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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — University of Virginia offensive tackle McKale Boley saw first-hand last season how rowdy crowds can affect football games. The noise that fans generated at Scott Stadium contributed heavily to UVA’s wins over Florida State and Washington State.

“From the players' perspective, you don’t always want to be dependent on the external environment, but running out of that tunnel and seeing a full stadium and that amount of fans, it gives you a different type of mentality,” Boley, who’s in his fifth year at Virginia, said last week at ACC Kickoff in Charlotte, N.C.

“The fans are a part of the game. They can flip a game. If you have a big play, the crowd erupts, and that does something to the other team when they're in an away environment and the fans are going crazy.”

UVA finished 11-3 last season after defeating Missouri in the Gator Bowl. The 11 wins were a program record, and the Cavaliers are looking to build on that breakthrough this fall.

The season was memorable for other reasons, too. Virginia’s average attendance at home games grew 25% from 2024, the biggest jump in percentage among Power-4 football teams. A crowd of 58,832, the largest at 61,500-seat Scott Stadium in 14 years, saw UVA reclaim the Commonwealth Cup with an emphatic win over Virginia Tech in the regular-season finale.

“From day one, we've been talking about the responsibility of the fan base [and how] we're in this thing together,” head coach Tony Elliott said. “We need Scott Stadium to be full, and when Scott Stadium is full, it creates a competitive advantage. Look at the game versus Florida State. Look at the game versus Washington State. The fans were a competitive advantage for us late in the game when we needed them, so that's been cool.”

Virginia opens its fifth season under Elliott on Aug. 29 against ACC rival NC State at Scott Stadium. The Wahoos have lost four in a row to the Wolfpack, and they want to end that streak. But that’s not their only goal for the opener.

Not since Aug. 30, 2008, when No. 3 Southern California came to town and drew a record crowd of 64,947, has UVA sold out a game at Scott Stadium. The Hoos want to end that streak, too.

“We need Wahoo Nation,” quarterback Beau Pribula said in Charlotte. “We need Scott Stadium rocking this fall. I can't wait to see what home atmosphere is like, especially week one, NC State, a big game for us. I can't wait to see the fan base pop out.”

Pribula began his college career at Penn State, whose Beaver Stadium seats nearly 110,000 fans and regularly draws sellout crowds. He played last season at Missouri, which averaged 57,321 fans at its Memorial Stadium, whose capacity is about 62,000.

“Any time you can be at home and have a stadium that's rocking, it just makes it so much harder for opposing teams,” Pribula said. “It’s such a bigger advantage.”

The Cavaliers went 6-1 at home last season, and they’ll play seven games at Scott Stadium again this year.

“There’s nothing like the tradition and pageantry of a college football game day,” said Eric Ward, UVA’s assistant athletics director for strategic marketing & fan engagement. “It keeps Hoos coming home through the years. But last year was the re-awakening of the competitive factor.”

Student attendance at Scott Stadium has increased steadily during Elliott’s tenure, and it was nearly double in 2025 what it was in 2022. Five of the top 11 single-game student turnouts in program history have come in the past three seasons, Ward said.

“That’s the part where we have seen progress before team success,” Ward said, “and a lot of it is due to Coach Elliott and his willingness to be intentional about student engagement.”

It also helped, Ward noted, that UVA played six night games at Scott Stadium in 2025. Night games are often especially popular with students.

“It was huge for us to get that,” Ward said.

UVA’s clash with NC State will start at 3:30 p.m., and the starting times for two other games at Scott Stadium have been announced. Virginia takes on Norfolk State at 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 11, and hosts Duke at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 23.

Overall, the Cavaliers averaged 48,776 at home games last season, their highest average in 17 years. That’s encouraging, Elliott said, but “we still want to make progress [in attendance], just like our team has to make progress each year.”

Attendance at Scott Stadium for last year’s season opener, against Coastal Carolina, was 46,143. Tickets sales for the NC State game are a full month ahead of where they were for the 2025 opener, Ward said.

Near-capacity and sellout crowds at Scott Stadium were common during much of George Welsh’s and Al Groh’s tenures at UVA. But for a variety of reasons, including the controversial reseating of Scott Stadium before the 2008 season, attendance at Virginia’s home games dipped significantly in the years that followed.

The Cavaliers started to reverse that trend in 2025, and Elliott, a former Clemson assistant coach, learned that when Scott Stadium draws a big crowd, “it's as loud as anywhere you're going to play,” he said. “So it's a great experience, and now I want to expand that.

“I want the tailgating to improve. I want to bring all of the pageantry of college football to Charlottesville. I believe that's what [fans have] wanted, but they've had to have a reason. And so I understand our job is to create that reason, and we have to keep them energized. So we've got to continue to produce on the field, as well as take care of our business off the field and be something to be proud of as a program. But it's been fun to watch [the growth].”

Elliott remembers coming out of the locker room for a TV interview last September after UVA’s double-overtime win over Florida State. Many hundreds of jubilant fans still celebrating on the field.

“Just to see the sheer excitement and joy of the folks on the field after that game, that was probably one of the top experiences that I've had in my coaching career,” Elliott said.

In 2025, UVA recorded the second-highest increase in season-ticket sales in more than two decades, Ward said, and more gains have been evident this offseason.

“We expect to finish with a record season-ticket renewal percentage,” Ward said, “and our new sales are on track for a multi-decade high.”

The season opener was originally set to be played in Brazil. But the game was moved to Charlottesville after Athlete Advantage, the company organizing the event, informed the ACC, Virginia and NC State that the game could not be conducted as planned in Brazil.

That announcement came early last month. Season tickets had gone on sale months earlier at UVA, so the NC State game was included in the package for no extra cost. That’s still the case for fans interested in purchasing season tickets, Ward said.

UVA reconfigured its pricing map after last season, Ward said, and season tickets in many areas of the stadium cost less this year than in 2025. Moreover, the season opener has been designed as a Fan First game, and family four-packs are available for as little as $25 per person, Ward said.

The opener is “one of our most affordably priced ACC games in years,” Ward said. “There’s no ticket in the stadium that is triple digits. It's all $99 and below.”

Ward sees the upcoming season in general and the opener in particular as opportunities for the fan base to “set the expectation that this is what it's like at Scott Stadium moving forward, because the team deserves it. The goal since Coach Elliott arrived has always been to grow the season-ticket base back to what it was once, making frequent sellouts viable.

“Our swift trajectory on that front combined with rabid student support is making what we saw down the stretch last year more likely to be the norm. Now it’s our obligation to take that step forward, sell this game out and show on the national stage that Virginia football is back and here to stay.”

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2026 VIRGINIA FOOTBALL TICKET INFORMATION 

FAN-FIRST FOUR-PACK
For the first three games of the 2026 season, secure a discounted rate on single-game orders of 4-10 seats in select seating areas—upper and lower-level options are included. 

SEASON TICKETS
Season-ticket renewals are now available for the 2026 season! Season tickets secure your seats for all seven home games starting at $180 per seat. 

FAMILY FOUR-PACK 
Bring the whole family to Scott Stadium all season long with the Family Four Pack,  starting at $560 for four season tickets. Bring up to 10 family and friends and secure our greatest discounted rate.  

UVA FACULTY/STAFF AND ALUMNI DISCOUNTED TICKETS 
Current full-time UVA faculty and staff, young alumni (within 5 years of graduation) and contributing members of the Alumni Association are eligible for a 20% discount. Call the UVA Ticket Office at 434-924-8821 and provide your computing ID. 

SEASON PARKING PASSES
With a minimum Virginia Athletics Foundation (VAF) Annual Fund gift requirement between $1,750 to $7,500, fans have the opportunity to purchase full-season parking passes for the 2026 season. The corresponding permit purchase price ranges from $300 to $350. For more information regarding football parking, please contact the VAF at 434-982-5555 or email vafweb@virginia.edu.