The Virginia football team started ACC play back in Week 0 with an emphatic 34-8 win against NC State that conjured up hopes for another season full of wins. UVA returned to conference play Saturday and opened October with a disconcerting 38-7 loss at Florida State that rekindled worries of a fall-back season.
A shock to that score is understandable. After taking a 7-0 lead, things unraveled quickly in the second quarter and the Hoos never found a way to recover. The statistics show just how far the momentum shifted.
The Seminoles outgained the visitors 464-205, including 281-37 in rushing yards. State converted 6 of 12 third downs, while Virginia managed just 3 of 19 conversions on third and fourth down attempts. UVA finished 0-4 on fourth down with one of those coming on the first drive of the third quarter. After getting the ball first to start the second half while still trailing just 17-7, the Cavaliers moved the ball over 8 plays all the way to the FSU 22-yard line. Facing 4th-and-1, coach Tony Elliott elected to go for it but the run play for Xavier Brown was stuffed for no gain. He had picked up 10 yards on his previous 2 carries.
That moment didn't exclusively create the outcome, but it did give a glimpse into the type of day the Hoos had. It was an afternoon of missed chances, spotty execution, critical mistakes, and aggressive coaching calls gone wrong. Once Florida State wrestled away the momentum with a 17-0 second quarter, a comeback never even perculated in the second half.
"We knew it was going to be a hard fought battle," Elliott said. "I thought that we missed some opportunities and when we needed to fully flip the momentum, we couldn't. We missed some tackles, missed some plays on offense, couple of dropped balls and before you know it, the momentum had fully changed and we couldn't get it flipped."
Individually, Florida State quarterback Ashton Daniels dominated the numbers. He posted 17 carries for 136 rushing yards with 5 touchdowns, that production coming despite 32 lost yards on 4 sacks. Those sacks came from UVA's Anthony Britton, Fisher Camac, Matthew Fobbs-White, and Donavon Platt. Daniels also completed 12 of 19 passes for 183 yards with an interception, that one turnover coming on a bobbled ball by receiver Jayvan Boggs that popped out into the arms Virginia defensive back Corey Costner.
Ousmane Kromah added 80 rushing yards on 17 carries, while Quintrevion Wisner chipped in 9 carries for 46 yards. Wisner also had 60 receiving yards, while Micahi Danzy led the way with 70. Defensively, Ethan Minter and Brandyn Hillman led the Hoos with 7 tackles each.
For the Cavaliers on offense, Beau Pribula completed 14 of 32 passes for 168 yards and 1 touchdown. Da'Shawn Martin led the receivers with 4 catches for 35 yards and that TD, while Isaiah Robinson added 2 catches for 41 yards. Running back Jekail Middlebrook 10 carries for 65 yards plus 2 catches for 24 yards. Florida State's defense got home for 10 sacks, the most allowed in a game since 2024 for the Hoos, that led to 68 lost yards. Rylan Kennedy led the way there with 2 sacks for the hosts.
Long story short, Florida State won the battle of explosive plays offensively and negative plays created defensively. The special teams were mostly a wash, though UVA's Daniel Sparks did average 56.7 yards per punt on 7 attempts with 4 inside the 20-yard line and a 73-yarder in the mix.
Beyond the run-away performance from a FSU team considered to be on shaky ground before the game and the lopsided statistics, this outcome for Virginia raised plenty of questions. Whether that's the play of the offensive line, Pribula's work at QB, play-calling, tackling on defense, or defending mobile quarterbacks, there's plenty to ponder.
But the main question remains the theme of the season, the question of expectations or exceptions. Were the 11 wins of 2025 a fluke or a breakthrough? Recent results are not encouraging on that front.
The 31-point defeat at Florida State marked the second loss in three games by double digits for the Hoos. They also dropped a neutral site game to West Virginia, 38-27, and the Mountaineers have followed that up with back-to-back losses. UVA lost just three games a year ago by a combined 18 points. The two setbacks of this fall don't resemble the generally competitive feel of last season, but are looking more like earlier in the Elliott era when 14 losses came by double figures.
Elliott said after the game that he's a glass half full guy and that this team has to get back to work as the season approaches the halfway point. Virginia's sixth game is on deck next Saturday when Syracuse comes to Charlottesville for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.
"Everybody's got ownership in it, starting with me. It starts with me," Elliott said. "I've got to do a better job of making sure they're prepared and ready to play, fully understand the plan and are ready to go execute it. I love my guys. We're going to go back to work. It's a great group of young men. It was a tough day at the office. We're going to own it, take accountability for it, and we don't have a long time to hang our head about it. We've got to go back to work on Monday 'cause we've got a good Syracuse team coming into the house. We'll fix the problems that we've got, but everybody's got ownership. The challenge is for all of us to take the accountability necessary so that we can go work on it and fix it."
Terrible Tackling, Containment Issues
One of the keys in the Sabre pregame article was to "Contain & Tackle" because the Seminoles thrive on big plays. They had rattled off 26 plays of 20+ yards entering this week (tied for 13th nationally). The Cavaliers did not execute this key well in Tallahassee.
Tackling was a major problem in the game, particularly in the final three quarters. Elliott mentioned it at least three separate times during his postgame press conference. Florida State finished with 13 big plays in the stats (runs of 10+ yards, passes of 15+ yards). That included 3 passes of 48, 33, and 22 yards plus runs of 81, 36, and 20 yards from Daniels.
The momentum also began to swing due to a missed tackle. Sparks had pinned the Seminoles at the 2-yard line late in the first quarter with a 51-yard punt and the teams switched ends after the first play of the ensuing drive. As the second quarter started, UVA had pushed FSU to a 3rd-and-3 play when Daniels dumped a pass out to Kromah out in the flats. Minter made first contact short of the sticks and defensive back Jacobie Henderson came forward to potentially finish off the play to force a punt. Instead, Minter spun off his tackle and Henderson didn't wrap up either.
That moved the chains and it turned into an 8-play, 98-yard touchdown drive that tied the score at 7-7.
This is the fourth straight game where tackling has been an issue. Pro Football Focus rated Virginia below average against Norfolk State, West Virginia, and Delaware with tackling grades of 60.1, 55.0, and 60.7 in those contests. The initial PFF take for this game handed out an extremely poor 35.4 for this loss.
"A lot of it is we've got to do a better job of wrapping when we tackle to get ball carriers on the ground," Elliott said. "There were several explosive plays that came after we had contact on the ball carriers so we've got to a good job, we've all got to strain a little bit harder to make sure that we prepare them better, coach them better, and challenge them to go out and execute to the best of their ability."
Containing the quarterback has been an issue for the defense too. On the drive mentioned above, Daniels capped it off with a rushing touchdown on a read option keeper where he was untouched and the defense didn't set the edge. Later in the game, he burst through the middle on a designed quarterback lead run for an 81-yard touchdown play. That wasn't the only time he found plenty of running room up the middle whether that was on a call or from stepping up in the pocket. Some of that on pass plays may be a product of heavy looping/stunting on the defensive line as UVA tries to generate some pass rush that it's not getting often enough otherwise.
Daniels finished with 17 carries for 136 rushing yards and 5 touchdowns as noted above. The Cavaliers have allowed 259 yards rushing and 8 rushing touchdowns by the opposing quarterbacks in their losses. Michael Hawkins Jr. had 123 and 3 for WVU before Daniels bested him with the 136 and 5 in this matchup.
"He's a big, 225-pound guy that can run behind his pads and if you misfit a gap there, then he showed he can take it the distance," Elliott said. "We knew that his legs would potentially be a problem and we were hoping that we would be able to keep him in the pocket and not let him extend plays. Couple times, we lost contain and let him get on the edge and he was able to extend the play. Unfortunately, misfit the run there on the long one and he took it the distance."
Beau Pribula Struggles Away From Home
Virginia had similar running success with its quarterback way back in the season opener when Pribula rushed for 110 yards against NC State. The offense isn't getting nearly that much room lately. Pribula had -1 yards on the ground against WVU and landed at -62 yards at FSU. Sacks are obviously pulling those numbers down, but he only had 35 rushing yards gained in those games and the lost yards wiped out the positives there.
Elliott said for this game, that Florida State did a good job of swallowing up potential scrambles and then the Hoos went away from quarterback runs when the score separated.
"I think it was a function of how the game started flowing," Elliott said. "I thought there were a couple of times where he tried to pull it down to get started, but they got him on the ground before he could really impact the game with his legs. Now you're trying to stay ahead of the chains but also produce some chunk plays. Your run game wasn't as effective or even your primary thought especially when you're chasing points there the latter part of the game."
Without the threat of the QB run or enough of a passing counter in the two losses, opposing defenses have loaded the box to stuff runs, ramped up the pressure to overwhelm pass protection, and kept the Cavaliers off schedule on a lot of drives. Facing 2nd-and-long or 3rd-and-long too often, Pribula isn't managing the offense as well. That shows up in late adjustments to protection that lead to some hurried late play clock snaps or on what looks like some delayed decision-making at times. There's also been some missed windows for quick throws.
It's showing up in the statistics. Pribula has been really good at home in Scott Stadium, but dramatically different in games away from Charlottesville. Obviously, competition level has a little bit to do with that as UVA simply overpower Norfolk State and Delaware in recent home games, but the splits still don't look great
Pribula completed 45 of 53 passes (84.9%) for 596 yards and 9 touchdowns in the three games at home. On the flipside, he completed 35 of 65 passes (53.8%) for 365 yards and 3 touchdowns away from home. That's a completion rate drop of 31.1%, while yards per attempt plummets from 11.2 to 5.6.
This isn't a Virginia only situation. In Pribula's year as a starter for Missouri, he completed 126 of 173 passes (72.8%) for 1,365 yards and 11 touchdowns at home. When the Tigers traveled, though, he completed 56 of 97 passes (57.7%) for 576 yards with 0 touchdowns. That's a completion rate drop of 15.1% and a yards per attempt drop of 2.0 yards.
With the pattern repeating in Tallahassee on Saturday, Elliott said there was some conversation among the coaching staff of maybe switching to backup quarterback Eli Holstein. Ultimately, the Hoos stuck with Pribula.
"We were battling," Elliott said. "Things were kinda going haywire left and right. There was conversation about it, but with the challenges they were posing and the things that were happening, we were just kind of trying to figure out how to fix it and I don't know if at that time it was the best situation, and it might have been, but I don't know if that would be fair to him either if we're struggling to protect, putting another quarterback in the game."
Response?
Games at Florida State have gone awry plenty of times before for the Virginia football program. The Hoos are now 1-10 in trips to Tallahassee.
During Saturday's setback, frustration started to find its way into the equation. The TV cameras caught some moments of players reacting to bad moments with a lot of visible frustration. Some resigned heads were hanging as the spiral worsened. The more the slide worsened, the lower you saw the energy dip. Body language on the sidelines was a question in the postgame press conference as well.
Elliott answered by acknowledging that he had addressed it but that it will be on the menu in upcoming conversations and practices as well.
"I think there in the second quarter, I really challenged the guys from that standpoint, just to control what they can control and not let the circumstances and the situation kind of dictate the way that they respond," Elliott said. "So we all got to be better in that aspect because the reality is body language influences the way that you think and the way that you think influences the way that you go out and talk and act and respond. So I've got to do a better job. Again, it starts with me. That's on me to fix. I'll go to work and I'll get it fixed."
Indeed, the loss now turns to response. Does this year's team have the leadership to prevent a tailspin following a bad loss?
That became a differentiator last season and played a big role in that team's success. After an early season defeat to NC State, the locker room stuck together and got more gritty. This is a different team, though. For one, quarterback Chandler Morris had a major role in the team dynamics last season, but in the transfer portal era, roster turnover goes well beyond one position. Virginia features 45 new players on this roster between incoming transfers and high school recruits.
There's returning experience too, of course, from the offensive line to tight end to linebacker to safety and special teams. Those voices will be critical in the coming days. But it will require everyone from the coaches to the players to decide how this Virginia team responds. So far this season, adversity within games has led to wilting on the field as both West Virginia and Florida State pulled away. UVA bounced back in the practice week following WVU and took care of Delaware, but doing that within conference play is a different challenge.
Are the Hoos up for it? Elliott believes so. The test of that mettle begins now. Syracuse will be at Scott Stadium on Saturday night next week to see where it lands.
"I believe so," Elliott said. "I believe we got young men in there that care, that want to do well. They'll come in Monday wanting to fix it. They'll be looking for answers. My job is that I give them the right answers. First, it starts with me making sure that I come up with the right answers for them. I'll bust my tail between now and Monday to make sure that I do."
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