Taylor Unfazed by New Surroundings

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

RALEIGH, N.C. — It’s not unusual to see players who starred in the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision struggle to achieve similar success in the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Two games into his University of Virginia career, however, tailback J’Mari Taylor looks right at home against FBS competition.

A 5-foot-9, 204-pound graduate student, Taylor transferred from North Carolina Central University to UVA in January. At NCCU, which competes in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, Taylor rushed for 1,882 career yards, which ranks 10^th in school history.

This will be his only season at Virginia, so he’s not likely to surpass that total, but Taylor has sparkled in his first two games as a Cavalier. He rushed for two touchdowns in UVA’s season-opening rout of Coastal Carolina at Scott Stadium, and he topped that performance Saturday against NC State at Carter-Finley Stadium.

On a hot, humid afternoon, Taylor carried 17 times for 150 yards and three TDs in the Wahoos’ 35-31 non-conference loss to the Wolfpack. His scores covered 39, 9 and 66 yards.

“He’s a ball player,” Virginia quarterback Chandler Morris said. “That’s nothing new to us. We’ve expected this, and he plays extremely hard for us. He’s always in the right spot, doing the right things. And I just really appreciate him and just his effort and love playing with that guy.”

If not for a savvy play by defensive end Cian Slone, Taylor might have scored the go-ahead touchdown with about a minute to play Saturday. He ran a wheel route to the right side of the end zone, only to see Morris’ pass picked off by Slone.

“It was a great play by the defense,” Taylor said.

Taylor has rushed for at least one touchdown in each of his past 13 games. He’s run for two or more touchdowns in a game seven times as a college player.

“He’s a good football player,” UVA head coach Tony Elliott said, “and I think what you’re seeing in college football nowadays, there’s really good football players at all levels, just because of the way recruiting is. He’s played four years of college football prior to coming here, was a starter for several years. He’s very talented to begin with. He’s got a great temperament, demeanor, team-first guy, hard worker, doesn’t say much at practice. He’s a pleaser, wants to do it right. So all those qualities and characteristics, I believe, allowed him to make the transition.”

Taylor grew up in Charlotte, about 170 miles from Raleigh, and he was one of UVA’s four captains at Carter-Finley Stadium, where the crowd of 56,919 included many of his friends and relatives. No. 3 didn’t let that distract him.

“Really, it just came down to me playing football,” Taylor said. “I really block out everything and just focus on the game.”

On each of his two long touchdowns, Taylor took a handoff from Morris, headed left, broke tackles at the line of scrimmage and burst into the secondary, where he found plenty of open space.

“We’ve been practicing it all week, and I’ve seen how the defense was from the pre-snap [formation],” Taylor said. “All I had to do was just run behind my own line and trust everybody on the offensive side to make their blocks and just run and score and reward them.”

With the score 35-31, UVA’s defense forced a Wolfpack punt, and the offense took over at its 19-yard line. Five completions by Morris later, the Hoos had a first down at the NCSU 12.

Taylor’s thoughts at that point? “We’re going in to score. We’re scoring.”

Alas, the Wolfpack refused to cooperate, and the result was Virginia’s fourth straight loss in the series.

“The emotions right now, there are some highs and lows,” Taylor said. “Certain guys got some lows, certain guys got some highs. But we all come in as a family. We’ve got to get better for next week, put this game behind us. It hurt us that we didn’t get the outcome that we wanted, but we know we’re a great football team.”

UP NEXT: Virginia (1-1) opens a three-game homestand next Saturday against William & Mary at Scott Stadium. The noon game will air on ACC Network.

The Tribe took an 0-1 record into its Saturday night game against Maine in Williamsburg, Va.

UVA has won six in a row over W&M and leads the series 32-6-1. The Tribe, which is looking to finish above .500 for the fifth straight season, is in its seventh year under Mike London, a former head coach at Virginia.

London’s staff includes four former UVA players: Ras-I Dowling, Keenan Carter, Darryl Blackstock and Perry Jones.

SOUND BITES: The game was UVA’s first at Carter-Finley Stadium since 2018. Among the postgame comments:

* Elliott: “Super proud of the guys. Thought they battled their tails off, thought we grew up a little bit as a football team. But still, no moral victories. Non-conference or not, we came down here to win and we came up short … We’re gonna own it, we’re gonna get better, and we gotta go 1-0 next week.”

* Morris on the offense’s performance: “It wasn’t good enough. It’s that’s simple. We gotta get back to work. Yeah, we had some good stuff, some good things happen, but at the end of the day, we gotta go score more points than they do, and we didn’t do that today. I feel like that’s on us. We left a lot out there.”

* Elliott: “We’re going to stay encouraged. We’re going to stay positive. My challenge to the team is we either get bitter or we get better. We either get defined by this game or we get developed, and I’m choosing to get better. I’m choosing to get developed. And I believe those guys in the locker room will say the same thing.”

* Elliott on UVA’s first turnover of the season: “Trust me, there’s nobody that’s more frustrated and cares more than Chandler Morris.”

* Elliott on the first career TD for tight end Sage Ennis, who’s twice returned from torn ACLs as a college player: “We don’t have a more committed guy on our football team. We don’t have a better leader, a guy that is completely and absolutely sold out for Virginia football and puts his teammates first. And all of his teammates know him, and that’s why they follow him. So just happy for him to be rewarded with a touchdown today.”

* Morris on UVA’s offensive line, which didn’t give up a sack: “My guys up front are playing hard. They’re a good group, and I’m just really proud of them and appreciate them. I just think we just keep building off of it and just try and get better each week.”

* Virginia defensive end Mitchell Melton on the late-game improvement of the defense, which held the Wolfpack scoreless in the fourth quarter: “It was just a mentality. We understood that all we needed was one stop just to help give our offense a chance. They’d been balling all day and we didn’t really help them out throughout the game, but when it mattered most, we tried to do everything we can to hold up and get a stop and give our offense a chance.”

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