia’s 2019 games, making two starts. He led the team with 105 tackles last season. This year, he has a team-best 86 tackles to go with 1.5 tackles for loss, an interception and two passes broken up.
Hamilton and Jackson previously played each other when Virginia came to South Bend in 2019.
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