Just over three weeks ago, No. 17 Virginia took a successful trip down to North Carolina for a must-win contest against Duke. Saturday, the Cavaliers (10-2, 7-1 ACC) are trying to run it back to complete a sweep of the Blue Devils (7-5, 6-2 ACC), except this time, their destination is Charlotte, rather than Durham.
Virginia’s trouncing of Virginia Tech last Saturday punched their ticket to the ACC Championship game. The Blue Devils, meanwhile, snuck in after their own defeat of North Carolina and a Southern Methodist loss to California last week.
Both teams faced similarly long odds to reach this point — Virginia was picked to finish 14th in ACC preseason polls and Duke has experienced tough out of conference losses that have left them just one game over .500. Despite this, the way the leaders of these programs view their respective journeys could not be more different.
Prior to the Cavaliers’ first meeting with the Blue Devils, multiple players, such as graduate safety Devin Neal, expressed a common message, passed down from Coach Tony Elliott. In order to perform when performance is necessary, players must execute, focus and fight as if every game is a championship game. Elliott has continued to preach this perspective in his media availability.
“Here we are … in the championship phase of the season,” Elliott said, “Doesn't matter who we're playing, and we're prepared to win a one-score game in the fourth quarter.”
This approach is of similar ilk to the typical no excuses and “game of inches” mantras that Elliott has consistently communicated throughout his coaching tenure at Virginia. While greater resources, an improved roster and an easier schedule have been factors in 2025 success, it is hard not to partially credit the impact of Elliott-isms on this locker room’s culture for the second double-digit win team in school history.
“The staff did an unbelievable job with the spots that we had available, of finding the right guys,” Elliott said, “The rest was up to the young men in the locker room and their belief and their willingness to commit.”
Coach Manny Diaz, the main man in Durham, has a different perspective on his team’s journey. Diaz, when asked about whether Duke would deserve a College Football Playoff appearance even with five losses, bemoaned the difficulty of his team’s out of conference schedule.
“Records have a lot to do with schedules, right?” Diaz said. “We have five losses. We wish we'd have played better in those games. We lost to two 10-win teams, two nine-win teams and an eight-win team.”
Whether Duke would deserve a CFP berth or not with a win in the conference championship, Diaz’s message of arguing that the college football world has a problem contrasts sharply with Elliott’s perspective, which tends more toward “you play the team in front of you,” Virginia does not have to worry about the state of the CFP landscape. All the Cavaliers need is a win, nothing more and nothing less.
A win, however, won’t come easy. While they have faced the Blue Devils before and came away victorious, there is no guarantee a second meeting plays to their advantage. Graduate running back J’Mari Taylor, recently named First Team All-ACC, spoke to the difficulty that a rematch presents, while also calling back to his coach’s platitudes.
“It's hard to beat the team twice. Can't think just because you beat them the first time, it's going to happen the same way the second time,” Taylor said, “We're both … fired up, and it's really whoever can do the little things better. It'll come down to the inches during the game.”
Graduate center Brady Wilson, who has been the anchor for the offense this season even during periods of struggle, echoed Taylor.
“Everybody says it's hard to beat a team twice, but the biggest thing is just don't beat yourself,” Wilson said, “None of the points are going to carry over from the last game. Just got to do our thing and just go out there and just play ball.”
Although Duke’s offense was limited in the first iteration of the matchup, they are still led by sophomore Second Team All-ACC quarterback Darian Mensah. By the conclusion of Virginia’s last meeting with Duke, Cavalier pass rushers had sacked Mensah four times and the run defense held the attack to 1.8 yards per carry.
Elliott and his offensive and defensive coordinators, Des Kitchings and John Rudzinski, will certainly adjust their gameplan, but so will Diaz and his staff. In the mind of Rudzinski, the outcome of Saturday’s contest rests on the shoulders of the players, rather than the gameplan.
“When you get a sack, it's all about players. There's no schematics that get you a sack,” Rudzinski said, “It's the challenge every week of making sure our guys can anticipate and for us as coaches to give them an edge.”
On the other side of the ball, Kitchings is seeking improvement from the previous meeting, despite the victory.
“We don't want to replicate having to be in 19 third downs, so we obviously got to do better on first and second down,” Kitchings said.
The Cavaliers have been playing championship games all year, and now they face an opponent where the same is definitionally true for the first time.
Xander Tilock contributed reporting.
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