J’Mari Taylor didn’t travel the well-worn path to power conference football. The Virginia transfer running back, in fact, had no Division I scholarship offers at the start of his college journey.
“So coming out of high school, I had a whole bunch of D-II offers,” Taylor said. “I walked on actually at Central, and from a coach I know, Coach Lonnie Teasley, he gave me a shot.”
Taylor made the most of that opportunity. It required a little bit of faith and patience, though.
Teasley, now the offensive line coach at South Carolina, opened the door, but it was wasn’t a scholarship offer. Taylor joined the team a walk-on spot at North Carolina Central. He would have to work his way on to the depth chart at the Football Championship Subdivision school.
That process started as a member of the scout team for the Eagles.
“My first year, scout team, it really was what made me,” Taylor said. “Because coming out of high school, you don't know what's in college. It's guys from here, guys from there, and you got to compete, and really, watching the guy in front of you might be the best thing, if you weren't like a four or five star guy, or even if you was, there's still guys older than you, they've been there and they can give you tips and things like that for you to be to where you want to be.”
Taylor made an impression in that redshirt year during the 2021 season. By his second year in 2022, he said he had earned a partial scholarship that eventually became a full ride.
That first season on the active roster, he started to produce with his role too. Taylor rushed for 415 yards with 7 touchdowns on 86 carries, which ranked third on team. He added 9 receptions for 129 yards and 3 touchdowns as well. It led to third team All-MEAC honors.
More importantly, Central piled up wins too. That team eventually emerged as MEAC Champions. That earned the Eagles a spot in the Cricket Celebration Bowl against the SWAC Champions Jackson State. The bowl pits the two champions from the two prominent conferences of historically black colleges and universities in Division I and is considered the de facto HBCU national championship. Taylor and his team won that overtime game 41-34 in Atlanta in front of 49,670 fans and finished 10-2.
“That was a great year. I loved that year. That year was great,” Taylor said. “After that, my last year there I was just the guy. Yeah. So I just had to wait my turn. I mean, it's a humbling experience because, you come out of high school and everybody's the guy, but when you come into college, it's very humbling.”
Taylor’s steady progress continued in 2023 with 321 rushing yards and 1 touchdown alongside 16 catches for 229 yards and 4 touchdowns. The Eagles earned a spot in the FCS Playoffs and finished 9-3.
By 2024, Taylor had moved to the top of the depth chart. He clicked off 1,146 rushing yards with 15 touchdowns last fall on 196 carries. That landed him fourth in single-season history for the program as he became the first 1K rusher since 2005. He scored at least 1 TD in every game and went for 100+ rushing yards four times. Central came in at 8-3 on the season.
Taylor finished his Central career with 1,882 rushing yards, good enough for No. 10 on the program’s all-time list. With a year of eligibility still remaining, however, he decided to test the transfer portal market and he said the idea of playing at the next level of college football was exciting.
“The reason I wanted to transfer, I would say my time at Central, I had fun at Central, but I would say I wanted to play on a more higher level. I'd say FBS level.” Taylor said. “I did everything at the FCS level. I won a championship. I reached my goals that I wanted to reach. So I wanted to take my level up and compete against higher competition.”
Virginia liked what it saw from its research and pursued Taylor in the transfer market. He visited Virginia Tech as well and had another trip to Michigan State pending when he made the call for the Cavaliers on Dec. 18.
UVA coach Tony Elliott said the combination of production and the ability to log almost 200 carries last season drew in the Hoos. The Cavaliers had limited players available at running back late last season as injuries took a toll on the group.
“You saw some explosive traits,” Elliott said. “You saw productivity and you saw durability. Those are the things that you liked about him.”
Taylor joined 18 other incoming transfers this cycle. Most of those players enrolled for this spring semester so that eased the transition for all of them.
“That helped me adjust a lot,” Taylor said. “I would say the guys that was in there, we just had to find our way around and when we found our way around, we came in with the whole team and they've been really great to us.”
In Taylor’s case, the adjustment included a major step up in resources. Elliott said that sometimes can be one of the biggest challenges for players moving up the ranks from FCS to FBS. Schools at the power conference level have personnel dedicated to nutrition, strength and conditioning, recovery, and mental health in addition to academics.
At Virginia, Taylor stepped into a football building still less than year old. The The Hardie Football Operations opened last summer as the conclusion of an $80 million project. The facility includes multiple meeting rooms, hot and cold tubs through sports medicine, a dining area, a team lounge, a team locker room, and a massive weight room. There are plenty of technology bells and whistles and things like sleep pods.
Taylor laughed when asked if he any sleep pods at North Carolina Central. The answer was no.
“So, resources, I say it's a big upgrade from where I came from,” Taylor said. “I'd say things here, it's different. I'd say it's very different from where I was from. I will also say that you gotta use it. You gotta use it to your advantage and to anything that you wanna do with this football or either the academic parts and stuff like that with the staff that we have great resources. I think it's been a good complement to the players.”
Much like his start at Central, Taylor has made an early impression with the Hoos this spring. In addition to carries at running back, he said he is trying to make it on to all four special teams units for kickoff return and coverage plus punt return and coverage because, he said, if coaches trust you on special teams, they’ll trust you on offense or defense too.
Taylor has shown a knack for getting through the hole and solid fundamentals as a running back. He broke off a long touchdown run in the team’s first scrimmage at Scott Stadium too.
“Now that we have him and he's been in practice, he's a natural back,” Elliott said. “He's got very, very [good] eye-feet coordination. He's got good body control. He can accelerate through the hole quickly, plays with good pad leverage. He's a worker. He doesn't say a whole lot. I mean, he's eager to learn, he's like a sponge. He just absorbs information.”
That description of a one-time walk-on shouldn’t sound too surprising. In a lot of ways, that’s the only way to make a roster much less get a chance at contributing on the field as walk-on.
As college sports undergoes major changes, though, those walk-on spots may become even more rare or possibly even extinct. The House vs. NCAA settlement, which resolves claims related to name, image, and likeness and opens the door to revenue sharing, is currently scheduled for final approval in April. If approved in its current form, that would hold through the 2034-2035 academic year.
Among the pieces of that settlement is the elimination of scholarship limits in favor of roster limits. The NCAA set that number at 105 for football when that number ran closer to 120 for most programs each year. The Southeastern Conference, meanwhile, set its scholarship limit for football at 85 - the current number - for the 2025 season and that would allow for up to 20 walk-on spots. Still, it remains to be seen if some schools will eventually dole out 105 paid scholarship spots with no walk-ons or how things will play out over the long term for football programs.
While Taylor has no control over such decisions obviously, he said walk-ons are valuable to a team culture.
“How I feel about it is, you know, walk-on is really what makes a team,” Taylor said. “So walk-on guys, you don't have them guys for like scout team or some of them guys, that's like a life-changing thing for them to be able to walk on in a sport that they they want to play. And I think that's like a big deal. I mean I can't do nothing about it. But that's that's like a blessing for the guys that walk on because you know you don't know where guys come from and that can be like a big accomplishment in their life.”
While he’s now a scholarship player in a power conference with NIL and revenue sharing money as part of the equation, those walk-on roots are still strong for Taylor as an unrecruited player that turned into a bellwether back at Central last fall.
“That definitely changed my pathway,” Taylor said. “That made me realize that you wherever you put your mind to you can do it. And for the guys that don't, that haven't gotten a scholarship, don't give up, because your time is coming. You might not think it is, but the more work you put in, the more humble you are, your time will come.”
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