New Wave of Standouts Emerging for Hoos

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. —The final score of the University of Virginia’s spring football game Saturday afternoon at Scott Stadium was White 17, Blue 9. That disappointed John Rudzinski, but not because he was pulling for the Blue team. He’s the Cavaliers’ defensive coordinator.

“I wanted it to be 0-0 at the end,” Rudzinski said, smiling.

Head coach Tony Elliott, a former offensive coordinator, had a different perspective, naturally.

“I would love to have seen about 10 more points on each side in the first half, finish some drives in the red zone with touchdowns and field goals,” Elliott said.

Those criticisms aside, Elliott, Rudzinski and offensive coordinator Des Kitchings were in good spirits when they fielded questions from media members after the game. The only significant injury incurred Saturday was safety Ethan Minter’s pulled hamstring, and the intrasquad scrimmage gave the coaching staff a better read on the team’s strengths and weaknesses.

“The great thing is, Virginia got the W today,” Rudzinski said.

At halftime, the White team led 3-0, and all of the scoring that followed came with Virginia’s top two quarterbacks—Chandler Morris and Daniel Kaelin—watching from the sideline. Neither played in the second half, when the Wahoos’ reserves got most of the work.

Each enrolled at UVA in January after spending last season at another school: North Texas for Morris and Nebraska for Kaelin.

Kaelin redshirted as a freshman last fall. Morris is a graduate student whose first college season was 2020, so he’s vastly more experienced than Kaelin. Still, the competition between the two is “pretty close,” Kitchings said.

Playing for the Blue team, Kaelin completed 6 of 12 passes for 67 yards. Morris started for the White team and was 12-for-15 passing for 155 yards. Neither was intercepted.

The most impressive sequence for either quarterback came in the second quarter, when Morris had consecutive completions of 23, 17 and 22 yards to tight end Dakota Twitty and wide receivers Jahmal Edrine and Kam Courtney, respectively.

“I’m excited as we continue to progress through this competition,” Elliott said. “I really, really like having both of them. They’re a little bit different, but what you also saw is that within the system, they can do everything that we need them to do and more. Danny, right out the gate, was moving the ball and making some throws. Then things kind of hit a little bit of a lull, and Chandler came on. But you saw both of them are really good outside the pocket.”

Which quarterback starts in the Aug. 30 opener against Coastal Division will be determined in the training camp this summer, “but we’re gonna need both of them,” Elliott said. “There’s no question about that.”

In 2024, Morris directed a North Texas offense that finished the season ranked No. 3 nationally in yards per game (488.7). He completed 322 of 512 passes (62.9 percent) for 3,774 yards and 31 touchdowns last year.

“I’ve been part of some really good offenses,” said Morris, who began his college career at Oklahoma and later played at TCU before transferring to North Texas. “This group that we’ve got here, we’ve got a lot of depth. We’ve got a lot of different weapons … You’ve got big-body receivers and tight ends and then you’ve got smaller guys [that have] speed and can really dominate the ball.”

He wasn’t thrilled the White team didn’t get into the end zone in the first half, but Morris noted that in a spring game “you don’t want to put too much on tape out there since it’s on television, so you’re not out there doing too much crazy red-zone stuff. I think you saw kind of offenses stalling out once it got to the red zone, which [was a result of] good defense also. But also, we’re just not trying to show too much in the red zone.”

Kaelin said he’s happy with the progress he’s made since joining the program.

“Overall, there’s a lot of good and a lot of bad,” he said, “which is what you want from the spring, but I think the player that I was beginning the spring is not as good as I am now and I think I’ve definitely grown, especially within the offense, to learn a new system and being able to execute the way that the coaches want.”

NAMES TO REMEMBER: Among the standouts Saturday were four players with little or no college experience.

Sophomore Myles Brown, who has rotated between linebacker and safety this spring, recorded a game-high 11 tackles.

Wideout Josiah Abdullah, a true freshman who arrived at Virginia in January, caught three passes for 47 yards and had a 45-yard kickoff return.

Sophomore tight end John Rogers caught two passes for 24 yards, including a 21-yarder.

Sophomore defensive end Billy Koudelka, a walk-on from Lynchburg, was credited with a game-high four sacks. The quarterbacks wore orange jerseys, which signified that they were not to be hit, so a sack was awarded when a defensive player touched a QB behind the line of scrimmage.

Koudelka, who stands 6-foot-8, weighed about 235 pounds when he arrived at UVA last summer. He’s at 255 pounds this spring and hopes to get up to 265 by the start of training camp in August.

“I’m starting to get there,” he said.

Koudelka, who played eight-man football at Virginia Episcopal School, has “put the work in,” Rudzinski said, “and I’m excited to see now in this next phase, our construction phase of the summer, what he can do with his body to get himself ready to compete at a high level in the ACC.”

Asked about Koudelka, Elliott said, “Everybody sees the splash plays, but also where he’s grown is the ability to set the edge in the run game when we need him to, to be an every-down player. So we’re excited about his growth and his potential.”

Rogers, who’s listed at 6-foot-4, 235 pounds, graduated from Episcopal High School in Alexandria. Injuries limited him to three games as a true freshman last season, but Rogers’ performance Saturday didn’t surprise his fellow tight ends, including senior Dakota Twitty.

“That guy’s a dog,” Twitty said. “Every single day, whether it’s lift, whether it’s in the classroom, that guy comes to work. So to everybody else it was surprising, but to us internally we already know what everybody’s been doing.”

Abdullah, who’s from Columbus, Ga., is one of the six freshmen who enrolled at Virginia midyear after graduating early from high school.

“He’s not like most mid-years, I’ll say that,” Morris said. “He’s well ahead of where he should be and what I’ve seen in the past, and he’s going to be a really good ballplayer.”

Kaelin raved about Abdullah too.

“The first time we threw routes here, I knew he was going to be a special kid,” Kaelin said. “Not just from his talent, but also type of person he is. He’s always trying to get extra reps, staying late, getting extra catches in. We’ve been able to build a good connection, whether it be just through spring practice or workouts on the side, but he’s a special dude and a special player.”

Kitchings compared Abdullah to a former UVA great who’s now playing for the Miami Dolphins.

“I’m cautiously saying this, but he has some attributes of a Malik Washington … from the standpoint of catching the football, the run after catch, those type things,” Kitchings said. “He still has a lot of growth to do, so I’m not going to put the cart before the horse here, but we’re obviously excited about him.”

IMPRESSIVE DEBUT: Tailback J’Mari Taylor, who starred at North Carolina Central last season, is one of the 19 transfers who enrolled at UVA in January. He led all rushers with 52 yards (on nine carries) Saturdays.

“It was great to see him in a game situation,” Elliott said. “In practice, it’s controlled. So you blow the whistle quick sometimes or it’s a thud period where you don’t know if he’s gonna break the tackle or not. So what I got to see in the game is just how decisive his decision-making is … What you saw is just a natural ability with bouncing plays finding the edge. So it was good to see him unrestrained.”

ROOM TO GROW: Many of the players who’ll be in key roles for UVA in the fall were limited participants in spring ball because of injuries.

Knowing they’ll be back soon, Elliott said, “I feel a lot better about where we are from a depth standpoint.”

The transfer portal re-opens next week, and “we’re gonna attack it hard,” Elliott said.

The Cavaliers will be looking to add players at several positions, but shoring up an injury-depleted secondary is the top priority.

“If we can do that,” said Elliott, who’s in his fourth year at Virginia, “I think we can put together a roster that is much more competitive and deeper than what we’ve had since we’ve been here as a staff.”

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