Last year, the Cavaliers’ home victory over No. 8 Florida State can be pointed out as the moment Virginia established themselves as an ACC championship caliber team. Hopes and expectations shot up nearly as quickly as the fans that stormed the field that night. Now, a season later, a loss at the hands of those same Seminoles may spell the return to modest expectations and fair-weather football.
Florida State was picked to finish in the bottom half of the ACC in preseason polls, with Coach Mike Norvell’s job security under serious question. Florida State was a team that many fans feel has recently misused its bounty of talent due to questionable discipline and coaching, with the Seminoles cheating themselves out of nearly 70 yards a game due to penalties. Norvell took the program from a 2023 ACC Championship and talks about leaving for the Big 10 to utter collapse, posting a two-win season the next year. The disorder and tension in Tallahassee makes Florida State a should-win game for any team touting conference championship aspirations.
Coach Tony Elliott’s mantra “ABC 123” outright declares Virginia's hopes to win such games, with the 1-2-3 signifying a goal to win a third conference championship. On Oct. 3, that goal was severely dampened.
Through much of the first quarter, Virginia established themselves well, forcing punts on Florida State's first three possessions, pushing a drive of their own into the endzone and silencing a hostile home crowd. The second quarter, however, could only be described as a meltdown on every front. The Cavaliers totaled negative 12 yards while the defense collapsed, surrendering 218.
The loss in Tallahassee featured several issues previously seen in Virginia’s first loss of the season to West Virginia. An inability to contain a run game featuring a capable running quarterback, an offense that sputters when the run game is slow to get moving, dropped passes, crippling penalties and an inability to mount momentum while behind in the game. In the week between losses, the Cavaliers put a beatdown on Delaware. The 42-3 victory was a “get-right” opportunity following the loss to the Mountaineers, but evidently, whatever they got right did not carry over to ACC-level opponents.
“We knew it was going to be a hard-fought battle,” Elliott said. “We missed some opportunities, when we needed to fully flip the momentum we couldn’t, missed some tackles, missed some plays on offense, a couple of dropped balls and before you know it, we couldn’t get it flipped.”
Virginia’s issues are proving to be systemic, and center around pillars of any great team. The ability to win at the line of scrimmage, which many thought would be a strength behind one of the most experienced offensive lines in college football, was nowhere to be seen. Fifth-year quarterback Beau Pribula was sacked an eye-popping 10 times and the rushing offense totaled 37 yards all game. The defensive front similarly struggled, failing to contain graduate quarterback Ashton Daniels who rushed for a school record five touchdowns.
“We knew that [Daniels’] legs would potentially be a problem, we were hoping we could keep him in the pocket and not let him extend plays,” Elliott said. “A couple times we lost contain … unfortunately misfit the run there on the long one, and he took it the distance.”
The offense was unable to adapt or push the ball downfield when behind. Pribula completed just 44 percent of his passes, a number that dropped to 34 percent once Virginia was behind. Collapsing pockets, dropped receptions and offline passes all played a role in the fruitless air attack.
Finally, the Cavaliers could never swing any momentum. After their first touchdown, the Seminoles scored on more than half their drives, staying in excellent offensive rhythm and continuing to wear down the defense. Virginia entered the game having gone 11 for 13 on pivotal fourth down conversions. They failed to convert on any of their four fourth down attempts in Tallahassee.
The traits the Cavaliers lack lie at the bedrock of almost any playoff hopeful team, yet they have been exposed in both losses thus far in the season. Meanwhile, the quality of their earlier loss against West Virginia hangs in question as the Mountaineers just suffered a loss against an Iowa State team that was picked to finish dead last in their conference and returned zero starting players outside of their kicker from 2025.
The remaining teams on Virginia’s schedule continue to shape up better with each passing week. The Mustangs are currently ranked in the AP top 25, Wake Forest has a pair of conference victories and played national power house Miami to their closest margin of the year, Duke remains undefeated and Virginia Tech has the second-best offense in the ACC behind the aforementioned Hurricanes.
Ultimately it comes down to the coaches and the players to make the corrections needed to get the season back on track.
“First it starts with me,” Elliott said, “So I got to do a better job from a leadership standpoint … We got young men in there who care, that want to do well. They’ll come in on Monday wanting to fix it, They’ll be looking for answers.”
Virginia could not “get-right” between their first two losses, and now they lack much breathing room and time to right the ship. The clock is ticking on those answers and on the ACC championship window.
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