One of the best moments of the 2025 college football season happened on a Friday night in Charlottesville.

Florida State came in ranked. The Seminoles had already beaten Alabama. It felt like they were starting to build some momentum again.

Then Virginia beat them.

The students rushed the field almost the second the ball hit the ground. It was one of those scenes that makes college football great. For a while, it felt like the sport was not just about Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, Miami and the same national brands we talk about every year.

Virginia was having a moment.

And it turned into much more than that.

The Cavaliers went 11-3, finished 7-1 in the ACC, and played for the ACC Championship. That was the best season in program history.

Now comes the hard part.

Can they do it again?

HEAD COACH:

• Tony Elliott, entering year five at Virginia
• Elliott is 22-26 at UVA.
• Virginia went 11-3 last season and 7-1 in the ACC.
• The Cavaliers played for the ACC Championship.
• UVA has never had back-to-back 10-win seasons.

I give Tony Elliott a ton of credit.

Virginia was not exactly rolling before last season. The program had been searching for something to believe in, and then suddenly the Cavaliers became one of the best stories in college football.

They beat Florida State. They won 11 games. They played for the ACC title. They looked like they might actually represent the league in the playoff for a good chunk of the season.

That is a massive jump.

But now the job changes.

Last year, Virginia was the surprise. This year, people know the Cavaliers can play. They are not going to sneak up on everybody the same way.

That is what makes this season interesting.

QUARTERBACK:

This is where the season starts.

Chandler Morris is gone, and that is a big deal.

Morris gave Virginia exactly what it needed last year. He was experienced, productive and steady enough to keep the offense moving while the defense did its job.

Now Virginia likely turns to Beau Pribula, the transfer from Missouri.

Eli Holstein, the transfer from Pitt, is also in the mix, but Pribula feels like the likely starter.

Pribula completed 67% of his passes last season for 1,941 yards, 11 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He also got sacked 23 times.

There is good and bad there.

The good is that he has played Power Four football. He has experience. He can move around. He is not some complete unknown walking into a team trying to get back to the ACC title game.

The concern is how last season went after the hot start.

Pribula threw five touchdowns and no interceptions in his first two games. After that, he threw six touchdowns and nine interceptions over his final eight games.

That is the number Virginia fans have to worry about.

Now, there is context. Missouri started last season with a long home stretch, and once the schedule got tougher and the Tigers had to get on the road, things got harder. Pribula was part of that.

But Virginia needs the early-season version of Pribula more than the late-season version.

Holstein is an interesting insurance policy. He looked like he might be the guy at Pittsburgh before Mason Heintschel took over. He has thrown 29 touchdowns and 13 interceptions in his career, so there is experience there too.

That is the good news.

Virginia did not replace Morris with a prayer.

The Cavaliers brought in two quarterbacks who have actually played.

But there is still probably a drop-off from Morris.

The question is how big.

THE REST OF THE OFFENSE

Virginia has one thing every new quarterback wants.

An offensive line.

The Cavaliers bring back McKale Boley, Noah Josey and Drake Metcalf, and all three started every game last year.

That is huge.

If you are replacing a quarterback, replacing a running back and trying to figure out the receivers, you better have something stable up front. Virginia does.

That gives the offense a chance.

The running back room is the next question because J’Mari Taylor is gone after rushing for 1,067 yards.

That is a lot of production to replace.

But Virginia did a nice job giving itself options.

Peyton Lewis comes in from Tennessee after rushing for 290 yards. Solomon Beebe comes in from UAB after rushing for 338 yards and six touchdowns. Jekail Middlebrook comes in from Middle Tennessee after rushing for 752 yards and four touchdowns.

None of those guys is guaranteed to be Taylor.

But at least Virginia has choices.

The bigger concern is receiver.

The Cavaliers do not have much proven production there. Dre’Sean Martin transfers in from Kent State. Rico Flores comes in from UCLA. Jacquon Gibson comes in from UMass. Freshman Dylan Cope is another name to watch.

The returning group includes Cam Courtney, Tyler Coleman, Dylan Newton-Short, Isaiah Robinson and Josiah Abdullah.

There may be talent there.

But right now, I do not know who the guy is.

That matters because Virginia can solve quarterback. It can patch together running back. It can lean on the offensive line.

But somebody has to win outside.

Somebody has to be the third-down target. Somebody has to scare a defense. Somebody has to make teams pay if they crowd the box and try to make Pribula beat them.

That is probably the biggest offensive question.

DEFENSE

This is the side of the ball that made Virginia real last year.

The Cavaliers allowed only 19.8 points per game, which ranked 18th nationally. They allowed 313 yards per game, which ranked 17th.

That is not fake.

Virginia was legitimately good on defense.

The third-down numbers were even better.

Virginia converted 49% of its own third downs, which was one of the best marks in the country. On defense, the Cavaliers allowed opponents to convert only 29% of their third downs.

That is how you win games.

You stay on the field when you have the ball. You get off the field when you do not.

It sounds simple, but that was a huge part of Virginia’s season.

Now the question is whether they can do that again.

The returning defensive pieces are solid. Fisher Camac and Jason Hammond are back on the defensive line. Kam Robinson is back at linebacker. Ethan Minter and Donovan Platt are back in the secondary.

Virginia also added help. Zion Wilson comes in from East Carolina, and Brandyn Hillman comes in from Michigan as one of the bigger transfer names in the secondary.

There are also several new defensive backs on the roster, which tells you the staff knew it needed more depth and competition.

The defense should still be good.

But can it be that good again?

That is harder.

Being elite on third down is not easy to repeat. Sometimes it is a sign of a great defense. Sometimes it is a sign of a defense that was good and also got the right breaks at the right time.

Virginia cannot afford a big regression there.

If the offense takes a step back without Morris and Taylor, the defense may have to carry even more weight.

That is a lot to ask.

SCHEDULE

I actually do not hate the schedule for Virginia.

The Cavaliers open against NC State in Brazil, which is technically a non-conference game even though both teams are in the ACC.

I still do not love that.

When two teams from the same conference play each other, it feels strange that it does not count in the conference standings. We saw last year how weird tiebreakers can get in the ACC. These games can matter, even when they technically do not.

But it should be a fun opener.

And at least nobody has a true home-field advantage. Both teams have to make the long trip. Both staffs have to figure out how to handle it. Both teams are dealing with something unusual.

After that, Virginia gets Norfolk State, West Virginia and Delaware at home.

So the Cavaliers play three of their first four games at home, with the only trip being a neutral-site game.

That is a nice start.

Then comes Florida State on Oct. 3.

That game will have some edge to it because of what happened last year. You know Mike Norvell and that new-look FSU team will remember.

After that, Virginia hosts Syracuse, goes to SMU, then hosts Duke in a rematch of last year’s ACC Championship Game.

It would be great if that game mattered again.

The rest of the schedule is manageable, at least from a travel standpoint. Virginia goes to Wake Forest on Halloween, gets a bye, hosts Cal, hosts North Carolina, and then finishes at Virginia Tech.

The big thing?

Virginia does not have any back-to-back road trips.

The Cavaliers do not travel to Cal or Stanford.

They only play four true road games all season: Florida State, SMU, Wake Forest and Virginia Tech.

And eight of their 12 games are played in the state of Virginia.

That matters.

This is not an easy schedule, but it is not a brutal travel schedule either.

OUTLOOK

Virginia is one of the hardest teams in the ACC to figure out.

Last year was incredible.

It was also the kind of year that is hard to repeat.

The Cavaliers had the right quarterback. They had a 1,000-yard running back. The defense was top 20 nationally. The third-down numbers were outstanding. They won the games they needed to win and gave the program one of the best seasons it has ever had.

Now a lot changes.

Chandler Morris is gone.

J’Mari Taylor is gone.

The receiver room is unproven.

The defense has to prove those third-down numbers were sustainable.

That is the concern.

The optimistic case is easy to make too.

Virginia has three offensive linemen back. It brought in two experienced quarterbacks. It added multiple running backs. The defense still has important pieces. The schedule avoids the worst ACC travel spots. The Cavaliers get plenty of games in their home state.

That gives them a chance.

The best-case scenario is that Beau Pribula settles in quickly, one of the transfer backs becomes the lead guy, a receiver emerges, and the defense stays strong enough to keep Virginia in the ACC race.

If that happens, Virginia can be good again.

The worst-case scenario is that the offense misses Morris badly, the receiver room never gets sorted out, the defense regresses on third down, and last year starts to look like the perfect storm.

Virginia is probably still a good football team.

But I am not ready to pick the Cavaliers to get back to the ACC Championship Game.

That does not mean they can’t. Tony Elliott already proved they can get there. The schedule gives them a path. The line of scrimmage pieces give them a chance.

I just need to see the new quarterback, the new backs and the receivers before I buy the full repeat.

Last year, Virginia gave college football one of its best stories.

This year, the Cavaliers have to prove it was more than a moment.

Full disclosure: I use AI tools to format my research into an article encompassing all of the information.