Virginia’s trip to Florida State now has a kickoff time, and once again the Cavaliers are headed into a non-noon window.
The ACC announced that Virginia’s first conference road game of the season on Oct. 3 will kick at 3:30 p.m., with the broadcast landing on either ESPN2 or ACC Network. It’s the latest in a run of high-profile time slots for Tony Elliott’s team, which has already been asked to start games at 3:30, 7 and 7:30 this season. Two of those contests - against NC State and West Virginia - were nationally televised.
That pattern continues this week as well. Virginia’s game against Delaware on Saturday is set for 6 p.m. on ACC Network, and it sets up the Cavaliers’ final non-conference game before heading to Tallahassee, Fla.
This is the first time in the Tony Elliott era that Virginia will open a season with five straight games outside the traditional 12 p.m. kickoff. It also marks the first time four of the Cavaliers’ first five games have been carried nationally on ESPN, ESPN2 or ACC Network.
Florida State enters the matchup at 1-2, and the record tells a messy story. The Seminoles opened with a win over New Mexico State that was closer than they wanted, then lost by a field goal after benefiting from four SMU turnovers.
This past week brought the most dramatic result yet: Florida State led 21-6 at No. 10 Alabama before falling 50-36.
The talent is there in Tallahassee, but the mistakes have been too costly. A shaky defense and repeated self-inflicted problems have kept the Seminoles from looking like anything better than a mid-tier ACC team.
That sounds awfully familiar. Last year’s Florida State squad was ranked No. 8 nationally before losing at Virginia and then tumbling into a season-defining losing streak.
Virginia gets Delaware first, and the expectation is that the Cavaliers should handle that game by several scores and respond to their surprising double-digit loss to West Virginia. ESPN had projected Virginia to finish 11-1 last week, but that changed after the defeat. The Cavaliers are now projected at 9-3, with several games that once looked routine now carrying a much different feel.
The Florida State game could be a major test. If the Seminoles clean up the mistakes and play better on defense, they could hand Virginia a second loss sooner than expected.
Still, the Cavaliers have already beaten Florida State once, and plenty of the people who helped engineer last year’s upset are still around. Virginia will try to make it 2-0 against the Seminoles, leaning on an edge in coaching, depth and experience.
In Other News...
Virginia Faces An Early Test After Another Brutal North Carolina Loss
Tony Elliott met the media after Virginias surprising loss at Bank of America Stadium, another frustrating trip through North Carolina for a Cavaliers team that has been trying to steady itself early in the season. The setback came with a reminder of how quickly things can tilt on the road, especially for a program still focused on keeping its bigger goals intact after a run of recent struggles in the state.
Virginia has bigger ambitions than one rough afternoon, with the ACC Championship game in December still the target Elliott and his players are working toward. For now, the response starts with a return home to Scott Stadium for Delaware, an early chance to clean up the issues that surfaced in Charlotte and show that this is a team capable of moving past another painful result. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Has Something To Prove After Its West Virginia Letdown
Virginias trip to West Virginia left the Cavaliers with a familiar kind of problem after a game they were expected to handle. Instead of extending early momentum, Tony Elliotts team came away with a loss and a fresh reminder that being favored does not make the margin for error any smaller, especially when the game starts to turn in the wrong direction.
Now the focus shifts to Delaware next Saturday, with the matchup set for the ACC Network and a chance for Virginia to reset in front of a wider audience. Elliott pointed to the need for his group to learn from those tense stretches and manage adversity better, which makes this week less about the opponent and more about how quickly the Cavaliers can show they absorbed the lesson. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Suddenly Has A Bigger Problem Than One Loss
Virginias first loss of the season came with some sobering context in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the Cavaliers were outplayed by West Virginia in a 38-27 defeat. It was the kind of afternoon that exposed issues on both sides of the ball, with the offense never finding much rhythm and the defense struggling to handle the pressure the Mountaineers brought from start to finish.
Even with ACC play still intact, the margin for error has shrunk fast for a Virginia team that had been building toward bigger goals. The College Football Playoff path is still technically there, and the ACC Championship remains a live route, but the Cavaliers now need to respond in a hurry if they want either conversation to stay realistic. [Read more 🡒]