By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — All season long, overtime had been the Virginia Cavaliers’ time to shine, and they exuded confidence when the fourth quarter of the ACC championship game ended with the score 20-20 late Saturday night.
“I felt like we had it, especially going on defense first,” safety Devin Neal said. “We got this.”
In the stands, UVA’s fans felt the same way, and their cheers threatened to shake Bank of America Stadium. During the regular season, the Wahoos had gone 3-0 in overtime games, beating Florida State, Louisville and North Carolina. This time, though, no heart-stopping victory followed for Virginia.
Duke scored on the first possession of overtime to go up 27-20, and that’s how the game ended. As the result of a personal foul on the Blue Devils’ touchdown, the Hoos had to begin their drive at the 40-yard line instead of the 25, and their possession lasted but a single play.
On first down, offensive coordinator Des Kitchings called for a trick play, and Chandler Morris pitched the ball to tailback J’Mari Taylor, who lateraled it back to Virginia’s quarterback. Morris then tried to hit wide receiver Eli Wood, whose 18-yard touchdown catch in the final minute of the fourth quarter had capped the Cavaliers’ game-tying drive. But this pass was intercepted, and the Blue Devils celebrated while the Hoos rued a lost opportunity.
“I’m sure that we all want that play back,” head coach Tony Elliott said, “but their guy made a play, and hats off to Duke for winning the game.”
Virginia, which finished atop the ACC regular-season standings with a 7-1 record in league games, fell to 10-3 overall. This is only the second time the Cavaliers have won 10 games in a season.
A victory over Duke (8-5) would have sent them to the College Football Playoff and clinched the first 11-win season in program history. Their dreams of playing in the CFP this year have been dashed, but the Hoos can still secure a record 11th win. UVA expects to learn its bowl destination Sunday.
“We’ve got one more opportunity to finish the right way and celebrate the seniors that have given so much to this program,” Elliott said, “and that’s kind of what our focus is now.”
The championship game marked the second meeting between these teams in less than a month. In the first, UVA rolled to a 34-17 victory at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, holding Duke to season lows in total offense, rushing yards, passing yards, pass completions, first downs and points.
The rematch unfolded much differently. The Blue Devils, who finished the regular season ranked second among ACC teams in scoring offense (34.6 points) and fifth in total offense (421.4 yards per game), drove 75 yards for a touchdown on the game’s first series Saturday night. UVA helped extend that drive by jumping offsides when Duke was in punting formation.
Virginia never led at Bank of America Stadium. After Morris and Taylor teamed up on an 11-yard touchdown pass, Will Bettridge’s extra point made it 7-7 with 14:16 left in the second quarter. The Devils answered with another long, time-consuming touchdown drive and went into halftime up 14-7.
“But I thought that the guys responded,” Elliott said. “We just had a couple of mistakes that the guys are going to learn and grow from, and we’ve got to coach better and grow as coaches … In the first half we’re chasing some points when we had some opportunities to get off the field and get the ball back, and then maybe now with more opportunities, you find a rhythm a little bit quicker.”
Bettridge’s 24-yard field goal midway through the third quarter made it 14-10, but the Blue Devils responded again. Todd Pelino connected on a 29-yard field goal late in the third quarter, and his 23-yarder pushed Duke’s lead to 20-10 with 5:02 to play in the fourth.
The Cavaliers’ prospects looked bleak at that point, but “we never wavered,” wide receiver Cam Ross said. “This is a team that has the heart of a champion. Even when we were down 10, we knew the script. We had to score, stop, score, whether it was get three or get seven. We just had to find a way to claw back. And that’s what we did.”
A drive that started at UVA’s 25 stalled at Duke’s 25, but Bettridge’s 42-yard field goal made it 20-13 with 3:54 to play. The Cavaliers’ defense then forced a punt, giving the ball back to their offense with 1:44 remaining.
This drive started on their 4-yard line, but the Hoos didn’t panic.
“It’s just a testament to who they’ve been all season,” Elliott said.
Virginia needed only 82 seconds to drive 96 yards for a touchdown. Two penalties on Duke helped the Hoos, but they made plenty of big plays, too.
After Morris completed passes to Ross, Wood, wideout Jahmal Edrine and Taylor, tailback Harrison Waylee ran 19 yards to the Duke 33.
Three plays later, on fourth-and-4 from the 27, Morris hit Ross for a 9-yard gain. Then came a breathtaking 18-yard completion to Wood, whose diving catch in the end zone made it 20-19, and Bettridge added the PAT.
KNOCK ON WOOD 👊
📺 ABC pic.twitter.com/2etrBzWWvN
— Virginia Football (@UVAFootball) December 7, 2025
Wood, a former walk-on, is “the glue in that receiver room,” Elliott said. “He’s the guy that just keeps everybody together, and he does it because he shows up and he works extremely hard every single day. He’s a great teammate and a great friend to all of his teammates. He’s a great competitor. He understands his role, and he’s willing to do his role at any time, anywhere, without any praise, without any credit. He’s Virginia, all the way through.”
UVA totaled 344 yards on offense Saturday, to 333 for Duke. Waylee rushed for 66 yards and Taylor added 65. With 1,062 yards, Taylor is the first Cavalier to rush for more than 1,000 yards in a season since Jordan Ellis in 2018.
Morris, whom Duke pressured throughout the game, completed 21 of 40 passes for 216 yards and two touchdowns, with two interceptions. Afterward, Morris was distraught, and his teammates consoled him.
“I told him I love him,” said Ross, who caught five passes for 59 yards. “I told him he wouldn’t be here without him. Everybody in the building knows that. Everybody in the whole state of Virginia knows that. He’s one of the best QBs I’ve played with, if not the best. I can’t even put into the words the type of quarterback he is, the type of person he is.”
UVA came up with one takeaway—a first-quarter interception by true freshman defensive back Corey Costner. That set up the Cavaliers’ first touchdown. Overall, though, Virginia’s defense was unable to replicate its dominant regular-season performance against the Blue Devils.
𝘾𝙤𝙨𝙩𝙡𝙮 turnover caused by yours truly, @corey_c11‼️
📺 ABC pic.twitter.com/4W8TJTz3NX
— Virginia Football (@UVAFootball) December 7, 2025
“I think they definitely took advantage of our mistakes,” said linebacker James Jackson, who tied for a team-high seven tackles. “And we made some mistakes that they did a good job of taking advantage of, and that’s how you win games. You take advantage of the other team’s mistakes, and they did a good job of that.”
Any loss hurts, but this one hurt more, UVA defensive tackle Jahmeer Carter said, “because we didn’t execute to our level like we have all season … It came down to the little details, and they executed and we didn’t.”
Elliott opened his postgame press conference by saying how proud he was of his team and his staff. “Obviously, I don’t like the outcome, but at the end of the day, our guys fought. They fought all the way till the end. They believed they were going to win the game, and we came up a few plays short.”
In the locker room, Elliott told his players that nothing he could say would take away the pain of the defeat. “But I also told them how much I love them, how proud I am of the football team that was picked 14th out of 17 [in the ACC] and earned the right to be here. We came up short tonight. It’s unfortunate. But we earned the right to be here.”
Not since 2019 have the Cavaliers played in a bowl game. They opted not to pursue an invitation in 2020, when they finished 5-5 while playing under strict COVID-19 protocols, and they had to withdraw from the Fenway Bowl in 2021 because of COVID issues on the team.
All of which makes the Hoos especially eager to play again this season.
“We’ve got one more game,” Elliott said. “We’ve got an opportunity to go win 11. That’s what I told them. I want that 11th. I think everybody in that locker room wants that 11th. We’ll learn from tonight. We’ll grow.”
Three years ago, near the end of Elliott’s first year in Charlottesville, a mass shooting took the lives of three UVA players and rocked the football program and the University community. Elliott said then that he believed triumph would come from that tragedy, and he said Saturday that he believes the loss in Charlotte “is an opportunity for us to set our eyes forward, learn from our mistakes, and go back to work.”
He thanked the fans who gave the Hoos a decided home-field advantage at Scott Stadium all fall and who made their voices heard Saturday night in Charlotte.
“I know that they’re disappointed in tonight,” Elliott said. “But I believe that they can see the potential of what the future can be, and I believe we all desire to be one of the top programs in college football. But we’ve all got to be invested and committed, and they showed their part. We’re going to go back to work to continue to prove that we’re worthy of them showing up and just grateful, and we’ll be back.”