It’s been a while since Virginia has been here. As the dawn of the 2026 college football season approaches, hope springs anew for each team. But for the Cavaliers, this time that hope comes with weighty expectations.
For the first time since the 2020 preseason, following an Orange Bowl appearance the previous season under former Coach Bronco Mendenhall, Virginia football finds themselves receiving votes in both the AP and Coaches Polls as a fringe Top 25 team. For the first time under Coach Tony Elliott, the Cavaliers are not simply an afterthought.
Although Virginia garnered no first-place votes from media members at the ACC Football Kickoff, they were the highest-ranked team without a first-place vote, at sixth overall. In doing so, they narrowly edged out a crowded middle-of-the-pack grouping in the ACC, sliding just ahead of their opponents in the season opener and closer — NC State and Virginia Tech, respectively.
Elliott, the beneficiary of a contract extension keeping him on Grounds through the conclusion of the decade, notes that while the past has been challenging for the Cavaliers, the future road is also paved with difficulty.
“I think that everyone knows the road that we’ve been on,” Elliott said at the 2026 ACC Football Kickoff July 15. “What we were able to experience last year was just that vision coming to life, but it is not possible without the sacrifice and commitment of the fanbase, the donor base, the administration, our players, our staff … Now the biggest challenge going forward is just sustaining that excellence, right?”
Elliott talks often of his goal for Virginia as a “model program” in college football. In a new world of collegiate athletics, he believes that aim is still possible.
“That vision from day one was to become the model. Remember, that was four years ago,” Elliott said. “The landscape was starting to change, but now it's completely different. But I still think the vision holds true, and what I mean by ‘being a model’ is that we pursue excellence in all that we do … that doesn’t mean perfection. We talk a lot about building champion men, and all of us have a chance to win championships daily.”
Elliott believes that he himself cannot be the center of the program, and that being player-centered is important to the goals and aspirations of a program likely to have countless eyes upon it.
“It’s their program,” Elliott said to Brennan Armstrong in an interview with Corner Media published April 18. “From day one, if you remember, I never referenced it as ‘this is Tony Elliott’s program.’ It’s Virginia football. This is Virginia football, and it is about the players.”
Climbing up the mountain is different than being near the top, though — and Elliott recognizes this. Even still, the tools that get one up the mountain are useful, as he has noted to his players in preparation for the season.
“The message has been [to] keep it simple,” Elliot said. “Let’s not panic or think that we have to reinvent the wheel. Let’s just double down on the core values and the things that produced the success of the last season.”
Overall, there is more hubbub around the Cavaliers than in previous years. Expected demand seems to have increased to the point that students must now request a ticket to football games in advance. Alongside this is a now-successful push to “Sell Out Scott” resulting in the home stadium’s first sellout since 2008.
The hype for the Cavaliers continues off Grounds, too. Beyond receiving votes in polling, the Cavaliers find themselves in the midst of bowl projections — a place foreign to the program for a number of years. CBS Sports’ most recent projection has Virginia slotted in for the Gasparilla Bowl.
In advance of that opening against an NC State squad that defeated the Cavaliers last year, expectations are high out of the gate. The Wolfpack are a more difficult caliber of opponent than the previous two season openers against Coastal Carolina and Richmond. Preparation for that game has been important.
“We’ve been waiting on this game all year,” fourth-year linebacker Kam Robinson said to an ACC Network panel at ACC Kickoff July 15. “It’s been hitting it home as far as, like, we’ve got to win … they got us last year, so going [into] this summer was more so, how good can we train? How on track [can we] be?”
Robinson has his own set of expectations too, following a standout 2025 shortened by injury. He targets a return in the opener, but before a snap has been played, he has received media attention from three trophy watchlists — the Chuck Bednarik Award for most outstanding defensive player, the Butkus Award for top linebackers and the Bronko Nagurski Trophy for defensive players.
When asked about moving forward following 2025, Robinson credited Elliott for keeping the team in a good mindset without resting on their laurels.
“[Elliott] tells us every day we just can’t get complacent, we’ve got to come in every day and attack the day,” Robinson said. “There’s no off days.”
Even incoming fifth year quarterback Beau Pribula felt the weight of continuing recent success when he decided to come to Virginia.
“A lot of success last year,” Pribula said. “A lot of my decision [was] based off of that. Just the upward trajectory of the program.”
Going into the season, expectations are everything. Regardless of what is said about the program or tickets sold, though, results on the field — and how the players respond to those expectations — will be what matters following kickoff Aug. 29.
“I feel like we got to make our own juice,” Robinson said. “We can’t depend on what we did last year … [we have to] make stuff happen this year.”
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