Virginia's Anae, Armstrong lead one of top offenses in college football. Can No. 25 BYU keep up?

PROVO — In almost every way, Virginia's offense has rated better than BYU eight weeks into the 2021 season.

The Cavaliers average nearly double the Cougars in the passing game with 404.6 yards per game, and score 11 more points with 37.6 per game. They're slightly worse in the red zone, completing 86.4% to BYU's 92.9%, but are more efficient on third down (48.2%) and boast a total offense of 539.9 yards per game to just 402.4 for the Cougars.

And commanding the fourth-best offense in the nation is Brennan Armstrong, the 64.2% passer who leads the second-best passing offense nationally with 3,220 yards and 23 touchdowns and just six interceptions.

Squint hard enough at the latest leader of former BYU offensive coordinator Robert Anae's offense, in fact, and BYU fans might just recognize a few things about him when Virginia kicks off Saturday night at No. 25 BYU (8:15 p.m. MT, ESPN2).

"I'd have to qualify it, but Max Hall probably in terms of personality and temperament and style," Virginia coach Bronco Mendenhall said of his starter when asked if there was a BYU player from his 13 years in Provo that Armstrong most resembled. "It's never fair, right, because it's in no way a complete and accurate comparison. But since the question was asked, that's probably the closest one.

"That would be a compliment to both because, man, they're both really good players."

A 65% career passer who stood 6-foot-2 and 201 pounds in college, Hall threw for 11,365 yards, 94 touchdowns and 40 interceptions in three years under center for Mendenhall at BYU from 2007-09. That includes an 32-7 record before embarking on a brief NFL career with the Arizona Cardinals.

Armstrong's production doesn't match Hall's, but 6-foot-2, 215-pound native of Shelby, Ohio, played in significantly less time early with the Cavs. Since taking over as the full-time starter as a junior in 2020, he's thrown for 5,338 yards and 41 touchdowns with just 17 interceptions, including a 3,221-23-6 mark in 2021.

And he's someone for which the Cougars will need to account, including with his legs, which have scored five touchdowns on just 188 yards in the past eight games.

But the comparisons to certain BYU quarterbacks under Mendenhall are valid.

"I think there's a lot of the foundation of how they teach him. That goes back to here, too," said BYU coach Kalani Sitake, whose team clinched bowl eligibility for the 16th time in 17 years with last week's win at Washington State. "Their quarterbacks are well-coached, and have a high football IQ.

"You can just see when you watch him that he has this great presence about him. He has foxy, he has the confidence you want in a quarterback. He's a great leader. You combine that with his skillset, how he can run, he's efficient, and he makes great decisions."

In other words, Armstrong isn't a perfect comparison to Hall — but it's good enough. Both quarterbacks relied on "moxy" to make plays that others might not.

Like Hall, Armstrong is a quarterback who will need to be beat — not just forced into making his own mistakes.

"He's really good, really efficient, and has a phenomenal arm," BYU defensive coordinator Ilaisa Tuiaki said. "But he does things with his legs, too.

"I don't want to disservice him by comparing him to somebody; he's very talented."

The other option, of course, is to try to out-gun Virginia in a shootout. The Cougars average 402.4 yards per game, and are scoring on 92.9% of their red-zone possessions. But that has amounted to just 26.0 points — again, for a variety of reasons that also include draining the clock with a lead or running out the final possession through Tyler Allgeier, who averages 5.13 yards per carry for 861 yards and 11 touchdowns in eight games this season.

"We've won games various ways this year," BYU offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick said. "I think one of the strengths of our offense is that we feel like we can play in any style of ball game. If we need to grind 4-5 minutes off the clock running the ball, we can do that. If we need to go fast and throw it down the field, we feel like we can do it as well.

"We'll be ready for any type of game."

Of course, complicating matters is the depth of injuries — specifically in the trenches — at BYU. Redshirt junior James Empey, who left last Saturday's 21-19 win with an injury at halftime, was questionable to return in time for kickoff, Sitake said.

He was listed as a co-starter at center with Connor Pay, the freshman from Lone Peak who performed admirably in Empey's absence on the Palouse.

If Pay has to start at center, Joe Tukuafu is fully available to return to his normal starting post at right guard. The only other question is Harris LaChance's availability at right tackle; freshman Cambell Barrington is also list as a co-starter at the position, but both have split starts with four games apiece in 2021.

"It's honestly amazing to see the next man step up," Tukuafu said. "When people go down, even the further down they get, when people get their name called … there's a sense of urgency from those who aren't contributing as much.

"It's great to see people locked in. It goes back to practice; everyone practices the same way, runs the same drills. They're people who are going to play hard, play fast, and just do what we've been doing the whole year."

Of course, offense doesn't happen in a vacuum — even in the case of a shootout. And that's why Roderick doesn't believe the game will be decided strictly on one side of the ball, either way.

It's just not how things have been done at BYU.

"We play team football here. Our offense, defense and special teams complement each other," Roderick said. "We do our best to control the game as a team.

"It's easier said than done; Virginia's a really good football team, and they score a lot of points by running a lot of plays. They must be going at a pretty fast tempo to run as many plays as they do. We've got to work together as a team to beat Virginia; it's not just our offense against their defense."

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