Hoos Celebrate Happy Ending to Historic SeasonHoos Celebrate Happy Ending to Historic Season

Hoos Celebrate Happy Ending to Historic Season

With a win over No. 25 Missouri in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl, No. 20 Virginia finished 11-3, setting a program record for victories in a season.

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

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For the University of Virginia football team, the 2025 season started with a 48-7 rout over Coastal Carolina at Scott Stadium. That ranked as the most one-sided victory of Tony Elliott’s tenure as UVA’s head coach, but he knew bigger battles lay ahead for his team. He kept the win in perspective.

“All we did was go 1-0,” Elliott told his players. “The objective every week is to go 1-0. But now you know what you’re capable of.”

The Wahoos would meet that objective 10 more times in their fourth season under Elliott. UVA’s historic campaign ended late Saturday night with a win in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl, and in the locker room afterward Elliott acknowledged the magnitude of the team’s accomplishment.

“I don’t think you guys realize just how special this season is,” Elliott said after No. 20 Virginia defeated No. 25 Missouri 13-7 at EverBank Stadium.

At 11-3, the Hoos finished with their most wins ever in a season. Along the way, they won three overtime games, reclaimed the Commonwealth Cup from Virginia Tech in resounding fashion, electrified crowds at Scott Stadium, and ended the regular season alone atop the ACC standings for the first time in program history.

One of their main goals eluded the Cavaliers—an ACC championship—but they bounced back from their overtime loss to Duke to win a bowl game for the first time since 2018.

“It’s what we worked for,” linebacker James Jackson said. “It’s what we said we were going to do: finish.”

With a roster depleted by injuries and opt-outs, UVA still managed to hold the Tigers (8-5) to 260 yards and their second-fewest points in a game this season. (Oklahoma defeated Mizzou 17-6 last month.)

Not since Sept. 9, 2006, when the Cavaliers edged Wyoming 13-12 in overtime, had they scored so few points in a victory. UVA’s points against Missouri came on tailback Harrison Waylee’s 2-yard touchdown run, two Will Bettridge field goals and a Bettridge PAT.

The Hoos, who trailed 7-3 at the break, had opportunities to pull away from the Tigers in the second half but couldn’t do so. No matter. After giving up a touchdown on the game’s first possession, Virginia’s defense shut out Missouri for the final 56 minutes and 56 seconds.

The Tigers finished 3 for 12 on third-down conversions and 0 for 3 on fourth down.

“After the opening drive I felt like [UVA defenders] were in good position for most of the night,” Elliott said. “On the opening drive, we didn't wrap up and let a couple plays get extended. After that they were able to settle in, rally to the ball, started to gang-tackle, to eliminate some of those extra yards.”

Game Highlights

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No one savored the victory more than the Virginia players who had endured losing seasons in 2022, ’23 and ’24. Several players on this year’s roster preceded Elliott at UVA. The team’s “forefathers,” as Elliott likes to call them, include Jackson, offensive linemen Noah Josey and Jack Witmer, safety Antonio Clary and defensive tackle Jahmeer Carter.

Those pillars of the program meshed seamlessly with the 54 newcomers, including 32 transfers, who enrolled at Virginia this year. Coming off their third straight losing season, the Cavaliers were picked to finish 14th among the ACC’s 17 teams this year, but they defied expectations.

“What they've been able to do is phenomenal,” Elliott said. “You take guys from totally different backgrounds, different universities, different experiences coming to Virginia, then everybody put their own personal goals and agendas to the side to commit to the team and the overall mission of the team.

“It's really special. We've gotten contributions from all those guys, guys that were here from the beginning, guys that we recruited back when probably it wasn't the most sexy thing to come to Virginia, to some of the guys we brought in this past portal cycle this year. It's been really refreshing for me to realize, in a landscape where there's so many narratives, that at the end of the day these are young people that want to win football games. If you can get them to just focus on that and focus on each other and be a team, then you can have a special season like this year.”

Carla Williams and Tyler Jones were among those who stood on the field late Saturday night and watched proudly as Elliott, who had to guide the program through an unimaginable tragedy early in his tenure, accepted the Gator Bowl trophy.

Williams has been Virginia’s athletics director since December 2017, and revitalizing the football program has been a major priority for her. Jones, a deputy AD at UVA, serves as general manager for the football program and played a leading role in assembling the 2025 roster.

“For the program, I think it's just great proof of concept that if you do it the right way and build it the right way with the right people, amazing things can happen,” Jones said. “So it was great proof in our process, and I'm just fired up for the University and for Carla and Tony and for a lot of the guys that stayed and for the many that came and believed in us. And to see them win their last game is refreshing.”

Players like quarterback Chandler Morris (North Texas), defensive ends Mitchell Melton (Ohio State) and Fisher Camac (UNLV), center Brady Wilson (UAB), linebacker Maddox Marcellus (Eastern Kentucky), safety Devin Neal (Louisville) and wide receivers Jahmal Edrine (Purdue) and Cam Ross (JMU) bought into Elliott’s vision when they decided to transfer to UVA this year.

“There’s testimony now,” Jones said, pointing to Virginia’s 11-3 season. “There's testimony to what we're preaching, and that's just a credit to the folks that believed and certainly the young men and the coaches that went on the field and performed and earned positive results. I'm excited about the future of our program and getting to work in the next few days in preparation of building the next one.”

Fourteen high school seniors signed with UVA this month, and seven will arrive on Grounds for start of the spring semester. The transfer portal opens soon, and Jones and Justin Speros, the football program’s assistant GM, have been laying the groundwork for Virginia’s next group of newcomers.

The Gator Bowl win will allow the Cavaliers’ recruiting staff “go to work with a smile on your face and a little bit more energy,” Jones said, “but we're all going to take [the season in first], because this team was special.”

Antonio Clary (0)Antonio Clary (0)

The Hoos’ success this season, Elliott said, should give them “some momentum going into the offseason from a recruiting standpoint, and also hopefully from a retention standpoint, to get guys to want to come back. Also maybe shed some light nationally as to what we are, what we're building here in Charlottesville.”

Morris, who was named the Gator Bowl’s MVP, and wideout Eli Wood joined Elliott at Virginia’s postgame press conference.

Asked to reflect on his experience at UVA, where he enrolled in January, Morris said that any time “you go somewhere, your whole goal is to leave it better than you found it. It means the world to me to come to a university that has a ton of passion for their sports teams. I'm also extremely grateful for the opportunity that I got to come to this awesome university and really get to experience it with everyone here.

“It starts in the locker room. This is my favorite team I've ever been a part of, and I'm not saying that because we won a lot of games this year. You go in the locker room, and everybody really does love each other, they're pulling for each other, and it's just great people, which starts with Coach Elliott and his staff and bringing in the right people and everything like that. It's awesome. I'm so blessed to be in this position.”

In his postgame remarks to his team, Elliott celebrated the present while pointing to the future.

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “We’ve got more in store. You guys have set the floor for where this program is headed.”

For Clary, who grew up in Jacksonville and had a sizable cheering section at EverBank Stadium, the game was a storybook ending to a college career during which he had to overcome multiple serious injuries. Clary made his first start of the season Saturday night and finished with seven tackles, one of them for loss. He also deflected a pass that UVA cornerback Emmanuel Karnley intercepted.

Had Clary been able to come down with the ball, he said with a smile, “I would have taken it to the house. And that would have been a party in the end zone, for sure.”

The only other team in program history to hit the 10-win mark was the 1989 group that finished 10-3 after losing to Illinois in the Citrus Bowl. Chris Slade, now a UVA assistant coach, was a standout defensive end on that team.

Slade couldn’t have been happier to see the 1989 team’s feats eclipsed Saturday night.

“Eleven wins,” he said, smiling. “Never happened—till tonight.”

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UVA captains (L to R): Chandler Morris, Sage Ennis, James Jackson, Jahmeer CarterUVA captains (L to R): Chandler Morris, Sage Ennis, James Jackson, Jahmeer Carter