UVA Football Spring Practice is underway - Here is what you need to know

The Virginia Cavaliers began spring ball Tuesday as they kick off a hopeful 2026 campaign after a very successful 2025 season. Here are some notes as well as what Head Coach Tony Elliott had to say afterwards.

Pro Day + Postponement

Virginia was actually supposed to begin its spring practices Monday afternoon, however, due to the crazy weather across the Commonwealth and the East Coast, the 'Hoos had to move day one to Tuesday.

What made that interesting is practice ran along with UVA's 2026 Pro Day. UVA Pro Day consists of UVA players who compete in a combine-like experience in front of many NFL Scouts. Between recent Virginia Grad's and a couple of guests, it is an overall great event to get these athletes exposure for the next level. "It was awesome to see the turnout and the number of guys participate, but also man we lost we watched a lot of leadership walk out," Coach Elliott explained, "I was looking at that was like man, Jah (Jahmeer Carter), (Antonio) Clary, (James) Jackson, Mitchell (Melton)." There is a lot of roster turnover for this Virginia team in 2026 and a lot of talent that graduated or is off to the draft was the leaders of last season's historic team.

While there are many guys Coach Elliott wants to see step up and lead this season, there are two in particular he mentioned, one on offense and one on defense. "I believe we got a good core group of guys that are coming back and (McKale) Boley spoke to the team after practice today. And he's a guy that we're going to lean on." Boley is returning for 5th and final season at Virginia playing at the Offensive Tackle position. As for the defense, Coach Elliott mentioned a name fans will be excited to hear. "A guy like Kam Robinson, it's his me to lead. Before he didn't have to because James Jackson was here at that position." Elliott understands Boley and Robinson may not lead the same as those who have prior. This is not a big deal however, as he just wants them to take that next step and be leaders for the new guys in the program.

Back-to-back massive transfer portal classes

It is no secret that the transfer portal was a huge key to last season's success. With many players going to the NFL or transferring out, Virginia needed another really good class to be competitive this upcoming season. Of course, we still need to see the team play, but it would seem as though Coach Elliott and his staff had another successful class. Virginia brought in 29 new transfers including many from power 4 programs. The transfer portal being such a reason for success in 2025 poses the question, did Coach Elliott and the staff take things learned from last year to implement into their strategy this season? "We hope so. But it's still different because it's a new team and then you got to mix in the number of guys that we have out. So, we're proceeding very similar structure wise to how we did last spring, but also being conscious of the high rep guys that we brought in."

One would expect that last season's success would make recruiting and team development easier this time around, and it does, but Coach Elliott understands the team must flip to 2026. "The hardest part is handling success. The biggest message today is that we have to go create this team's identity. And there's not any carryover of stats and plays from last year. We have to start over; we got to double down on our core values. and we got to create an identity for this team based off of the foundation that's been laid from a program standpoint.

The Quarterback Position

One of the biggest talks of the offseason for Virginia was what the Quarterback position would look like. Last season, the guy was North Texas transfer Chandler Morris with Nebraska transfer Daniel Kaelin backing him up. Morris exhausted all eligibility (For now), and Kaelin returned to Nebraska this offseason. Also worth noting Freshman QB Bjorn Jurgenson transferred to Hawaii.

Virginia brought in two transfer Quarterbacks to join Freshman QB Cole Geer in 2026. The main QB most are excited for is Grad student Beau Pribula, the former Missouri Tiger who threw for 1,941 yards and 11 touchdowns as well as ran for 297 yards and 6 touchdowns. Joining him is the former Pitt Panther Eli Holstein. Holstein enters his sophomore season after getting benched last season at Pitt.

While most fans are excited for Pribula and expect him to start in 2026, however, Elliott did not necessarily admit a starter was already chosen. "The two guys that we brought in for the most part, they are older guys, they both were starters and played at a high level. And then they had their teams playing at a high level, which tells you that they have leadership. And when you look at last year, you had Chandler (Morris) coming in and you had Danny (Kaelin). There was still competition. So, it was not dead set like, hey, it's automatically your team, those guys had to kind of figure out and then the channel step forward. So that's what I anticipate is going to happen this spring, but it wasn't like it was day one of spring practice, it happened over time. I believe we got the right DNA with the guys that we brought in"

A known factor of offensive playcalling and decision making was a lot of communication between Tony Elliott, Des Kitchings, and Chandler Morris. Staying on the same page and having Morris do what he is comfortable doing. Coach Tony Elliott intends to have a similar approach this upcoming season. "It'll be very similar approach with the new quarterbacks, giving them just some ownership and some autonomy, because at the end of the day, players play." If the starting QB is Pribula, expect some designed QB runs as he can get on the move efficiently.

As for QB Reps, Tony Elliott did not have too much to say. Pribula actually was making passes for UVA Pro Day receivers to add on to throwing at practice. Elliott mentioned he thought he did a really good job during the practice aspect, however, missed some of the Pro Day due to some media obligations on ACC Network.

Offensive Line

Virginia retained much of its offensive line from last season, to include two of which who were injured for the entirety of last season in Monroe Mills and Makilan Thomas. "Really happy for them because I know how devastating it was to transfer in and high, high hopes for what you thought was your last season of college football," Elliott mentioned, "And then before you know it, boom, you're out and you miss an entire year."

Tony Elliott then discussed his expectations for an offensive line that returns so much experience, "I think that entire... first five right now with (McKale) Boley, (Noah) Josey, Makilan, Monroe (Mills), and Drake (Metcalf). They've really embraced the opportunity that they have because really it's probably the most veteran group."

Coach Elliott was then asked about the importance of returning two veterans like Drake Metcalf and Noah Josey. "It's huge because I can only see so much. There's a lot of things that happen in the locker room and then just in the community when the guys are out that impacts how we perform. To have guys that understand that balance and what is acceptable, what's not, to be able to be that extra set of eyes, it's huge.

Other Player Notes

Brandyn Hillman - Tony Elliott was very giddy when talking about former Michigan transfer Brandyn Hillman. Hillman was an in-state recruit that Virginia was able to return to the state. "He brings speed and range, very similar to Jonas (Sanker). He brings a very similar level of physicality." When Coach Elliott mentioned this stuff about Hillman, he smiled ear to ear with excitement... so I think its safe to say he was a good addition.

Donovan Platt - Donovan Platt, who was one of the leading corners on the defense last year, has moved to more of a safety role on the defense this season. Tony Elliott mentioned, "(Donovan) Platt. We've transitioned him to more of a safety type role. See how he handled that."

CJ Spence - Spence was recruited to be a corner and was pretty deep in the depth chart last season. However, after a couple of flashy plays and some convincing from Spence, Elliott decided to move Spence to play Wide Receiver. "I went down to bowl practice, and we were down some bodies, and he was playing receiver and I saw him put his foot in the ground and go get a ball and I said, okay, maybe that's the spot for him. And then he kind of wore me down. Throughout the course of the year. He kept showing me clips of him playing wideout. So, it was a combination of his passion and desire to do it and then he showed some things throughout the course of the year that said you know what, that might be the best home for him because he's a big, long guy."

Justin Rowe - Elliott mentioned the growth in Linebacker Justin Rowe and mentioned he is almost getting too big. "he's almost growing too much. I don't know if y'all seen him lately, man. He's ge ng huge. I didn't expect him."

Injuries - Now buckle yourself up before you read this list of injuries of guys who are still out for the spring and others. It is a long list. Elliott mentioned, "Guys that are out, X (Xavier) Browns out, (Corey) Costner, (Landon) Danley, lost Jim Harris to a turf toe in the last week and a half. (Noah) Hartsoe is out, (Noah) Josie's out, (Tekai) Kirby, (Billy) Koudelka, Marcellus (Maddox), (Ethan) Minter. Ja’Maric (Morris), Kam (Robinson), Tyler Simmons, possibly (Triston) Ward we could get back maybe. (Lukas) Unger's out, so we got some guys that are down." Coach Elliott did look at the bright side to it all, "it's going to be a lot of fun when we get to fall camp and we got everybody back. But it also creates some opportunity for other guys to get some quality reps."

Virginia is set to practice over the course of the next four weeks, ending with a Spring Game on April 18th. These practices give us a slight peek on what to expect for the fall and who we can expect to perform at high levels.