Next Test Awaits Hoos in Charlotte

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Until their football teams played each other Friday night at Scott Stadium, Tony Elliott had never met Michael Vick. Elliott is much more familiar with the head coach of Virginia’s next opponent.

At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, No. 25 UVA (2-0) meets West Virginia (2-0) in the Duke’s Mayo Classic at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. Elliott, who’s in his fifth year leading the Cavaliers, played wide receiver at Clemson, where the offensive coordinator during his first two seasons was Rich Rodriguez.

Rodriguez is in the second year of his second stint as West Virginia’s head coach.

“I know Coach Rodriguez well ... and he loves to run the ball,” Elliott said Friday night after Virginia’s 53-3 win over Vick’s Norfolk State Spartans. “And so we're gonna have our work cut out for us in Charlotte, but it's a good start to the season. We just gotta continue to build upon that.”

One of Elliott’s goals when he came to Charlottesville was for the Wahoos to establish a notable home-field advantage at Scott Stadium, and he’s seen significant progress on that front. Dating back to last season, the Hoos have won eight of their past nine home games. They’ll play at Scott Stadium five more times this season, but now comes a different challenge.

“We’re gonna take this show on the road,” Elliott told his team in the locker room Friday night.

One day at a time#GoHoos 🔶⚔️🔷 pic.twitter.com/UDGbJTbrAB

— Virginia Football (@UVAFootball) September 12, 2026

The Cavaliers’ success away from Scott Stadium contributed greatly to their historic 2025 season. En route to the program’s first 11-win season, UVA went 4-1 in road games. At neutral sites, the Hoos went 1-1, losing in overtime to Duke in the ACC championship game in Charlotte and defeating Missouri in the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla.

The ACC title game was played at Bank of America Stadium, home of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, and that’s where UVA walloped No. 15 West Virginia 48-22 in the border rivals’ most recent meeting: the 2002 Continental Tire Bowl.

This will be the first game away from home for the Mountaineers, too. They opened the season with a 31-24 win over Coastal Carolina in Morgantown, W.Va., and routed UT Martin there 52-7 on Saturday.

UVA, which routed NC State 34-8 at Scott Stadium in the season opener, was equally dominant against Norfolk State. The Hoos led 21-3 at halftime and then, led by their reserves, continued pulling away from the Spartans after the break.

Among the Cavaliers who shined were players who had yet to produce highlights in college: wide receivers Isaiah Robinson and TeKai Kirby, tight ends Hayden Rollison and Willem Thurber, defensive end Jewett Hayes, safety Keke Adams and linebacker Justin Rowe. And then there was backup kicker Chris Messmore, who, after Rowe’s 50-yard interception return for a touchdown, closed the scoring with an extra point at the 4:17 mark of the fourth quarter.

“He went from the press box to the scoreboard with his first point,” Elliott said of Messmore, a former intern in UVA’s athletic communications department.

Virginia’s starting kicker is fifth-year Will Bettridge, who earlier in the game had become the program’s all-time leading scorer. He and Messmore, who joined the team this summer, have become good friends, with Bettridge in something of a mentor’s role.

“So to see him score was special,” Bettridge said. “Also seeing a great friend of mine, Hayden Rollison, getting a touchdown, that was big for me. Just seeing a lot of guys who I know have put in a lot of hard work, to see some things pay off [for them], it was very special.”

Bettridge is one of a handful of players left in the program from the 2022 season, Elliott’s first at UVA. Bettridge wore jersey No. 17 as a true freshman, then switched to No. 41 in 2023 in in memory of D’Sean Perry, his close friend and former teammate.

Perry, who preceded Bettridge at Gulliver Prep in Miami, was one of the three UVA players shot and killed in November 2022, along with Lavel Davis Jr. and Devin Chandler, after returning to Grounds from a class field trip. Davis, Chandler and Perry wore Nos. 1, 15 and 41.

Those numbers are displayed at the south end of Scott Stadium, and Bettridge said he uses them as an aiming point when he’s kicking in that direction. It was at that end that he kicked the extra point that moved him past Connor Hughes on the Cavaliers’ all-time scoring list.

“I'm just thankful that not only is [Bettridge] being recognized, but the number 41 is also being recognized,” Elliott said, “because they both mean a lot to us as a program.”

All three units distinguished themselves Friday night. The defense forced three turnovers, two of them by safety Brandyn Hillman, a transfer from Michigan.

Only once in its past 10 games has Virginia allowed more than 21 points, and defensive coordinator John Rudzinski latest group has size, speed and experience.

“I think the defense is coming along pretty well,” linebacker Kam Robinson said Friday night.

Robinson is in his fourth year at UVA. Many of those around him on defense, however, are new to the program, including ends Matthew Fobbs-White, Nnanna Anyanwu and Devon Baxter, tackle Darrion Henry-Young, cornerbacks Jacobie Henderson, Omillio Agard and Justin Ross, and safeties Hillman and Christian Ellis.

“They all can play,” said Robinson, who made five tackles on Friday night in his 2026 debut.

The Cavaliers’ depth allows them to regularly rotate defensive linemen. Ends Fobbs-White, Anyanwu, Hayes, Baxter, Fisher Camac, Billy Koudelka, Justin Townsend and Cazeem Moore all played against Norfolk State, as did tackles Henry-Young, Jason Hammond, Anthony Britton, Sichan John, Kervins Choute and Jonathan Allen.

Elliott came to UVA from Clemson, which was known for its deep, talented defensive lines, and he said from the start that he “wanted to get to a place to where we had a ton of D-linemen that we can roll. We don't have starters. Everyone is a starter. When you can play 12 guys, it gives you versatility and flexibility.

“I think it started last year, when we finally got to that place to where we had the depth on the D-line to where now we can personnel it to give us the best advantage in certain situations. And so last year we had a second-down-and-long package and we had a third-down [package], and now we're building towards that.”

It’s not all about the defensive line, Elliott noted. “It's what you can do coverage-wise on the outside if you can play sticky man coverage, and the addition of [Hillman, Agard, Henderson and Ross], it gives you a world of flexibility. So I'm excited to see going forward just how much more creative we can be, because then also it becomes fun to the players when you can be creative. It also creates opportunities for more guys to have a role within your football team, which only helps enhance the culture that you have.”

The Norfolk State game kicked off a stretch of eight straight weekends on which UVA will play.

“So we got a lot of football ahead of us, and we're going to need everybody,” Elliott said. “This is a violent game, physical game. Guys are gonna get banged up and we're gonna need them all ... So I'm excited about the pieces that we have. Now it's just our job as coaches to figure out how to put them all together and keep them humble, keep them hungry, keep them focused, keep them working, keep them as a team.”

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