Mike London is no stranger to Charlottesville homecomings at this point as he prepares to guide William & Mary for the fourth time against Virginia, where he was an assistant for six years and head coach for six more.
“The human element of it is, I spent a large part of my career there as an assistant coach and a head coach,” London said. “There’s a lot of people there that I know and I appreciate and there were experiences there, some good, some bad, but mostly good.”
All four of London’s trips back to Scott Stadium have more or less ended the same. The Tribe have lost all three games by an average of 30.6 points with his only matchup against Tony Elliott being the closest margin, a 27-13 loss during a 3-9 season for the Cavaliers in 2023. In fact, William & Mary as a program has not won a game against an FBS opponent since 2009, when the Tribe upset Virginia 26-14 in London’s predecessor Al Groh’s final season with the Cavaliers.
Those FCS over FBS upsets have become more rare in college football due to realignment, NIL, and now revenue sharing. According to Sports Illustrated, from 2009 to 2018 there were at least five FBS upsets every season with a spike in 2013 of 16. Since 2021, there have not been more than 10 in a single season, with only four in 2023.
So what’s the benefit for a program like London’s?
“We look forward to going up there and try to meet a challenge that these kids say they want to have,” London said. “When you’re an FCS program, you want to play FBS teams and be in those arenas and those stadiums, on the television networks and all of those things.”
While exposure is a real benefit both for the program and players, the real answer though is the same for anything in college sports: money. William & Mary will receive a payout of $420,000 for its game this Saturday at Virginia, which is largely middle of the pack for these types of payments. According to Sports Illustrated, the Grambling State Tigers received one million dollars for their trip to Ohio State, who also gifted them a 70-0 loss. This money is typically a primary source of funding for FCS programs, who build entire operating budgets around the payout.
Recently, North Carolina A&T was paid $475,000 to play at UCF this past weekend, according to The Orlando Sentinel. The Aggies ended up losing 68-7, but even worse were the amount of injuries that piled up during the game. North Carolina A&T coach Shawn Gibbs said his team lost three quarterbacks during the game, but a freshman quarterback played “40 plays with a broken collarbone because we didn’t have anybody else.”
For Gibbs, the question entered his mind, is $475,000 worth it?
“Honestly, for our team, I don’t think it’s worth it,” Gibbs said postgame. “We got 60+ points put on us and we lost 3 quarterbacks. For me, yeah it was a good environment, great platform, but is that worth it?”
Virginia will host William & Mary this Saturday, a potentially soft landing for the Cavaliers after a heartbreaking loss to NC State in Raleigh last week. This will be the 17th straight season UVA will play host to a team from the FCS with 2007 the last time they did not face a team from the lower division.
Unlike his predecessor, Elliott is unbeaten against FCS opponents at 3-0 and relishes the chance to play in-state programs like William & Mary and Richmond.
“I think it’s important for the game of football,” Elliott said. “I think it’s important for the state of Virginia from the standpoint of there’s a lot of high school players in the state of Virginia that want to play. And this gives an opportunity for both programs to have exposure.”
But just as there’s a lot to consider for FCS programs moving forward, future scheduling, and these FCS games specifically, are not so straight forward for Elliott and UVA.
First, the looming question over the ACC is whether the conference will move to a 9-game schedule vs. staying at 8 games. The SEC’s historic decision to move to a 9-game conference schedule starting in 2026 may have pushed the dominoes in that direction for the ACC. Elliott is largely in favor of the ACC moving to 9 games going forward and even made reference that the Cavaliers essentially already are playing 9 conference games this season with last week’s non-conference game at NC State, as well as next season’s return trip for the Wolfpack.
“It’s non-conference, [but] it’s an ACC game. That’s how we approached it,” Elliott said. “This is an ACC game for us. So I’m all in favor of playing an additional conference game.”
The trouble is for the ACC, the math just doesn’t add up with 17 teams. This has led to discussions around counting games against Notre Dame, who play a rotating five games against ACC opponents each season, in the conference standings. There is also the possibility of teams playing an uneven amount of ACC games with some playing eight and others nine.
ACC leaders will meet later this fall with an expectation to finalize this subject.
“I think it’s healthy for the, for the game,” Elliott said. “I think it’ll pay dividends long-term too. But for me, I’ve always been the mindset. I’ve never ran away from scheduling from the day I got here. I mean, we jumped on some big ones right out the gate. But I think it’s also helped us continue to grow and build our program.”
Overall, there is a prevailing sentiment from ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips that programs should be playing 10 of their 12 games against Power 4 opponents. This season Virginia will face nine Power 4 programs, plus Washington State, who is in its own conference purgatory until the Pac-12 officially returns next season but was a Power 5 program under the old alignment.
Next season Virginia has scheduled a neutral site matchup against West Virginia in Charlotte and will host NC State for the return trip of the non-conference home-and-home series. But beyond 2026, the Cavaliers’ non-conference schedule is wide open outside of FCS games against William & Mary (2027) and Richmond (2028) after Indiana cancelled a previously scheduled series against Virginia and will pay a $500,000 buyout.
Future Power 4 opponents will continue to be difficult to schedule due to conferences moving to 9 conference games, as seen with Indiana, who opted to schedule games against Kennesaw State instead. Elliott, though, remains committed to playing high-leverage games against Power 4 conference teams, especially early in the season.
“You want to try and schedule the best you can, but you got to put tough games at the beginning of the season,” Elliott said. “Man, how awesome has it been so far in college football to see all these marquee matchups. I bet it’s been fun for y’all. I don’t get to watch them, but it’s fun for me at least follow the scores and see that, you know, all these Power 4 teams are playing each other and they’re playing out of conference.”
How this impacts games against FCS teams going forward also has more to do with the ACC’s new revenue sharing model. The new “brand initiative,” approved earlier in 2025, will be based on a five-year rolling average, where 60% of total ACC television revenue will be weighted towards recent viewership. A program’s total viewership will be divided by the total ACC viewership to equal its percentage of the money available in this pool with the other 40% being equally distributed to all league schools, according to ESPN’s Andrea Adelson.
In short, more television ratings equals more money for each ACC school. Due to this new model, non-conference matchups against other Power 4 schools will in large part draw more viewership as opposed to games against FCS opponents, which traditionally are blowouts with second halves that can drag on. Despite this, Elliott still values these matchups as part of his “ideal” schedule. Although he values Power 4 non-conference games, the need to recover during the season is also valuable in schedule construction.
“You want a schedule to build your team and test your program, I think it’s important,” Elliott said. “But at the same time too, you also, when you're in it, you know how physical an ACC game can be. So you wanna also give your team an opportunity to recover after some physical tough games.”
Elliott also feels these games against FCS opponents are valuable evaluation tools for UVA, even if potential transfer players aren’t playing in the game. Four of Virginia’s 32 transfers come from FCS level schools, which includes starting running back J’Mari Taylor (North Carolina Central), starting nickel cornerback Ja’Son Prevard (Morgan State), and rotation pass rushers Cazeem Moore (Elon) and Daniel Rickert (Tennessee Tech).
FCS games against FBS opponents provide a valuable chance to evaluate the cream of the crop against a higher level of competition in this day and age of the transfer portal.
“They had several players from the last time that we played them that were able to transfer up,” Elliott said. “So I think it’s great for the state, for the bigger schools to play some of the smaller schools to give them a venue to play on this stage, to get the exposure because every kid wants to play Power 4, but there's not enough spots for every kid that’s getting recruited to play at the Power 4 or maybe they’ve got to develop a little bit more.”
On top of that, the vast majority of Virginia’s FCS opponents are in-state schools like William & Mary, Richmond, VMI, and Norfolk State, who have rosters largely made up of in-state players. Despite a rapidly changing college landscape, Elliott sees these FCS matchups staying on the UVA schedule for years to come.
“It’s a great opportunity for them to see, hey, I can go to William & Mary, I can go to these smaller schools and develop and then have an opportunity to compete against the higher level and then possibly maybe elevate my status over time,” Elliott said. “I think it's just good for football. I think it's good for the state when you play these games.”
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