Homestretch Arrives for Cavaliers

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — After making history last year by winning a program-record 11 games, the University of Virginia football team came into the 2026 season with lofty goals. The Cavaliers wanted to return to Charlotte, N.C., for the ACC championship game and, after winning this time, then advance to the College Football Playoff.

Those objectives are no longer possibilities for UVA, which is 4-5 overall and 2-4 in ACC. Still, head coach Tony Elliott said Tuesday during his weekly media availability at the Hardie Center, the Wahoos still have multiple goals they’re trying to achieve.

The Hoos want to become bowl-eligible and end the season with a postseason victory, and they can still win what Elliott called “the state championship.” UVA closes the regular season against Virginia Tech at Lane Stadium, and the Cavaliers, who reclaimed the Commonwealth Cup last year, haven’t won in Blacksburg since 1998.

The key for his team now, Elliott said, is to “focus on what you can control, what you do have ahead of you, and that's really what we've been focused on ... Now it's really just accepting the challenge of facing the adversity that you have in front of you. And don't run from it, run to it, and know that if you do that, on the other side there's gonna be a tremendous amount of growth. So there’s still a lot of things to focus on, even though maybe a couple of things we started the season focusing on are out of the picture.”

The Cavaliers, who are coming off their second and final bye week, will play their two next games at home before traveling to Blacksburg for the regular-season finale.

The homestretch begins with Heroes Appreciation Day at Scott Stadium. At 3:30 p.m. Saturday, the Cavaliers take on the California Golden Bears (3-6, 2-4) there. Virginia hosts North Carolina (5-4, 2-3) at 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 21.

Game 10 #GoHoos 🔶⚔️🔷 https://t.co/XNURQ3hpvp

— Virginia Football (@UVAFootball) November 10, 2026

Virginia has won 10 of its past 12 games at Scott Stadium, a stretch that started last season. UVA has lost only once at home this season: to Duke on Oct. 23. Eight days later, the Cavaliers fell 51-7 to then-No. 14 Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C., a defeat that left them with several issues to address during the bye week.

Offensive guard Noah Josey said Tuesday that the Hoos have benefited from studying their breakdowns.

“I think last week was a great week for us as a program,” Josey said. “I thought we started the week off really well, taking a lot of accountability on all fronts. I thought everybody did a good job of looking in the mirror and figuring out what we can do better and the little things, the little areas where we can improve.”

Elliott said it’s “been a good two weeks of just having a chance to, one, just be able to really dive into yourself before you have to play another opponent.”

Josey, who’s a team captain, said the Cavaliers are committed to putting together a strong November.

“I think everybody on this team is a competitor,” Josey said, “and everybody on this team loves football. So at the end of the day, we want to put the best product on the field. We want to go there and win games. We love each other, and this is a tight-knit team, so we want to keep playing for each other.”

Virginia has dropped four of its past five games, and Elliott said there have been “some honest conversations as a team, as a coaching staff” about fixing the problems that have led to that slide.

Injuries haven’t helped. The Hoos have been short-handed at several positions, but Elliott said he expects wide receiver Kameron Courtney and tailback Jekail Middlebrook to be available against Cal. Courtney has missed the past three games, and Middlebrook, Virginia’s leading rusher, didn’t play against Wake.

“So you get a couple of guys back that you're counting on to be to be playmakers,” Elliott said. “We’ve got to find [ways] to get them in space so they can go and make plays.”

Moreover, Elliott said, safeties Brandyn Hillman and Ethan Minter have returned to practice. Hillman has missed the past three and Minter the past two games. But two other key players on defense—defensive back Corey Costner and linebacker Myles Brown—are “day to day” while recovering from injuries, Elliott said, and linebacker Landon Danley suffered a long-term injury against Wake.

DOWNWARD TREND: In each of its first four games—three of them wins—Virginia scored at least 27 points. Since then, however, the Hoos have scored more than 16 points only once, in a 28-25 victory over Syracuse on Oct. 10.

Among the ACC’s 17 teams, UVA ranks 16^th in red-zone offense, 14^th in total offense and 12^th in scoring offense.

The Cavaliers showed early in the season that they could be prolific offensively, “and so we're just trying to find ways to get back to that,” Josey said.

His team’s conversion rate on third down must improve, Elliott said. At 30%, the Cavaliers rank 15^th in the ACC. They’ve fared much better on fourth down. With a conversion rate of 61.3%, Virginia ranks sixth among ACC teams.

“Big picture, we’ve to do better in the red zone and we’ve got to do better on third down,” Elliott said. “Those are the two big situational things that we’ve got to get better.”

Also, the Hoos have given up 28 sacks, tied for the most in the ACC, and they’ve “got to protect our quarterback better,” Elliott said. “I think coaching-wise, there are some things that we've got to coach better. We've got to teach better. There are some things that we've got to simplify so that the guys aren't overthinking ... so they can go and execute.”

As a team, Elliott said, the Cavaliers have “to reconnect. I think as school started and they got their lives back, [they were] not quite as close as they were during fall camp, which is a challenge, because they do have a life outside of this building. So those are the big-picture things that we focused on [during the bye week].”

SPECIAL TEAMS: The Cavaliers are giving up an average of 17.7 yards per punt return, the most in the ACC, in part because of Daniel Sparks’ strong right leg. He’s punted 40 times this season for an average of 50.8 yards per kick.

“Sparky's puntng the heck out the ball, but that is a problem,” Elliott said, “because now it's hard for us to cover that. So you're studying the tape and you're looking at it and you're like, ‘All right, they're catching the ball with 20 yards of separation. The closest guy is a gunner that's running full speed with somebody in his hip pocket that's 10 yards away.’ So we’ve got to do some things to help our guys schematically and then also fundamentally and maybe teach things a little bit different, because Sparky is kicking the heck out of the ball.”

Sparks experimented with a rugby-style punt early in his UVA career, “and he kicked it right into the back of the three guys in front of him,” Elliott said, “so that's not really what he does. So we're going to try and figure out another solution from the standpoint of figuring out how to cover it better. That's an area that we’ve got to get better at.”

REMATCH: This will be only the second time UVA and Cal, two of the nation’s most prestigious public universities, have met in football. The series kicked off last season in Berkeley, Calif., where Virginia won 31-21.

The Golden Bears are in their first year under head coach Tosh Lupoi. Their most impressive victory to date was a 25-20 win over Virginia Tech last month at California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley.

“Cal’s a good-looking football team,” Elliott said. “When you cut on the film and you look at the bodies, the length that they have, the size that they have, the speed that they have, you're like, ‘Man, this is a football team that I'd say is close [to breaking through] as well.’ And I hope that it doesn't all come together this week. But they've been getting better ... I think early in the season, they were trying to find their identity, especially on defense. They were doing a lot of different things. And then offensively, they didn't quite have the same guys they had last year. So they had new pieces. They're trying to figure out how to put all of that together.

Like Virginia, Cal comes into the weekend on a three-game losing streak, but “our guys are going to have to show up and play right,” Elliott said. “I told them, ‘You can’t listen to the outside noise. This is a good football team that's coming in here, and they're fighting for their season just like us. So you better strap up and be ready to play.’ ”

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