So! What do you – longtime Missouri fan – know about the football team at the University of Virginia?
It’s ok if you don’t know much. Despite playing the sport since 1888 the Cavaliers of Virginia have
typically not made a massive national impact with their football. In fact, most of their coaches with winning percentages north of .500 tend to be of the one-year variety, while the vast majority have slummed it at the .300 level of winning games.
But they do have some good ones! The first coach to last longer than 2 years was some guy named Rice Warren who won 17 games in 3 years. A man who went by the name Greasy Neal managed 28 wins over 6 years and a .555 winning percentage. Frank Murray and Art Gueppe steered the ‘Hoos through WWII with some excellent years, but George Welsh’s 19-year run from 1982-2000 is easily the best stretch of Virginia football. Which, ya know, ended 25 years ago.
But let’s review some quick facts about our NEW MOST HATED TEAM THAT WE MUST DEFEAT:
- Virginia is not a state, it is a commonwealth. There is no legal distinction between a state and a commonwealth but folks from Massachusetts, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia seem to care a lot about that distinction.
- The university was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson. When not busy impregnating slaves, Jefferson spent his time on the first board of visitors (their curators, basically), along with his fellow presidential BFFs James Madison and James Monroe.
- The University of Virginia’s official mascot is the Cavaliers, but will sometimes be referenced to as “the Hoos”. This is because Virginia’s first major rival – Washington and Lee University – heard the Virginia fanbase conduct the school yell of “wa-hoo-wa” and started referencing them as “a bunch of Wahoos”. UVA students, in an effort to own the insult to nullify it, began using it as a self-identifier. Rivalries in the 1890s were very lame.
- UVA has two mascots: both are named “Cav Man”, one of whom is a live performer dressed as an Antebellum South cavalry officer on a real horse, the second of which is one of those jacked, body suit caricature performers. The real horse’s name is Sabre and seems pretty cool…except for that one time when Sabre bucked the rider right out of the saddle.
- Given it’s lengthy existence and prominence on the east coast, you would think that there would be a bunch of presidents who attended UVA but that’s false! The one president who did attend was Woodrow Wilson, but he didn’t graduate from there. However, for some local flavor, former Missouri senator Kit Bond is a graduate of UVA.
But let’s take a look at the football team from an SP+ perspective:
Virginia’s 20-year history is that of a program that alternates between decently good and noticeably bad, typically being anywhere from 3-7 points better than an average FBS program and then skidding to 3-5 points worse than the average program. Bronco Mendenhall helped lift Virginia to some decent consistency until his surprise resignation in 2021 and then Tony Elliott oversaw the most precipitous drop of the program since 2005. The fact that he’s been able to steer them into a 10-win season is pretty impressive stuff once you take into context how fall they’d fallen.
Here’s what they did this year:
SP+ sees this 10-win Virginia team as an 8-win football team. Why? Check out the post-game win expectancy: 3 wins with a PGWE under 44%, and one with a mere 53%. 3 wins in 4 overtime games. 7 one-score games, 4 of which they won. Virginia plays with fire every single game and DESPITE THEIR BEST EFFORTS find themselves in a situation to win it. That’s the definition of “getting away with it”.
Good for them! Unless that happens in the bowl game. In which case I’ll change it to BOOOOOOO YOU HACKS AND FRAUDS.
Coaching Staff
Tony Elliott – 4th Year – 21-26 (13-18)
Coach Elliott had a tough start to his life. If you’ve watched any Virginia football on the tee vee you’ve certainly heard the broadcast team highlight some of his struggles. Between losing his mom in a car accident at age 9 and literally living on the streets of LA, you get the idea that this is a dude who has seen about as bottom of the barrel of life experiences…and he managed to work his way out. He certainly has my respect for that. Not that he needs it.
But he also had a tough football upbringing as well. He was a talented, multi-sport athlete but had to walk-on to the Clemson program before working his way into a starting role and, eventually, was named a captain. Obviously the stakes here are a lot lower but still: literally worked his way from as far down as you can to the top. Respect.
If you had heard of him before today it was probably in his role as the offensive coordinator at Clemson from 2015-2021, which included multiple national championships and star players such as Travis Etienne and Trevor Lawrence. He then rode that fading Clemson offensive prowess to the Virginia head coaching position where he has been since 2022.
Of all the football coaches out there Elliott is one of the easier ones to root for. I don’t know the guy at all but his story is about as boot-strap coded as any red-blooded American would desire, and his success as both a player and a coach are awesome resume points to promote. His offenses might have grown stale at Clemson and his tenure at Virginia certainly hasn’t been the most fruitful but he’s had a great year in 2025 and, hopefully, he can keep the progression line moving up in subsequent years.
Roster
Of the 22 offensive and defensive players on their first team depth chart, there are a whopping 18 players who will be participating in their last collegiate game because their eligibility will have run out. That includes all 11 offensive starters. Even in the super-senior-portal era that’s a staggering amount of age and experience for a college roster. Not to downplay their individual skill or coaching acumen, but I’d guarantee the extreme age and experience level of this team is the secret sauce behind their surprise run to double digit wins and an appearance in the conference championship game. Experience matters a ton! Even if you were unranked coming out of high school!
Offense
Virginia’s offense at a glance:
- 54th overall
- 57th rushing offense, 72nd passing offense
- 73rd in standard downs, 32nd in passing downs
- 68th in efficiency, 65th in explosiveness
- 31.8 average starting field position (20th), 4.3 points per scoring opportunity (82nd)
- 18.1 expected turnovers (100th), 13 actual turnovers (36th)
- +3.8 expected turnover margin (32nd), +7.0 actual turnover margin (24th)
Quarterback
Chandler Morris at a glance:
- Sixth-year player, four-time transfer, first year at Virginia
- Good accuracy (64.6%), great at avoiding sacks (3.6% sack rate)
- Not mobile (only 43 non-sack rushes and 338 non-sack rushing yards on the year) but effective when utilized: best yards per rush on team (7.6), tied for second-most rushing touchdowns on the year (5)
- Yards per completion (10.9), passing success rate (43.2%), and ANY/A (7.1) show a quarterback who isn’t an efficient passer
- Average air yards per target: 7.3. Air yards per completion: 4.9. Essentially: not many deep shots
- Also: one-time Missouri commit/former Nebraska Cornhusker Daniel Kaelin is the backup.
Running Back
J’Mari Taylor at a glance:
- Sixth-year player, former walk-on at North Carolina Central, first-year at Virginia
- 1,062 total rushing yards, 14 rushing touchdowns, 40.5% rushing success rate
- 58 passing targets, 43 catches, 253 yards, 1 touchdown, 4th-most targeted player on the team
- 15.3% of runs going for less than or equal to 0 yards, 0.24 missed tackles per rush (good!)
- 4.7 yards per rush, 27.9% 1st downs per rush, 1.9 yards before contact, 2.8 yards after contact (bad!)
- 9.5% rushes going for 10+ yards is surprisingly bad; not an explosive runner
Wide Receiver
Trell Harris at a glance:
- Fourth-year player, transfer from Kent State, second year at Virginia
- 82 targets, 59 catches, 847 yards, 5 touchdowns, 52.4% success rate
- 72% catch rate, 14.4 yards per catch, 10.3 yards per target, 61% 1st downs per catch, 3.8% drop rate (all very good!)
- Routes run likelihood: Short – 52%, Intermediate – 21%, Deep – 27%
- Position lineup likelihood: Outside – 63%, Slot – 27%, Inline – 5%
- Also, tight end Sage Ennis only has 34 targets but is tied with the most touchdown catches on the team with 5 on the year
Offensive Line
McKale Boley, Noah Josey, Brady Wilson, Drake Metcalf, and Jack Witmer at a glance:
- 3.4% pressures allowed is 113th in the nation
- 12.7% blown run block ranks 91st, overall blown block rate of 29.2% ranks 82nd
- Right tackle Jack Whitmer: 7.3% pressure rate allowed, 5.7% blown block rate; none of the other four are over 3% in either category
Defense
Virginia’s defense at a glance:
- 26th overall
- 39th rushing defense, 17th passing defense
- 28th in standard downs, 9th in passing downs
- 19th in efficiency, 48th in explosiveness
- 26.7 average starting field position (15th), 4.2 points per scoring opportunity (68th)
- 21.8 expected turnovers (9th), 20 actual turnovers (24th)
- Turnover luck in points per game: 1.2
Conclusion
Virginia has been “getting away with it” throughout this season, winning three games with a less than 44% post-game win expectancy, including a 10.4% PGWE in a 30-27 overtime win at Louisville. The Hoos have played in four overtime games and were undefeated until they threw an interception to Duke in the ACC Championship game. A 4-3 record in one-score games is a great indicator of how playing a football game against the University of Virginia typically goes.
So how do they keep games close and win late? They do it by having great starting field position, converting third downs, and finishing with any points at all on offense. Defensively they do it by stifling the pass and turning over opponents. Offensively its a safe, repeatable, but deeply boring way to play and leads to close games….just like Missouri! On defense, it’s not a very reliable formula given the reliance on turnovers but the pass defense is legit.
It should be a close game, get ready for that. Both the Missouri offense and Virginia offense try to win in the same manner despite being a little different in style. Virginia’s defense is a little too reliant on turnovers while giving up runs while Missouri’s defense is not as turnover reliant but does give up big plays. It should be a good matchup which, in the big picture, is exactly what a bowl game should try to create.
