Seminoles Have Hoos' Full Focus

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Omillio Agard, then a cornerback at Wisconsin, was one of the 6.9 million viewers who watched the Virginia-Florida State game on TV last September.

At one point, Agard recalled Tuesday morning at the Hardie Center, he turned it off. But when he learned the game had gone to overtime, Agard said, “I turned it back on and I saw the ending and everything.”

The Wahoos prevailed 46-38 in double overtime at Scott Stadium, and an epic field rush by fans followed the game’s final play.

“It was amazing,” Agard said of Virginia’s heart-stopping victory. “It was special, and I was like, ‘Wow, UVA is a good school and somebody that we’ve got to look out for.’ ”

A year later, Agard is a Cavalier, and he’ll start in the secondary Saturday when Virginia (3-1 overall, 1-0 ACC) meets Florida State (2-2, 0-1) at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Fla. The 3:30 p.m. game will air on ESPN2.

He knows he’ll hear the Seminoles’ famed war chant throughout the game, and that will “be annoying,” Agard said with a smile, “but I'm excited. It was a childhood dream. I always wanted to play there, and it's just a dream come true.”

Game 5#GoHoos 🔶⚔️🔷 pic.twitter.com/8anpEM6j8C

— Virginia Football (@UVAFootball) September 29, 2026

UVA and FSU are meeting in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2010 and ’11. The Cavaliers haven’t played in Tallahassee since 2014 and haven’t won there since 2011. Overall, though, Virginia has won three of the past four games in the series.

For the Hoos, their 2025 victory over FSU came in their fifth game. Virginia went on to finish atop the ACC regular-season standings and ended the year with a program-record 11 victories.

The 2025 season was the Cavaliers’ fourth under head coach Tony Elliott, whose first three teams were a combined 11-23. Asked Tuesday about the impact of the win over the Seminoles, Elliott said that first and foremost it “maybe shifted the mindset of what is possible [at UVA], and it brought some proof of concept and some confirmation and we can become what we desire to become. And not just say it, not just have slogans on the wall, but on the field. We can be who we desire to be. I think that's kind of what it did for us internally. And then from a national perspective, it kind of brought the spotlight, and then we were able to follow it with some other [big victories] ... It wasn’t just a one-hit wonder, as they used to say back in the day.”

As a wide receiver at Clemson, Elliott played against the Florida State teams led by the legendary Bobby Bowden. Elliott later spent 11 years as an assistant coach at his alma mater, and he said he’s always believed that “if you want to be a champion in this league, you got to go through Tallahassee.”

His players may not be college football historians, but Elliott knows plenty about Florida State. The Seminoles’ stadium seats 67,277, and when “Doak Campbell gets rocking, you're not going to find a more electric atmosphere to play in,” Elliott said.

FSU is in its seventh season under head coach Mike Norvell. The Noles haven’t been as successful in recent years, but constants remain in their program, Elliott said. “They got dudes ... So that's been consistent, and I think that'll be consistent going forward. It’s Florida State. It’s a blue blood. It's one of the big-time logos. So that's what's been consistent. There's always been a ton of talent in Tallahassee.”

FSU’s weapons include wide receiver Duce Williams, a 6-foot-6, 230-pound senior. Williams caught nine passes for 147 yards and one touchdown against Virginia last season.

“He’s in my opinion, the best [receiver] in the ACC, for sure,” Elliott said, “and I think if you put him in a conversation with the top guys in the country, he's going to hold his own.”

Agard has been studying FSU’s receivers on film. Robinson “knows how to use his body,” Agard said. “He's very decisive in his routes. He moves like he's 5-10, and he uses his body well. He's good at back shoulders, and he can take the top off as well.”

Robinson has 13 receptions for 262 yards and two touchdowns this season. FSU quarterback Ashton Daniels’ other targets include wideouts Jayvan Boggs (12 catches, 240 yards, one TD) and Micahi Danzy (11 catches, 173 yards).

“They’re dogs,” Agard said, “so we're excited.”

Boggs is listed at 6-foot-1, 209 pounds; Danzy, at 6-foot-1, 194 pounds.

“I'm going to have to guard Danzy a little bit different than I'm going to have to guard Duce,” Agard said. “Then I'm going to have to guard [Boggs] a little bit different than I'm going to have to guard the rest of them ... So you’ve just got to have a plan with all of them.”

Virginia’s receivers have produced multiple highlights too. Kameron Courtney and Rico Flores Jr. had career performances Saturday night in UVA’s 42-3 win over Delaware at Scott Stadium.

Courtney caught two TD passes from quarterback Beau Pribula, and Flores, a transfer from UCLA, had nine receptions for 113 yards and one touchdown, his first as a Cavalier.

Another wideout, Da’Shawn Martin, has a team-high three TD receptions this season. Martin played last season at Kent State and had a 75-yard touchdown catch against Florida State.

FSU’s losses were to SMU and Alabama, which are ranked Nos. 21 and 7, respectively, in the latest Associated Press poll. The Noles’ 2-2 record might not impress, but Elliott said he’s not “worried about what happened in the first four games. It’s gonna be a fast, physical, violent game on Saturday, and we're gonna have to play well to put ourselves in position in the fourth quarter to have a chance to win.”

Agard said: “It's ACC ball now. It's big-boy football, and we're just excited to play the best.”

Virginia rolled over its first two opponents, routing NC State 34-8 and Norfolk State 59-3. Then came the Duke’s Mayo Classic in Charlotte, N.C., where West Virginia dominated the second half in a 38-27 win over UVA at Bank of America Stadium.

His team’s response to that setback pleased Elliott. In the annual UVA Strong game at Scott Stadium, Virginia demolished Delaware.

“We wanted to go undefeated, but it's behind us now,” Agard said, “and [the WVU loss is] going to help us in the future. So having that happen, we don't want to have it ever again.”

The Cavaliers’ challenge this week is proving they can handle success, Elliott said.

“Last week, we knew that everybody was going to show up on Monday [ticked] off they're experiencing that feeling of a loss,” he said. “Now, OK, you've had victory. You kind of got back to business. Can you maintain that edge and that focus? And that's the hard part ... You work for three hours on Saturday, you experience success and then you wake up on Monday and you go right back to work, just falling in love with the mundane. So I think that's what they did, and that's what they'll have to do. This week is gonna be an even bigger challenge, because it's a different challenge.”

From the loss to West Virginia, Elliott said, the Hoos learned the importance of showing “attention to detail for 60 minutes and just truly the importance of every single play, and that’s something that this team needed to learn.”

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