The Virginia Cavaliers were supposed to play their season-opener in a stadium 4,700 miles away. When the Rio de Janeiro deal collapsed in June and the ACC relocated the opener to Charlottesville, it’s hard to imagine the Virginia administration could have pictured a better outcome than what happened Saturday. With ACC Huddle (the ACC’s premier football show) in town and Shaquille O’Neal DJing a pregame concert for students, Virginia got something better than a novelty kickoff: a sold-out Scott Stadium,
the first since the 2008 season opener against USC.
Rumor has it UVA made a big push to get 2027 high school recruits in the building for Saturday’s game, and the ones on hand got a good look at what the place sounds like when it’s full.
NC State was projected to be one of Virginia’s tougher opponents this year, and the Cavaliers were only a 3.5-point favorite at kickoff — the line had opened at 5.5 and drifted toward the Wolfpack all week. The Wahoos showed early that they meant business, taking a 17-0 lead into halftime. They finished off a dominant 34-8 win, out-gained NC State 413-168, and held the ball for 38 minutes and three seconds.
Here are five takeaways from the opener.
The UVA defense hasn’t changed a bit, and it didn’t even have Kam Robinson
Virginia’s defense finished last season as the reason the Cavaliers played for an ACC championship. It opened this one the same way, and it did it without its best player.
Kam Robinson was a game-time decision after tearing his ACL against Duke on Nov. 15 — a game UVA won 34-17, and one Robinson never should have gone back into. It was a devastating blow that no doubt played a role in Virginia’s ACC Championship Game loss. He didn’t dress Saturday. The ‘Hoos only allowed 168 total yards anyway.
NC State was dominated at the line of scrimmage, running 24 times for 76 yards, an average of 3.2 a carry, and never finding a second gear on early downs. CJ Bailey, a highly touted third-year starter whom CBS Sports rated the No. 2 quarterback in the ACC this preseason, went just 12-of-23 for 84 yards with an interception. Add Will Wilson’s relief work and the Wolfpack finished 15-of-27 for 92 yards through the air — 3.4 yards per attempt. NC State managed only ten first downs and punted seven times, giving Jackson Waller the busiest afternoon of anyone in a red jersey.
Myles Brown led with eight tackles, Maddox Marcellus added seven, and the front generated three tackles for loss. If there’s a caveat on the defense, it’s that Virginia managed only two sacks — a low number for a unit that played with a lead and had plenty of chances to tee off. Bailey had time in the pocket more often than the box score suggests. That’s fixable for a defense that came on so strong in the second half of the 2025 season, especially when the coverage is this good, but it’s worth watching.
Brandyn Hillman came home and took the ball away twice
Tony Elliott has been open about the one that got away. Hillman, a Churchland High School product out of Portsmouth, was the No. 4 player in Virginia in the 2023 class, and Elliott recruited him hard before Michigan won out. “I wanted him bad out of high school,” Elliott said this offseason. “I just didn’t have enough firepower.” Eleven wins later, he had enough.
Hillman spent Saturday collecting both of Virginia’s takeaways. The first came off a Fisher Camac deflection that hung in the air long enough for Hillman to run underneath it. The second was a punch-out on Bailey that Landon Danley fell on. Both were turning points, especially the punch-out, which was not only perfectly placed but stopped a near-certain NC State scoring drive in the red zone.
The secondary around him was every bit as good. Virginia broke up six passes as a unit. Jacobie Henderson had two of them and came within a step of an interception and a potential pick six, dropping into a throwing lane Bailey clearly didn’t expect to be occupied. Batted balls at the line, contested throws downfield, and receivers running out of room left a highly touted NC State passing attack without answers all afternoon.
UVA’s offensive line was as advertised
The most impressive sequence of the game had nothing to do with a highlight play. Virginia put together a 23-play drive, a school record, and by the end of it NC State’s front seven was standing with hands on hips waiting for the next snap. For context, the longest drive of last season was 19 plays in the Gator Bowl.
Virginia physically dominated the game and flat out wore down the NC State defense by pounding the rock. UVA ran 57 times for 258 yards. It converted all four of its fourth-down attempts. It held the ball for 38:03 against 21:57, nearly doubling the Wolfpack’s time of possession.
Virginia was 3-for-14 on third down, a number that would sink most teams but barely registered here, because Elliott kept sending the offense back out on fourth down and the line kept converting in short-yardage scenarios.
Beau Pribula is a dual threat, and the backfield is a committee
J’Mari Taylor carried a bellcow’s workload last season and turned it into an undrafted free agent deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Finding one player to replace him was always going to be close to impossible. It’s clear Virginia isn’t trying to.
Jekail Middlebrook is the lead back. He had 15 carries for 64 yards, the early-down grinder the offense leaned on to set up everything else. But Xavier Brown was the most dangerous man in the group, going for 40 yards and a score on eight carries and then catching two balls for 58 yards and another touchdown, including a 45-yarder up the seam out of the backfield on a read option that fooled the Wolfpack secondary. Xay Davis punched in a short touchdown. Noah Vaughn got six carries. Peyton Lewis, the Tennessee transfer and another Virginia kid Elliott had chased out of high school, didn’t enter until the second quarter and finished with 10 yards on six attempts.
The leading rusher, though, was the quarterback. Pribula carried 15 times for 110 yards at 7.3 a pop with a long of 22. It was clear early that this is a major part of the offense Virginia OC Des Kitchings has planned for this year, and a quarterback with that kind of running ability is a weapon. It’s also 15 carries in Week 0 for a player Virginia cannot afford to lose. Plenty of Virginia fans watched through their fingers after a few massive hits that left Pribula visibly shaken.
That said, the stable of running options looks deep to start the season, and the intensity was on display. Every back finished runs. Nobody went down on first contact when a second effort was available.
The passing game is the one thing to be nervous about
Pribula’s line looks terrific: 9-of-11, 155 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, 14.1 yards per attempt.
The number to sit with is 11. Virginia threw the ball just 11 times in roughly 68 snaps. Most of what worked came off play action, where the run game had linebackers so far downhill that the throws were nearly free — a 47-yard touchdown to Da’Shawn Martin, the 45-yarder to Brown. Kitchings also showed off more creativity with a rollout and a flea flicker.
At times Pribula looked reluctant to let it go, taking the check-down or tucking it when a receiver had a step. While that’s an understandable instinct for a quarterback making his first start of the year with a big lead and an offensive line winning every snap, it’s a genuine question in a game where Virginia has to throw to stay in it.
Luckily Virginia has a manageable schedule to start the season, but if the Cavaliers want to realize their goal of competing for an ACC championship, it’s worth asking whether this is a viable formula against the best teams in the conference and the nation.
For now, there’s reason to be cautiously optimistic.
Bonus: Will Bettridge gives Elliott the whole field
Bettridge opened the scoring with a 47-yarder, matching his longest of last season, and finished 2-for-2 on field goals and 4-for-4 on extra points for 10 total points. A kicker Elliott can trust from the mid-40s gives him more options later in the season. Daniel Sparks was also excellent when he was needed, averaging 45.4 yards on five punts with a long of 63.
What’s next
Virginia has a bye before hosting Norfolk State on Friday, Sept. 11. This is a valuable extra week for a team that just ran the ball 57 times, and more importantly another two weeks of rehab for Kam Robinson before West Virginia comes to Charlottesville on Sept. 19 for the next real test.
Week 0 results get over-read every year. But this wasn’t a fluky win over an overmatched opponent. NC State was a legitimate ACC team that oddsmakers thought could win in Charlottesville, and Virginia physically overmatched them. If the line plays like that and the defense keeps taking the ball away, this team will be in the ACC title conversation all the way through November.
