Hoos Ride Home-Field Advantage to Epic Win

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — He waited three-plus years for the atmosphere at Scott Stadium to provide a significant home-field advantage for his football team, and University of Virginia head coach Tony Elliott might have wondered at times if that day would ever come.

His first three seasons at UVA included two wins over ranked opponents—No. 10 North Carolina in 2023 and No. 23 Pittsburgh last year—but those games were on the road. Coming into this season, the Cavaliers were 6-12 overall and 2-10 in ACC games under Elliott at 61,500-seat Scott Stadium, where attendance has often been underwhelming.

Not Friday night. An announced crowd of 50,107—the largest at Scott Stadium this season—turned out to see Virginia take on No. 8 Florida State. FSU fans showed up in big numbers, but so did UVA supporters, and the blue-clad crowd had plenty to cheer in a game that took two overtimes to decide.

On a fourth-down pass to the end zone by Florida State quarterback Thomas Castellanos, cornerback Ja’Son Prevard came down with his second interception of the game, sealing Virginia’s 46-38 victory.

Prevard had barely gotten his hands on the football when a tidal wave of fans flooded the field, and the celebration lasted long into the night.

“Man, how fun was that?” Elliott said at his postgame press conference. “That’s what Scott Stadium is supposed to be like. And that’s what I envisioned when I decided to take the job here, the potential.

“Really, really proud of the students and the fans for showing up. It made a difference. It made it a very, very difficult place for a good football team to come in here to play … The atmosphere was unbelievable. It felt like a championship kind of game, and that’s what we desire to be as a program. That’s where we want to go. But we’ve all got to do it together. So I just appreciate everybody for showing up and making Scott Stadium what it is, is a very difficult place for opponents to play.”

UVA improved to 4-1 overall and 2-0 in the ACC. Florida State fell to 3-1, 0-1.

The Cavaliers nearly avoided overtime, but the Seminoles scored on a fourth-down pass with 36 seconds left in the fourth quarter, and Jake Weinberg’s extra point made it 35-35.

The Noles got the ball first in overtime and had to settle for Weinberg’s 36-yard field goal. Virginia’s possession stalled, but Will Bettridge extended the game with a 39-yard field goal.

In the second overtime, the Hoos had the ball first, and the possession ended with  quarterback Chandler Morris’ 4-yard touchdown run. Under the rules of overtime, Virginia then had to attempt a 2-point conversion, and Morris passed to wide receiver Trell Harris in the back of the end zone to make it 46-38.

FSU got no closer than the 22 on the possession that followed, and Prevard’s pick ended an exhilarating game. The atmosphere brought back memories of Virginia’s wins at Scott Stadium over South Carolina in 2002 and Clemson in 2004, both of which propelled the program forward.

Morris, who ran for three touchdowns and passed for two more Friday night, was asked about fans’ takeover of the field.

“That’s awesome,” he said. “That’s what you dream of. That’s why they showed up. They were planning on storming the field tonight, and I’m glad they got to.”

The victory was the Wahoos’ first over a top-10 opponent at Scott Stadium since 2005, when they knocked off the No. 4 Seminoles. It came 30 years after the Hoos handed No. 2 FSU its first conference loss as an ACC member, also at Scott Stadium.

“This is one I’ll remember forever,” said defensive tackle Jahmeer Carter, who’s in his sixth season as a Cavalier.

The crowd played a major role in the upset, Virginia players said.

“There was a lot of Florida State people, but you could hear those Hoos just roaring,” said safety Devin Neal, who made a career-high 12 tackles. “When things got going, those fourth downs, those third downs, it was loud. You could tell it affected [FSU’s] offense because [Castellanos] had to come up close to be under the center. That stuff helps. The fans really came into play.”

Students turned out in force last weekend for Virginia’s game against Stanford at Scott Stadium. Most of them, however, departed long before the end of the Cavaliers’ 48-20 victory, and Morris spoke afterward about how the team needed four quarters of support.

The Hoos received that and more Friday night.

“It made a huge difference,” said Morris, a graduate transfer from North Texas who’s in his first year at UVA. “On third downs and fourth downs for them it was extremely loud, giving us energy. That was a great atmosphere, and I encourage more people to come fill it up, fill up that top section. We’ve got a really good Virginia football team here. We’re a lot of fun to watch.”

The Cavaliers, 4-0 at Scott Stadium this season, have three home games remaining: Oct. 18 against Washington State, Nov. 8 against Wake Forest, and Nov. 29 against Virginia Tech in the annual battle for the Commonwealth Cup. Not since 2020 have the Hoos won more than four home games in a season.

Elliott left Clemson, where he spent 11 seasons as an assistant on Dabo Swinney’s staff, because he believed he could build a championship program at UVA.

“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” Elliott said, “and I didn’t know what to expect, what we were going to walk into. But here’s what I do know: Adversity is a companion of a champion, an enemy to the weak. And so we had to embrace the adversity. And that’s really what this is about.  And hopefully, we can change people from the inside out.”

The win over FSU is “one step in that direction. But in the big scheme of things, we just won an ACC game,” said Elliott, whose players doused him with water in the locker room.

“And you know what? We go on the road next week to Louisville with a chance to win another.  So we wanted to be in the driver’s seat, and all we did was just keep ourselves in the driver’s seat. So we got to keep two hands on the wheel, put the seat belt on, make sure that we check the rearview mirror, make sure we’re awake so that we don’t hit a pothole along the way.”

The Cavaliers’ second road game of the season comes next Saturday. At 3:30 p.m., UVA takes on Louisville (4-0, 1-0) at L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium. The Cardinals won their ACC opener Saturday, rallying for a 34-27 win at Pittsburgh.

After the game Friday night, Elliott gave his players Saturday off. The Hoos will reconvene Sunday to begin  preparing for Louisville.

Virginia has dropped three straight games to Louisville, which leads the series 8-5. The Hoos’ most recent win over the Cardinals came in 2021 in Louisville. UVA erased a 17-point deficit in the fourth quarter to pull out a 34-33 victory.

Playing on Friday instead of Saturday gives the Hoos more time to “recover, to take care of business, and to honestly celebrate the win,” said Neal, a graduate transfer from Louisville. “And then once we celebrate it, flush it out.”

After falling behind 14-0 on Friday night, the Seminoles rallied for three straight touchdowns. Then it was the Cavaliers’ turn to show resilience. With the game in danger of slipping away from them, they answered with a 75-yard drive that included a 20-yard completion from Morris to Harris and tailback J’Mari Taylor’s 26-yard touchdown run, and the score at halftime was 21-21.

In the third quarter, Virginia regained the lead with a 12-play touchdown drive that covered 75 yards. Eleven of the plays were runs; Morris’ only pass on the drive went to Harris for 8 yards and a critical first down.

FSU responded with its fourth TD, and the score was 28-28 heading into the fourth quarter. The Cavaliers went ahead on Morris’ 15-yard touchdown pass to tailback Xavier Brown, only to see the Seminoles fight back once again. But Virginia never flinched.

With the win, Brown said, the Hoos “put fans in the country on notice. This team, just from [training] camp, I knew we were special. So it’s great to finally be able to show the world what we can really do.”

The way in which the Cavaliers won is “just a testament to us as a team,” Brown said. “We battle through adversity and come back . We had a couple plays that didn’t go our way, but we stayed true to ourselves and stayed inside out and came out with the win.”

Florida State, which opened the season with a win over Alabama, came to Charlottesville averaging 58.0 points and 628.7 yards per game. Virginia forced three turnovers and recorded five tackles for loss.

“The defense made the stops when it needed to,” Elliott said.

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