Team Leaders Speak With Voice of Experience

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

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Wahoos past and present convened Tuesday at ACC Football Kickoff. During a break in a seemingly endless series of interviews, the four players representing the University of Virginia—offensive lineman Noah Josey, quarterback Chandler Morris, defensive tackle Jahmeer Carter and defensive end Mitchell Melton—had an opportunity to speak with one of their program’s most accomplished alumni.

Rodney McLeod, who starred at safety for UVA, recently retired after a 13-year career in the NFL. He’s now an analyst for ACC Network, and he showed off his versatility while taping an impromptu interview with Melton, who like McLeod grew up in Maryland and played his high school football in the uber-competitive Washington Catholic Athletic Conference.

Afterward, Josey, Morris and Carter joined Melton to talk a little football with McLeod.

“What year is this for you guys?” McLeod asked.

“Sixth,” said Carter, 23.

“Fifth,” said Josey, who turns 23 next week.

“Sixth,” said Morris, 24.

“Sixth,” said Melton, 23.

“Lots of experience,” McLeod said, smiling.

That collective experience is among the reasons UVA head coach Tony Elliott chose that quartet to accompany him to Charlotte for the ACC’s annual preseason media gathering.

Josey and Carter have been mainstays for the Cavaliers for several years. Morris and Melton are new to the program, having transferred in from North Texas and Ohio State, respectively, in January.

“I wanted to prioritize veteran guys with experience,” Elliott said, “and make this something from a program standpoint that the upperclassmen look forward to being chosen to be a part of.”

Morris will open training next week as the Hoos’ No. 1 quarterback, which made him a natural to attend ACC Football Kickoff.

“Then look at Noah Josey,” Elliott said. “What better person to articulate what’s going on within Virginia football? Nobody better than him. He’s been here from the beginning. He came to play for the previous coach and has fully transitioned and been a huge driving force in the culture we’re trying to instill. And so that was a no-brainer, and then Jah has been kind of the heartbeat of our team for the last three years. And then Mitchell Milton has just made an impression on everybody in the program, not just because of his athletic ability but because of the leadership qualities that he possesses. He’s a man of a lot of substance.”

Morris and Melton found themselves in the interesting position of fielding questions about a team for which they’ve yet to play, and a league with which they’re unfamiliar.

“It’s pretty crazy,” Morris said, “but I’ve been really appreciative to be here and be one of the four guys to represent UVA. It’s an honor.”

Melton said: “It’s my first time coming to something like this as well, so it’s different, but It’s a great opportunity, and I’m very thankful and honored that Virginia asked me to be here. I think it’s a testament to the relationship we’ve built over the time that I’ve been there.”

A 2020 graduate of Good Counsel High School, Melton is an imposing figure at 6-foot-4, 256 pounds. Unlike his three teammates in Charlotte, however, he has yet to play extensively in college.

Melton, who’s from Silver Spring, Md., redshirted his first season at Ohio State. He missed the next two seasons after suffering ACL tears. He hurt his left knee in 2021 and his right in 2022.

“It took a while to get back,” Melton said. “In ’23, it was my first year playing since high school, really. So there was a lot with that just trying to mentally play football again. And then I slowly got better, and I definitely felt confident in my body last year.”

He appeared in eight games in 2023 and in 13 last season, when the Buckeyes won the national championship. Melton had entered the transfer portal in late December, after Ohio State’s first-round game in the College Football Playoff, but with the coaching staff’s blessing remained an active member of the roster.

“I was transparent with what was happening,” Melton said.

To be part of a national championship team “was second to none,” said Melton, who played in Ohio State’s title-clinching win over Notre Dame. “That was crazy, amazing, a beautiful opportunity.”

He didn’t have long to savor the title. A week after flying back to Columbus, Ohio, from Atlanta, the site of the CFP championship game, Melton enrolled at UVA, where the spring semester was already under way.

“I’ve been here for seven months now, and it’s been great,” he said. “I’m excited. I think I had concerns, obviously, about going to a new team, with what the people would be like, but the people are amazing.”

His college career hasn’t unfolded as Melton expected, but his spirit remains unbroken.

“I tell people all the time, my expectations pale in comparison to reality,” said Melton, who earned a bachelor’s degree in communication from Ohio State. “I had so many dreams and hopes about what was going to happen, how it was going to be, and then reality happened, and here I am just thankful and blessed to keep playing. So it’s different, but I’m blessed to be playing this sport I love.”

Once he entered the portal, Melton heard from numerous schools. “It kind of felt like COVID in the way that I was having Zoom calls and stuff like that,” he said. “But it was a very unique experience, and Virginia really set themselves apart with the way they handled that experience, and with that I was really excited and I felt confident in Coach Elliott and Coach Rudzinski and Coach Slade.”

Elliott is in his fourth year at UVA, and defensive coordinator John Rudzinski and defensive ends coach Chris Slade have been on his staff throughout his tenure on Grounds.

Melton said he doesn’t look at his injuries as setbacks. “They just taught me something new about myself and the journey of being an athlete, and I’m thankful for that. But I’m still renewed in the love of the sport. Each day I’m still fighting to be the best version of myself athletically and academically and everything else.”

He’s enjoyed getting to know a new set of teammates, two of whom (Carter and offensive lineman Drake Metcalf) he played against in high school. Carter is from Baltimore, and he attended Archbishop Spalding, which went 0-2 against Melton and Good Counsel during their prep careers.

Asked about Melton, Carter said, “I think he brings a lot of maturity and leadership. He’s a sixth-year like me, so he’s seen a lot of college ball and he’s been around lot of good players in his own right, so he brings a lot of knowledge to the room.”

In Carter, Melton said, he sees someone who sets the standard on the Cavaliers’ defense. “I say it a lot, because the way he carries himself is as a professional athlete,” Melton said. “I definitely look up to him. He knows what’s right and what to do in this program.”

Melton and Morris are among the 32 transfers who have joined the program since the end of a 2024 season in which the Hoos posted a 5-7 record. Josey saluted the way in which the coaching staff and Tyler Jones, who serves as the program’s general manager, put together the 2025 roster.

“You don’t want to bring in the wrong guys,” Josey said, “and the guys they brought in are all high-character guys. They brought in guys who are here for the right reasons, who want to win football games above everything else and who are here to do that.”

All of which made things easier for the Cavaliers’ returning veterans, Josey said. “It wasn’t hard when you’re around that many high-character guys to just corral them together. You have the message and everybody follows it and we roll.”

Coming from one of college football’s most storied programs, Melton “validates the things that we’ve been preaching and talking about from day one,” Elliott said. “So it’s just another championship-caliber voice. And then also he has a perspective of how things were done [at Ohio State] that brought about success. So then he can bring different perspectives and opportunities for growth within the program.

“He just has that instant credibility. Guys know that this guy’s been there. And so when he talks, people listen.”

When their session at the Hilton Uptown wrapped up about 5 p.m. Tuesday, Melton and his teammates were tired and hungry and ready to head back to Charlottesville. The Cavalier contingent had had to answer a season’s worth of questions in a single day, but “it’s been great,” Melton said. “I’m blessed. This is a great institution, and I’m honored to be part of it.”

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