Next Phase of Preparation Starting for Hoos

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — For the University of Virginia football team, 15 spring practices have come and gone. The Cavaliers have more work to do before they open the season in Brazil on Aug. 29, but head coach Tony Elliott likes how his team has progressed over the past month.

“I feel like this spring, in particular, we maximized every day that we were out there,” Elliott said Saturday evening after the Blue-White game at Scott Stadium.

This is Elliott’s fifth year at UVA, and in “the past,” he said, “there's been days where I've come off the practice field and been like, ‘Man, I don't know if we maximized that day,’ because it was a lot more coaching culture and core values than it was fundamentals and scheme. Where with this group it seemed like they just seamlessly just transitioned very, very well. The new guys bought in immediately, and so I wasn't having to run around chasing guys to chase the ball or break to the ball or run on and off the field, just little things that matter.

“So I think that helped us to maximize every day, which I think has helped us from a depth standpoint. too. A lot of guys got a lot of reps and have improved. So I like where we are. We’ve got probably about 16 more practices between now and the time we start fall camp, and that's going to be a combination of player-led voluntary practices, and then also about six mandatory coach-led practices to continue to build upon. So, overall, I feel like it's been a good spring, and we're progressing."

Building upon the foundation 📈#GoHoos 🔶⚔️🔷 pic.twitter.com/CE7nWHd6fl

— Virginia Football (@UVAFootball) April 19, 2026

From a team that won a program-record 11 games in 2025, the Wahoos lost a host of key players. But the Hoos added a transfer class that impressed this spring, and the roster includes returning players looking to move into prominent roles this season.

We’ve still a couple positions that we've got to figure out as we go into fall camp, but I like where this group is,” Elliott said. “Just as a team, I think we’ve got some depth, and then we're gonna get a lot of pieces back too.”

Among the players who sat out the spring game with injuries, but are expected back for training camp in August, were offensive linemen Drake Metcalf and Noah Josey, tailbacks Xavier Brown and Noah Vaughn, defensive linemen Billy Koudelka and Darrion Henry-Young, linebackers Kam Robinson, Landon Danley and Maddox Marcellus, and defensive backs Ethan Minter, Corey Costner, Ja'Maric Morris and Omillio Agard.

"When you have them back and then the guys that got the reps while they were down and the progress they made [this spring], I think it's going to create or make a situation where we’ve got even more competitive practices when we get to fall camp,” Elliott said.

The Blue-White game matched the Cavaliers’ offense against their defense. Under a scoring system that awarded points for, among other things, turnovers forced, punts forced and three-and-outs forced, the defense, which wore blue jerseys, prevailed 59-40.

One of the defense’s highlights came on a series that ended with tailback Jekail Middlebrook’s 7-yard touchdown run. On third-and-6, quarterback Beau Pribula handed off to tailback Peyton Lewis, who broke into the secondary and had no one between him and the end zone. But Fisher Camac, a 6-foot-7 defensive end, chased down Lewis and tackled him after a 51-yard gain.

“A tenet of what we want to do is play with great effort, and [Camac] displayed it in that play,” defensive coordinator John Rudzinski said. “You need players that are going to be erasers, and he's one of them.”

A transfer from Tennessee, Lewis was ill during the week, “and when he’s at full strength he probably finishes that run,” said Elliott, but he too applauded Camac’s effort.

Lewis was used sparingly Saturday, but he flashed his talent, as did fellow tailbacks Xay Davis, Solomon Beebe and Middlebrook. Davis had a 34-yard run, and Beebe scored two touchdowns. Beebe and Middlebrook are transfers from UAB and Middle Tennessee State, respectively.

"It was good to see all those guys get in there and not a ton of drop off between any one of them,” Elliott said, “which is really encouraging for us.”

When Vaughn and Brown are available, Virginia will have six scholarship tailbacks from whom to choose. There was little separation among the group this spring, but injuries are almost inevitable at that position, offensive coordinator Des Kitchings noted. “History says, unfortunately, that [the rotation] kind of takes care of itself.”

The situation at wide receiver is similar. To a group that included returners like Kameron Courtney, TyLyric Coleman, Dillon Newton-Short, Isaiah Robinson and Josiah Abdullah, UVA added transfers Rico Flores Jr. (UCLA), Da’Shawn Martin (Kent State), Jacquon Gibson (UMass) and Tyson Davis (Central Michigan), as well as true freshman Dylan Cope.

“Coming into a new room, you’re just trying to meet that standard of what the coaching staff and trying to live up to that standard,” said Martin, who teamed up with quarterback Eli Holstein on completions of 20 and 49 yards Saturday.

Elliott said Virginia will “travel 11 wide receivers, and we'll probably play eight throughout the course of the game. So they’ve got to play all game long, they’ve got to run all day long. They’ve got to make the routine plays, they’ve got to make the impossible plays, and that's a group where you want competition. But I think the biggest thing is truly, truly having competitive depth, because the competition's gonna play out the way that it does, but with wideouts, because they run so much, there's generally a soft tissue here, a soft tissue there, where they might be down for a week or two, and then the next guy has to step up. So competition's been good, but I think the biggest thing is truly building a competitive depth.”

UVA has six quarterbacks, all of whom played Saturday. In the battle to succeed Chandler Morris as the starter, the leaders are transfers Pribula (Missouri) and Holstein (Pitt) and Cole Geer, who appeared in two games for the Hoos as a true freshman last year.

Pribula took the first snap Saturday. Geer took over on the second series, followed by Holstein on the third, but Kitchings said that didn’t necessarily reflect the depth chart.

“It’s still fluid with those three guys, Eli, Beau and Cole,” Kitchings said, “and each of them have had their high moments. There’s been some lows, but for the most part each of them have done a good job of whenever we put the ball down of moving the offense.”

Quarterbacks are off-limits to tacklers in the spring, and so Pribula, a gifted runner, wasn’t able to fully showcase his skills. Several times Saturday plays were blown dead after a defender “sacked” Pribula by touching him.

In an actual game, “I believe I’m breaking that, of course,” Pribula said.

Pribula, who played three series Saturday, all in the first half, had a 29-yard completion to Flores and looked comfortable leading the offense.

“I think he's a dynamic athlete that has a lot of confidence extending plays,” Elliott said of Pribula. “I thought he did a solid job, too, of sitting in there and trying to find his progression and driving the ball when he needed to. So that's the area where we're just going to continue to help him evolve and develop, because we know that he can run. We know that he likes to run and we know that he's a dynamic guy that has a ton of confidence in doing it. But I think also too in spring practice, he needs to be able to [move the offense] a little bit without getting hit. So you teeter on, OK, how much do you make him sit in [the pocket]? You don't want to take away what makes him great, so you’ve got to let him play his game.”

Elliott said he also saw “some things [from Pribula] just from a demeanor standpoint that were good to see, the way he was talking to the offense and the way he was supporting his guys on the sideline. Those are the things that I don't think people see that help us as coaches, just kind of to know more so what the temperament is of a young man.”

Asked to assess how spring practice went for the offense, Pribula said the group set “a foundation for what we need to get done. We have a lot of new guys, but I saw a lot of improvement throughout spring ball, a lot of guys get more comfortable as it went on. So hopefully we can use what we've be built on in the spring and transition that in the summer, get even more comfortable between receivers and quarterbacks and transition that to fall camp and be ready to roll.”

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