After a somewhat sluggish first half at Scott Stadium, the Virginia football team’s White squad emerged with a better second half and took a 17-9 win in the annual Blue-White Spring Game on Saturday. That wraps up the Hoos’ 15 spring practices and flips the hourglass for the countdown to kickoff in August.
As is often the case with intrasquad scrimmages with modified rules of contact on quarterbacks and special teams, the only public performance of the spring did not provide many answers for the upcoming schedule. The defenses combined for 6 sacks, for example, but those come from touch rules with the quarterbacks off limits to tackle. None came against presumed starter Chandler Morris either as he quarterbacked the White team. Plus, many players that are expected to get snaps this fall, everywhere from linebacker to offensive line to kicker, did not participate.
Ultimately, neither team did much offensively in the first half as the only points came on a White team field goal as time expired. The Blue team squandered an early possession with a turnover on downs inside the 10-yard line after a long drive. Blue then promptly forced a fumble, but again came away with no points on a missed kick from Vadin Bruot.
The points came more freely in the second half with backup quarterbacks and players farther down the depth chart contributing. White team quarterback Gavin Frakes provided the first touchdown of the day midway through the running clock third quarter when he found Kameron Courtney crossing the field for 10-yard score. Later, White team quarterback Boone Lourd flipped a pass out to running back Owen Gardner for a touchdown midway through the running clock fourth quarter when the defense didn’t pick up Gardner when Lourd started to scramble.
For the Blue team, it finally scored a touchdown later in the fourth when Grady Brosterhous threw a 10-yard pass to running back Davis Lane Jr. The final points came in the last minute of the fourth quarter after another Blue team turnover on downs inside the 10. Stevie Bracey got through a gap for safety in the end zone with 3 seconds remaining on the clock.
Still, Tony Elliott liked what the day provided in terms of an evaluation tool for the roster as a whole. The teachable moments from penalties that short-circuited some drives after positive plays to kickoff coverage on that late safety to red zone offense (he said he would thought both teams left up to 10 points on the field each in the first half) were all beneficial in his mind. That’s one reason he opted to keep a Spring Game this year when others across the country have decided against it.
“The reason why we’re doing this and I chose for our program to have a Spring Game is I need guys to see the impact of a penalty,” Elliott said. “It’s a little different in practice than the game. We had big plays, drive starters, where we’re getting off to a good start and boom we got a penalty. Now it stalls a drive because we can’t overcome it. A lot of good work from my perspective and a lot of situations that hard to recreate. We had two-minute situations at the end of each half. We got a kick after a safety. Just things that are harder to practice that I’m glad came up today.”
So what more did the Spring Game show? Here are some takeaways from the day at Scott Stadium.
Multiple Sacks
As mentioned above, the defenses combined for 6 sacks on a day where they didn’t have to tackle the quarterback fully to the ground. Given how the last two seasons have gone, that’s a priority for the D to improve. The Hoos ranked 16th in the ACC and 6th worst nationally among Power 4 teams with just 19 sacks last season and tied for last nationally in that category the previous year with only 11.
Billy Koudelka, a potential rising star for Virginia, logged 4 sacks for the White team while safety Devin Neal snuck in there for one as well. The Blue team’s lone sack came from Jewett Hayes. With both Koudelka and Hayes having four full years of eligibility still in hand, that’s a good sign for the younger guys on the roster. They were able to win a couple of one on one battles and get the touch sack under this format where creative or heavy pressure wasn’t schemed.
On the flipside, Fisher Camac and Mitchell Melton, the two edge rushers from the transfer portal that played Saturday (Cazeem Moore sat with an injury) did not have a sack. Camac and the Blue team didn’t get into position much for sacks.
The production also came against offensive line groupings that likely won’t resemble the final mix in the fall. McKale Boley, Blake Steen, and Noah Josey sat all spring for example. Other possible rotation pieces in Drake Metcalf, Noah Hartsoe, and Ethan Sipe have worked back from injuries this spring. Plus, presumed starter Monroe Mills is now out for the season with an ACL injury. There are still lots of questions to be answered.
Virginia Tight Ends Might Be Able To Contribute More Than Expected
Offensively, the tight ends that played Saturday had a solid day. On the White team, Hayden Rollison made 4 catches for 39 yards and Dakota Twitty had 2 catches for 51 yards with both going 20+. For Blue, John Rogers had 2 catches for 24 yards and Henry Omohundro had 1 for 8 yards.
Added up, that’s 9 receptions for 122 yards. That included 29 yards after the catch.
For a team that must replace most of its receiving production overall from last season and its top tight end, that’s a good sign. Tyler Neville finished second for UVA last season with 37 catches for 394 yards. He also tied for second on the team with 2 receiving touchdowns.
Twitty has been one of the big gainers this spring as he continues his switch from wideout to tight end made last year. He looks like a sure-handed target after a couple of good catches in the Spring Game. If the Hoos can get solid work from Twitty, work Sage Ennis back in from injury, and then get decent production from others in this group, that could be a positive development for the 2025 campaign.
“Now you’ve got three guys so you add to the equation,” Elliott said. “Now, can they be consistent and productive? I believe so. And I think you can gain more because now you have strengths from three different guys and it gives you some depth. It was good to see those guys catch some balls. Those are plays, 3rd-and-9, 3rd-and-8, you’ve gotta throw it up the seam based off what the coverage gives you and having big bodies that can go up and get it is really, really positive.”
Multiple Receivers Look Ready
Receivers are the other part of the passing game that must be figured out after UVA lost Malachi Fields and his team-leading 55 catches for 808 yards and 5 touchdowns to the transfer portal. The Hoos believe that Trell Harris, the top returning receiver after posting 15 catches for 221 yards and 2 touchdowns in four games last fall, will be able to be productive, but the rest is a puzzle still being fit into place.
Virginia proved active in the transfer portal when it brought in Jahmal Edrine from Purdue, Cam Ross from JMU, and Jayden Thomas for Notre Dame. The Cavaliers also targeted high school recruits that they hope can contribute early in Josiah Abdullah and Dillon Newton-Short. Throw in Kameron Courtney and Andre Greene Jr. as guys that played last season for the first time at UVA that are trying to factor in more this season.
The Virginia Spring Game gave the first glimpse at all of those options for the first time in 2025 in a public game setting (Suderian Harrison is another guy in this category, but he sat out with an ankle sprain). Many of those guys flashed some plays at Scott Stadium.
For the White team, Edrine had 4 catches for 44 yards as the receiver with the most catches on the day. Ross added 3 receptions for 28 yards, while Newton-Short had 2 for 43 yards. Courtney scored the first touchdown of the day on a 10-yard catch and he finished with 2 receptions for 32 yards. On the Blue team, Abdullah led the way with 3 catches for 47 yards as the receiver with the most yardage on the day. Thomas added 2 receptions for 32 yards as well.
Those players finished with 16 catches for 226 yards. White team quarterbacks Chandler Morris (12-15, 155 yards, 0/0 TD/INT), Gavin Frakes (7-10, 72 yards, 1/0 TD/INT), and Boone Lourd (2-5, 40 yards, 1/0 TD/INT) accounted for the passing yards on that side. For Blue, Daniel Kaelin (6-12, 67 yards, 0/0 TD/INT) and Grady Brosterhous (6-16, 93 yards, 1/1 TD/INT) posted the yardage.
For one afternoon at least, the receivers looked like a group that has some pieces for potentially versatile mixes like speed lineups, big lineups, or things like that.
“That’s still to be determined as we continue to evaluate and figure out what is the best rotation of guys,” Virginia offensive coordinator Des Kitchings said. “We moved Andre from the Z to the X and he had a pretty good at the X so there’s flexibility there. Jahmal can be a big body at X for us. You see Dillon Newton-Short as a freshman come up and make a couple of plays. What kind of growth does the make over the summer to be a contributor? You’ve got Jayden Thomas, JT, another bigger body in there with some playing experience. Slot receiver, Kam Courtney is another kid that had a really good spring, he’s really comfortable. ... He’s playing at a high level right now. Josiah in there in the slot. Obviously Suderian, Cam Ross, Trell [Harris]. So there’s some pieces. What is the best combination of it as we continue to go through the summer and fall.”
J’Mari Taylor. Ja’Son Prevard, & Maddox Marcellus Handled First Test Of Step Up
Virginia brought in three players from the transfer portal this winter that will be making the step up from the Football Championship Subdivision to the Football Bowl Subdivision. J’Mari Taylor played running back at North Carolina Central, Ja’Son Prevard played defensive back at Morgan State, and Maddox Marcellus played linebacker at Eastern Kentucky. All three played Saturday and handled the FBS Spring Game setting.
Taylor, on the Blue team, finished with 9 carries for a day-high 52 rushing yards. On the first drive of the game, he was featured heavily and showed the ability to break tackles or get carries inside or outside. On the first play of the game even, he got to the edge for a big gain that was negated by a holding call, but he looked like a player with more speed than maybe perceived from the portal. The 5’9”, 204-pound native of North Carolina posted 1,882 yards in his career at Central, but it looks like he can translate that up a level and give the Hoos some depth at running back.
Marcellus also played on Blue and tallied 4 tackles. The 6’2”, 228-pound linebacker was active and moved fairly well through space. He had 97 tackles last season at EKU with 1 interception and 1 fumble return for touchdown. Playing defense on the opposite side for the Whit team, Prevard recorded 3 tackles and made an interception on the final hail mary pass of the game. He moved well on the outside and did not look uncomfortable, even after spending a large chunk of spring on the inside at nickel. He did play corner for Morgan State.
Obviously, this just the first step in a controlled setting. For Marcellus and Prevard, there weren’t schemes to attack them directly on defense and they had seen many of the same plays all spring long. There will be a time in the fall that opponents will try to test them more if they can (see Virginia corner Jam Jackson last fall when he moved up from Robert Morris) and the response will be evaluated. For Taylor, the key in the fall will be the players around him - if the gaps open up, though, he looks like someone that can instinctively pick a spot and get yards on the board.
Myles Brown & Stevie Bracey Provided Production To Virginia Defense
The Blue team had two of the top tacklers on the day with Myles Brown and Stevie Bracey combining for 19 tackles.
Brown led all players with 11 tackles (6 solo, 5 assists). Brown forced the early fumble that Hunter Osborne recovered too. The 6’3”, 220-pound redshirt freshman (listed as a sophomore on the roster, but he did not play in any games last fall) also slid back to a safety spot during the game to help with depth issues in the secondary even though he had not practiced there.
Bracey, meanwhile, made 8 tackles (4 solo, 4 assists). That included the safety late in the game to give 2 points to his team. Bracey had a pass breakup as part of his stat line as well.
Both players benefited from extra reps at linebacker this spring (along with Marcellus and others) and that paid dividends in Saturday’s scrimmage setting. In Bracey’s case, it also helped shake off rust after he missed last season with an injury. Virginia plans to have Kam Robinson, Trey McDonald, and James Jackson back in the fall after all three were among the team’s top 7 tacklers last season. With the added reps for others this spring, that appears to have built some depth for the unit.
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