Alumni Spotlight: Rodney McLeod

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In November 2011, near the end of his stellar career as a University of Virginia defensive back, Rodney McLeod played at Scott Stadium for the last time. He hasn’t been back there for a game since, but that’s about to change.

McLeod, who spent 13 years in the NFL, will be the analyst on ACC Network’s broadcast of UVA’s game against visiting Delaware on Saturday night. He’s in his second year with ESPN and ACC Network, but this will be first Virginia game he’s worked at any site.

During his prep for the game, McLeod said with a laugh, he’s had to remind himself to not say ‘we’ when discussing the Cavaliers.

“You’ve got to remove yourself as much as possible and keep it neutral,” McLeod said Thursday. “I’m going to need to do some 48-hour, 24-hour training, just to get to some practice reps in and ensure I don’t do that on air.”

McLeod and his wife, the former Erika Lee, who’s also a UVA graduate, live in Philadelphia with their two young children. He stays busy. In addition to his broadcast work, he assists the Eagles in a player development role, McLeod said, working with their wide receivers and “just sharing my knowledge of the game, figuring out ways for them to gain a competitive edge week to week, based off any details that maybe I've seen on film, or route concepts that might be useful for the coaches to put in place versus different coverages.”

Weekends find him in the broadcast booth.

“One thing I thoroughly enjoy is teaching the game of football, watching film and analyzing it and really breaking it down, ripping it apart,” McLeod said. “I think that's one of the most fascinating pieces of the game for me. And my job is to educate others on what I know, what I see.”

This will the first time he’s been to Scott Stadium for a game since he graduated from UVA, but McLeod has returned to Grounds multiple times over the years. Most recently, he spoke to the football team at the Hardie Center in August.

“He did an outstanding job,” head coach Tony Elliott said Tuesday. “He talked about his journey and the importance of just being present on your own journey and not comparing it to anybody else’s, and the importance of everybody's role, and he gave us a great quote that I actually used [Monday].”

As a safety for the Eagles, McLeod helped them win Super Bowl LII in February 2018. He learned that season, McLeod told UVA’s players, that “everybody's fingerprints are on the trophy. Everybody matters.”

McLeod was undrafted coming out of Virginia, but that didn’t deter him. He played six seasons with the Eagles, four with the Rams, two with the Browns and one with the Colts.

He faced many obstacles along the way. McLeod twice suffered torn ACLs during his NFL career, and he pointed out to the Cavaliers “just how cruel and violent this game can be, and the emotional roller coaster that it can take you on, and the importance of having healthy outlets when you do face adversity in this game,” Elliott said. “He did a phenomenal job, and I'm still taking messaging from that talk and using it with our players.”

In 2025, Virginia reclaimed the Commonwealth Cup and recorded a program-record 11 wins. When he spoke to the current Cavaliers during training camp, McLeod said, he told them that sustained success is a realistic goal, “but the way that you get there won’t necessarily be the same from year to year. You can't expect to have the same walk and journey that the 2025 team had to get 11 wins and do it in the way that they did. That’s behind you.”

Among the points he took away from McLeod’s remarks, UVA center Drake Metcalf said Tuesday, is that “everyone's journey is different. Whether you're a guy that comes into college football and you’re a starter right off the bat, or you're a guy that works into a role, everyone's role is going to be different, and you just have to really embrace that role at the time. He also talked about his journey and how he had ups and downs. He had knee injuries that set him back, and I think that really resonated with me. I was like, ‘Hey, I've been in this same position with my injuries, and I've had to come back from this and be resilient.’ ”

Adversity is inevitable, McLeod said this week, and that’s “what I faced throughout 13 years. But I told them that what's allowed me to stand here today and to have these stories. It’s not because the journey wasn't difficult. It's because I kept walking my path that was assigned to me. You never know what's going to occur to you as an athlete, individually or collectively, but you need to see it through. You have to learn how to work through those adverse situations. You have to go through it to understand exactly who you are and the character of not only yourself, but your team.”

To have an opportunity to speak at his alma mater “was amazing,” McLeod said. “I was in those seats, so I get it. I know what they're going through. I know what they're up against, and I was just bringing some words of encouragement to them as they embark on their journey.”

Virginia is 2-1 after losing 38-27 last weekend to West Virginia in Charlotte, N.C. The Cavaliers went into that game ranked No. 25 nationally.

“You see already, they're facing some early adversity,” McLeod said, “and it's all about the response. It's all about what you do next. And then it's all about still keeping those things that you set out to do in mind and working through it.”

McLeod and his wife founded the Change Our Future foundation six years. The foundation aims to provide programs, opportunities and resources to help youth, families and communities thrive.

Also in 2020, the Eagles nominated McLeod for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award, which honors players for their exceptional community service.

A graduate of DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Md., McLeod arrived on Grounds in 2008. He played for two head coaches at UVA: Al Groh in 2008 and ’09 and Mike London in ’10 and ’11. McLeod’s position coach for most of his college career was former Virginia great Anthony Poindexter.

The Hoos were a combined 20-29 during McLeod’s four years in the program, but his senior season include road wins over ACC foes Miami and Florida State and a trip to Atlanta for the Chick-fil-A Bowl. He was a team captain in 2011 and received All-ACC honorable mention. Among his many highlights was his performance in Virginia’s 31-13 win over then-ACC rival Maryland in College Park. McLeod tied the program record by intercepting three passes in that game.

“Looking back on my college career, I would have liked to win a lot more games than I was able to do,” McLeod said. “When I committed to Virginia, I saw something completely different in mind. But I talked about this when I spoke to the team. If you just think about the football side of it, you feel like you've underachieved, but when I think about what the University of Virginia provided for me, it's exactly what I needed, and I won in so many areas of life.

“I met my wife there. That is a thing that can never be replaced, and I've gained a ton of brothers that were once teammates, guys that I now have longstanding relationships with that I still call on today. And then I gained a great deal of mentors from coaches like Al Groh, Mike London, Anthony Poindexter. The list goes on. Those three are instrumental in my success as a football player and as a man.”

Moreover, McLeod said, he was a first-generation college student. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology, and that “really changed my family’s trajectory,” he said, “seeing all my siblings follow suit after me. And so you can’t put a price tag on that. I look now at my time spent on Grounds, and I'm forever grateful for it despite coming up short in some departments in the football aspect.”

UVA’s success in 2025, its fourth season under Elliott, delighted McLeod. In the preseason media poll, the Hoos were picked to finish 14^th out of the ACC’s 17 teams. They ended up finishing atop the league’s regular-season standings.

“It is a great feeling when your alma mater is competitive and winning games,” McLeod said, “and the way that they did it last year, this whole underdog type of season, that speaks exactly to who I am at the core. They caught a lot of people by surprise, but I'm sure internally it was no surprise to them, because they put the work in, they believed in each other, and they had the right leader to get them to the position that they ended up.”

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