With scouts from future opponents in the stadium for Virginia’s spring scrimmage Saturday, Bronco Mendenhall made sure the Cavaliers kept things rather vanilla.
Still, there were glimpses of hope from the quarterback with the dreads flowing from his helmet. Curious Wahoo fans were there to see what this transfer from Arizona Western was all about. Is he the guy to lead Virginia out of the football wilderness?
Only time will tell, but in a scrimmage where the quarterback wasn’t allowed to be hit, it was obvious that Bryce Perkins, who grew up in Arizona, is much different than his predecessor in Mendenhall’s offense, Kurt Benkert. Benkert, who signed a free agent deal with the Atlanta Falcons on Saturday, was a strong-armed passer, less mobile.
Perkins?
“I don’t think anyone on our team will catch him,” Mendenhall said when asked about Perkins’ running ability. “That’s what I’ve seen this spring. Once he’s open, we don’t catch him.”
But what about other teams? Can they catch him?
“I don’t know,” Mendenhall grinned. “I guess that remains to be seen, doesn’t it.”
We heard whispers during the spring that Perkins was the fastest guy on the team. Now that’s pretty impressive, because we have all seen Olamide Zaccheaus and Brenton Nelson run. If Perkins is faster than those two guys, well, that’s fast.
What you didn’t see much of Saturday, thanks to those prying eyes from opposing teams in the stands, was the option phase of Virginia’s refurbished offensive scheme. Loose lips sink ships.
What media covering the team saw in practice over the spring was a nasty, potentially lethal combination of Perkins and Zaccheaus on the option play, which will spread the defense and open up inside running lanes.
Mendenhall, who has been more than impressed with his new quarterback in the 15 spring practices, officially named Perkins the starter heading into the summer offseason and fall camp.
“At this point, it’s his job to lose,” Mendenhall said. “He has moved the team most effectively. Not only does he have the coaches’ trust but he has the team’s trust.”
Perkins, who said he learned about being designated starter on Twitter, right after the scrimmage, said that doesn’t change his approach to working hard to improve daily.
“I think I’ve come a long way in the spring,” Perkins said. “I spent the whole time getting used to the players, improving my timing, and my deep ball has become significantly better. [Quarterbacks] Coach [Jason] Beck has helped me with the mental part of the game, has helped me progress my game a lot.”
Virginia’s is the third offensive system that Perkins has had to learn since graduating from Chandler High School in Queen Creek, Arizona. He was a record-breaking quarterback there before signing with Arizona State, where he suffered a serious neck injury and was told he would likely never play football again.
He enrolled at Arizona Western Community College and led the Matadors to the 2017 Junior College national championship game before transferring to Virginia.
“You learn a new offense but you still have memory of the old offense and so sometimes you do intertwine the two,” Perkins said. “Lindell Stone has helped me a lot. He’s a great friend and teammate who has helped me get acclimated. Whenever I have a question, he’s right there by my side, telling me what happened, if I made a wrong read.”
Stone, a product of Woodberry Forest, has greatly improved his game over the spring and the rising sophomore is “slightly ahead” of true freshman Brennan Armstrong after spring drills.
Perkins is excited about the possibilities with the new scheme, which offensive coordinator Robert Anae said Saturday is designed to create a chaotic effect on opposing defenses.
Virginia has 13 unique personnel groupings, which Anae believes is the most of any offense in the country, and he plans to use them all. Rather than fitting Perkins into an offense he’s not comfortable with, Anae is creating the offense around Perkins’ strengths.
Those strengths are speed, the ability to run the football effectively, and create when things break down on pass plays.
When informed that Mendenhall told reporters that there was no one on Virginia’s defense that could catch him in the open field, Perkins just smiled.
“I just try to compete every day,” he said, still smiling. “I push myself. Me and Olamide do a good job of pushing each other in sprints, trying to improve our speed.
“Some of those plays out there today were quick whistles,” Perkins said.
This time, he wasn’t grinning.
Those were protective measures by a football team that can’t afford injuries and no way was Mendenhall going to take any risks of Perkins taking any shots in April. He’s seen enough of his quarterback to know the potential of wrecking defenses this autumn.
With playmakers like Perkins and Zaccheaus, developing speedy receiver Joe Reed, complementing power running from Jordan Ellis and P.K. Kier, it’s not exactly as potent as some of Mendenhall’s former BYU offenses, but it’s getting closer to that.
“If spring is any indication, the combination of [Zaccheaus and Perkins] has been really hard to stop,” Mendenhall said. “Big plays are happening everywhere and we’re getting the ball to [Zaccheaus] in a number of ways.
“When you have Bryce out there at the same time, it starts to spread the defense pretty thin,” Mendenhall continued. “If we can build Joe Reed’s role, that stretches the defense even thinner.”
Because this wasn’t an official spring “game” Virginia didn’t keep statistics from the scrimmage. Mendenhall had seen all he needed to see in the closed practices this spring to use as a springboard to a productive season.
It’s enough to give long-suffering Wahoo fans hope to carry them over the summer.