CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Virginia’s next test arrives with a familiar face on the other sideline and a trip away from Scott Stadium for the first time this season.
No. 25 UVA (2-0) meets West Virginia (2-0) at 7:30 p.m.
Saturday in the Duke’s Mayo Classic at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C. For Tony Elliott, the matchup carries an old connection: he knows West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez well from his Clemson days, when Rodriguez was the offensive coordinator during Elliott’s first two seasons there.
“I know Coach Rodriguez well ... and he loves to run the ball,” Elliott said Friday night after Virginia’s 53-3 win over Norfolk State. “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.”
Elliott also told his team exactly what the week ahead means.
“We’re gonna take this show on the road,” he said in the locker room after the win.
Virginia has built plenty of momentum at home, winning eight of its past nine games at Scott Stadium dating back to last season. The Cavaliers will still have five more home dates this year, but Saturday sends them into a different setting.
That’s not exactly unfamiliar territory for this group. Virginia’s run to an 11-win season in 2025 was fueled by strong play away from home, including a 4-1 mark in road games and a 1-1 record at neutral sites.
One of those neutral-site games came in Charlotte, where UVA lost to Duke in overtime in the ACC championship game. The other was a Gator Bowl win over Missouri in Jacksonville, Fla.
Charlotte also holds a more vivid memory for the Cavaliers: the 2002 Continental Tire Bowl, when UVA beat No. 15 West Virginia 48-22 in the teams’ most recent meeting.
West Virginia is also stepping into its first road game of the season. The Mountaineers opened with a 31-24 win over Coastal Carolina in Morgantown, then handled UT Martin 52-7 there on Saturday.
Virginia has been sharp through two games, opening with a 34-8 rout of NC State before rolling past Norfolk State. The Cavaliers led 21-3 at halftime Friday and kept extending the margin after the break with a wave of reserves.
That second-half surge included some firsts for players who had been waiting for their moment. 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 all showed up in a big way. Rowe’s 50-yard interception return for a touchdown set up one more memorable scene: backup kicker Chris Messmore came on for the extra point and finished the scoring with 4:17 left in 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, fifth-year Will Bettridge, had already made history earlier in the game by becoming the program’s all-time leading scorer. Bettridge and Messmore, who joined the team this summer, have grown close, with Bettridge taking on 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 the few players still around from Elliott’s first UVA team in 2022. He wore No. 17 as a freshman before switching to No. 41 in 2023 to honor D’Sean Perry, his close friend and former teammate.
Perry, who had played before Bettridge at Gulliver Prep in Miami, was one of three UVA players shot and killed in November 2022 after returning to Grounds from a class field trip. Lavel Davis Jr. and Devin Chandler were also killed. Davis, Chandler and Perry wore Nos. 1, 15 and 41.
Those numbers remain displayed at the south end of Scott Stadium, and Bettridge said he uses them as his aiming point when kicking in that direction. It was toward that end of the field that he made the extra point that moved him past Connor Hughes on Virginia’s 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.”
In Other News...
Virginia Still Has Something To Prove Before West Virginia
Virginia kept its place in the national picture after overwhelming Norfolk State, staying at No. 25 in both the Associated Press and American Football Coaches Association polls. The Cavaliers were rewarded with more points than they had a week earlier, a sign that voters noticed the lopsided win, even if it did not push them up the ladder.
Now the focus shifts to West Virginia, and there is a little more at stake than just another early-season game. Both teams enter at 2-0, which should make this one a sharper test of where Virginia really stands, especially after a ranking bump that stopped short of a climb. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Is Building A Case Fans Havent Seen In Years
Virginias 59-3 win over Norfolk State did more than keep the Cavaliers unbeaten and tied atop the ACC. It also came with a wide spread of contributors, as several players found the end zone for the first time in their careers while the offense kept rolling behind a sharp outing from quarterback Pribula, who completed 12 of 14 passes for three touchdowns with one interception.
The larger theme, though, is that this is starting to look like a team with both momentum and depth. The defense held Norfolk State to just one score, continuing a run of dominant play that has helped carry Virginia through the early part of the season, and the program also got a milestone moment from Will Bettridge along the way, the kind of development that gives a team plenty to feel good about even before the schedule gets more demanding. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia's Hot Start Now Comes With A Bigger Tony Elliott Test
Virginias start has been as convincing as it gets, and the AP voters kept the Cavaliers in the No. 25 spot after the rout of Norfolk State. The bigger picture is even better for Tony Elliotts team: Virginia is 2-0 and has overwhelmed its first two opponents, putting up early numbers that have turned a tidy September opening into something that starts to feel more like momentum.
Elliott, though, has been careful not to let the ranking or the margin of victory change the message inside the building. His point has been simple enough for a team riding this kind of start: the standard and the focus have to stay the same. Virginia now moves into a tougher-looking test against West Virginia, and that is where a hot start starts asking a different kind of question. [Read more 🡒]