Brown Happy He Stayed the Course

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The list of football players who start and finish their college careers at the same school seems to shrink every year, but such student-athletes still exist.

Take the seven University of Virginia players who walked to midfield last Saturday night for the coin toss at Scott Stadium. It was the annual UVA Strong game at Scott Stadium, and Will Bettridge, McKale Boley, Xavier Brown, Noah Hartsoe, Noah Josey, Daniel Sparks and Dakota Twitty were the Cavaliers’ captains. They’re the only players left in the program from the 2022 season, which ended with the shooting deaths of teammates Lavel Davis Jr., Devin Chandler and D’Sean Perry.

The UVA Strong game is always a heart-wrenching occasion, Brown said Tuesday, but this one hit him a little harder. Relatives of Davis, Chandler and Perry, including their mothers, were all present at the game. Also recognized on the field were Mike Hollins and Marlee Morgan, who were wounded in the shooting, and their families.

“Just seeing all their faces and everything, it was kind of full circle,” Brown said, “and it was a very emotional day.”

Josey joined the program in 2021, when Bronco Mendenhall was the Wahoos’ head coach. The other six arrived on Grounds in 2022, after Tony Elliott had taken over for Mendenhall: Sparks as a transfer from Minnesota, and Bettridge, Boley, Brown, Hartsoe and Twitty as freshmen.

Brown had committed to play for Mendenhall, only to see him step down unexpectedly in early December 2021. Elliott let Brown and the other committed players know they still were welcome at UVA.

“When Coach E came on, he didn’t have to honor our scholarships,” Brown said. Elliott did so, however, and that’s among the many reasons Brown is still at UVA.

“I just felt like I kind of owed it to him,” Brown said, “because he took a chance on all of us, and it’s been rewarding.”

Elliott is delighted Brown stayed the course.

“There’s not a better ambassador for Virginia football than X. Brown,” Elliott said Tuesday, “with the perseverance that he's had to go through from recovering from injury to ... being a part of what took place in ’22. He’s still here, and I think that speaks to [Brown’s character], and also it speaks to just the environment we've been able to create here at the University of Virginia. Maybe the cool thing is to bounce around [from school to school], but we've created an environment where guys feel comfortable and want to stay and want to be a part of what we're doing.”

Brown, who grew up in Lexington, Ky., was 18 years old when he enrolled at UVA. He’ll be 23 when he earns his second degree in December: a master’s from the School of Education and Human Development. Along the way he’s earned a bachelor’s degree in media studies, suffered significant injuries, and helped the football program heal after the tragic events of Nov. 13, 2022.

“I'll never forget that day,” Brown said. “I remember exactly where I was when I got the call, got all the information. It made me start to really appreciate the people around me a lot more. You never know when it's your time. We lost three amazing guys in Lavel, Devin, and D’Sean. All three of them were guys I looked up to, especially just being a first-year here.”

When he arrived at UVA after starring at Lexington Christian, Brown said, he wasn’t sure what to expect.

“I came in as a kid that was really just going to test it out, not knowing what was ahead,” Brown said. “I think I come out of this, after my five years here, as a man, first of all, someone who really learned how to handle adversity. With being hurt so much, there's always some negative to look at, but I learned just to find the positive and really just appreciate the game. You never know when your last snap is gonna be.”

Brown was named UVA’s offensive rookie of the year as a true freshman in 2022, but elbow and tricep injuries limited him to two games in 2023.

In 2024, he appeared in 11 games and averaged a team-high 6.1 yards per carry. In Virginia’s fourth game that season, he rushed nine times for 171 yards in a 43-24 win over Coastal Carolina in Conway, S.C.

Brown came into last season looking to build on his 2024 campaign, and he played a leading role in UVA’s upset of No. 8 Florida State at Scott Stadium on Sept. 26, 2025. He carried nine times for 60 yards and had a 15-yard touchdown catch in the Wahoos’ 46-38 double-overtime win.

If he had to rank his most memorable moments as a Cavalier, Brown said this week, that night would be in the top two, along with the Coastal game, just because of the atmosphere at Scott Stadium and “the significance of the win.”

Then came another setback. Brown torn his left ACL last Oct. 18 against Washington State and missed the rest of the season, including the ACC championship game and the Gator Bowl.

“I would say this is the toughest injury I’ve had to come back from,” Brown said.

He had reconstructive surgery on Nov. 3, after which he set an ambitious goal for himself. Brown wanted to be a full participant in training camp, about nine months later.

“I knew the running back room that we were bringing in was going to be deep with talent,” he said, “so I just wanted to be back in enough time to be able to compete and show the coaches I'm still the player that I was before, even better than that. So it was just a mindset. I was in the training room every day for two, three hours a day.”

Three of his teammates were also recovering from torn ACLs: linebacker Kam Robinson and defensive backs Jam Jackson and Ja’Maric Morris. Each had a different timetable for his return, but they rehabbed together, and it helped, Brown said, “just having somebody who went through that experience with you at the same time. You’ve got people that can actually understand where you're coming from and relate on certain things. They were a little ahead of me, so they were telling me things to expect, things that helped them, and things like that.”

Brown met his goal, joining the Cavaliers’ five other scholarship tailbacks on the field during camp. The group consists of Brown, Jekail Middlebrook, Noah Vaughn, Xay Davis, Peyton Lewis and Solomon Beebe.

Middlebrook was named the starter coming out of training camp, but Brown announced his return with a stellar effort in Virginia’s season-opening rout of NC State at Scott Stadium. No. 0 scored twice against the Wolfpack: on a 1-yard run and on a 45-yard reception. Brown finished with 40 yards rushing and 58 receiving.

“It felt amazing,” he said after the game.

For the season, he’s averaging 6.1 yards per carry and 13.2 yards per catch. With three touchdowns, Brown is tied for the team lead with wide receiver Da’Shawn Martin. One of those TDs came on a 47-yard run against West Virginia, and Brown expects his impact to grow as the season progresses and he strengthens his knee.

When he first returned to the field, Brown said, “I’d be thinking about the movement before I did it, but now I feel like I'm getting back to my natural state, just making the instant decision and making the cut and everything,” Brown said.

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

— Virginia Football (@UVAFootball) September 29, 2026

He’s never faced Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla., but that will change Saturday. At 3:30 p.m., in a game to air on ESPN2 and the Virginia Sports Radio Network, the Cavaliers (3-1 overall, 1-0 ACC) meet the Seminoles (2-2, 0-1) at Doak Campbell Stadium.

Elliott has told his team all week that the road to the ACC title game goes through Tallahassee, so the clash with FSU is “a big task for us, and it's the next step in that journey,” Brown said.

Of Virginia’s tailbacks, only Middlebrook (40) has carried the ball more than 30 times this season. Davis has 28 carries, and Brown and Vaughn have 24 apiece. (Beebe has yet to play this season.)

That competitive depth “brings the best out of all of us,” Brown said. “I think it makes you go out there and take advantage of each and every opportunity, because you know you're not going to get the ball 20 times a game, just with the talent we got in this room. It's kind of good to spread the love around, keep the defense on their toes, keep a fresh back in there. We’ve all kind of got different types of running styles, so it keeps the defense on their toes.”

Brown, who lives with Twitty and defensive tackle Jonathan Allen, has experienced more than most players do in their college careers. He’s better, he believes, for having pushed through the adversity he’s encountered at UVA.

“It’s been a journey just from my first day here to now. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world,” Brown said. “So I've seen the ups and downs, and I've seen this program build.”

The Cavaliers finished 3-7 in their abbreviated 2022 season and went 3-9 in ’23. They improved to 5-7 in 2024 and then won a program-record 11 games in '25, reclaiming the Commonwealth Cup from Virginia Tech in the process.

“It was a grind,” Brown said of the Hoos’ ascent. “’22 wasn’t very good, ’23 wasn’t a good season. In ’24, you started to see the potential. It was just about fully getting the guys with the right mindset and committed. And then you saw in ‘25, we finally broke through and took the strides that we wanted and showed what this program could really be.”

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