Armstrong’s Return Gives Perkins More Freedom To Run

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Virginia came out of its 48-14 win over Duke fairly unscathed injury-wise, which was a relief for Bronco Mendenhall after watching one of his team’s captains, Bryce Hall, have his season come to an end with a broken ankle at Miami the week before.

Hall, of course, was one of the nation’s top-rated cornerbacks and an All-America candidate.

While offensive lineman Ryan Swoboda was spotted wearing a walking boot while standing on the sidelines during the Duke game, backup quarterback Brennan Armstrong was dressed out and available for the first time in several weeks.

Mendenhall said that as of noon Monday he didn’t know Swoboda’s status for this week’s game at Louisville, but that Armstrong is ready to play.

“Armstrong became available late (last week),” Mendenhall said. “We had an option to play him (against Duke), but at the risk of possibly him not quite being ready yet, chose not to.”

Instead, after Virginia built a large lead against the Blue Devils, it inserted junior Lindell Stone to finish the game. Stone completed one of two passes (one interception) for 12 yards.

Mendenhall said that Armstrong’s return changed Virginia’s game plan in allowing starting quarterback Bryce Perkins to have more carries. Perkins ran the ball 22 times against Duke for 62 net yards and three rushing touchdowns, which helped UVA break out of its recent doldrums in the red zone.

The coach said that having Armstrong available made it easier to turn Perkins loose.

“We’ve made a lot of effort not to include our quarterback in the run game while our primary backup has been hurt,” Mendenhall said. “Knowing that would not only affect that game but possibly the rest of the season. We’ve done our best to work around or have offense without Bryce as a running threat, just as a scramble threat.

“The game against Duke was the reintegration because Brennan is back, allowing us to have our quarterback to be involved more in the run game than we have used in the past [few games].”