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Published Feb 4, 2024
PFF: West Virginia football's 2023 grades
Classic Super Publisher  •  WVSports
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WVSports.com and the Rivals network have teamed up with PFF, the go-to site for player grades and advanced analytics in both college football and the NFL. We will incorporate PFF data into stories regularly going forward, and one thing you can look forward to each week is a grade for all of West Virginia's players from the previous game by their scale.

In this article, we use the PFF grades to show you how every Mountaineer performed in the entire 2023 season, including both offensive and defensive players through the Duke's Mayo Bowl win on Dec. 27.

You can find an explanation of the grading system below the article.


OFFENSE:

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OFFENSE
*=Played 10 snaps or fewer on the season.
PlayerPositionGrade

Garrett Greene

QB

90.7

Jahiem White

HB

89.0

CJ Donaldson Jr.

HB

79.8

Wyatt Milum

T

79.5

Hudson Clement

WR

78.3

Landen Livingston

C

77.4

Zach Frazier

C

74.5

Bryce Biggs

G

74.0

CJ Cole

WR

71.4

Devin Carter

WR

70.5

Doug Nester

T

68.6

Justin Johnson Jr.

HB

66.5

Nicco Marchiol

QB

65.8

Jaylen Anderson

HB

65.2

Kole Taylor

TE

64.8

EJ Horton

WR

64.5

Tomas Rimac

G

63.7

Traylon Ray

WR

62.6

Nick Malone

T

62.5

Sullivan Weidman

G

62.2

Ja'Shaun Poke

WR

61.8

Preston Fox

WR

61.7

Luke Hamilton

FB

61.1

Johnny Williams IV

T

60.5

Taran Fitzpatrick*

WR

60.0

Colin McBee*

FB

58.8

Brandon Yates

G

58.5

Ja'Quay Hubbard

G

57.8

DJ Oliver

HB

56.9

Tyler Evans*

WR

56.8

Noah Massey

WR

54.3

Victor Wikstrom

TE

53.1

Rodney Gallagher III

WR

52.9

Cortez Braham

WR

50.3

Cooper Young

G

50.1

Nick Krahe

T

49.8

Jarel Williams

WR

48.9

Jeremiah Aaron

WR

48.1

Treylan Davis

TE

43.6

Will Dixon

TE

35.4

DEFENSE
*Played 10 snaps or fewer on the season.
PlayerPositionGrade

Zequi Lawton*

DL

84.9

Aubrey Burks

S

79.4

Fatorma Mulbah

DL

77.4

Beanie Bishop Jr.

CB

76.0

Hershey McLaurin

S

74.6

Hammond Russell IV

DL

73.7

Lee Kpogba

LB

73.5

Malachi Ruffin

CB

70.6

Oryend Fisher*

DL

70.3

Anthony Wilson

S

69.8

Harry Hilvert*

DL

68.7

Christion Stokes

S

68.7

Marcis Floyd

S

68.3

Jairo Faverus

LB

67.1

Tomiwa Durojaiye

DL

66.3

Edward Vesterinen

DL

66.3

Sean Martin

DL

65.9

Trey Lathan

LB

65.4

Davoan Hawkins

DL

64.3

Tyrin Bradley

DL

63.7

Josiah Jackson

S

63.6

Caden Biser

LB

63.3

Jalen Thornton

DL

63.3

DJ Cotton*

DL

62.7

Corey McIntyre Jr.

DL

62.7

Avery Wilcox

S

61.1

Derek Berlitz*

DL

60.6

Asani Redwood

DL

60.6

Aden Tagaloa-Nelson*

CB

60.3

Sullivan Weidman*

G

60.2

Jacolby Spells

CB

60.2

Jordan Jackson*

CB

60.0

Lance Dixon

S

59.9

Taurus Simmons

DL

58.9

Mike Lockhart

DL

56.7

Jared Bartlett

DL

56.6

Montre Miller

CB

50.4

Ben Cutter

LB

49.9

James Heard Jr.*

DL

48.3

Tirek Austin-Cave

LB

46.3

Raleigh Collins III

CB

45.7

Andrew Wilson-Lamp

CB

41.6

Keyshawn Cobb

S

29.7

On every play, a PFF analyst grades each player on a scale of -2 to +2 according to what he did on the play.

At one end of the scale you have a catastrophic game-ending interception or pick-six from a quarterback, and at the other a perfect deep bomb into a tight window in a critical game situation, with the middle of that scale being 0-graded, or ‘expected’ plays that are neither positive nor negative.

Each game is also graded by a second PFF analyst independent of the first, and those grades are compared by a third, Senior Analyst, who rules on any differences between the two. These grades are verified by the Pro Coach Network, a group of former and current NFL coaches with over 700 combined years of NFL coaching experience, to get them as accurate as they can be.

From there, the grades are normalized to better account for game situation; this ranges from where a player lined up to the dropback depth of the quarterback or the length of time he had the ball in his hand and everything in between. They are finally converted to a 0-100 scale and appear in our Player Grades Tool.

Season-level grades aren’t simply an average of every game-grade a player compiles over a season, but rather factor in the duration at which a player performed at that level. Achieving a grade of 90.0 in a game once is impressive, doing it (12) times in a row is more impressive.

It is entirely possible that a player will have a season grade higher than any individual single-game grade he achieved, because playing well for an extended period of time is harder to do than for a short period, Similarly, playing badly for a long time is a greater problem than playing badly once, so the grade can also be compounded negatively.

Each week, grades are subject to change while we run through our extensive review process including All-22 tape runs and coaching audit, so you may notice discrepancies among grades published in earlier articles compared with those in the Player Grades tool until grade lock each week.


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