The Shadow
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The University of Virginia football team’s roster underwent sweeping changes after the 2024 season. More than 50 newcomers joined the program last year, including 32 transfers, and head coach Tony Elliott wasn’t sure how old and new would mesh on and off the field. He need not have worried. The Cavaliers’ 2025 season “made me a believer in terms of, OK, this can be done,” Elliott said Wednesday at the Hardie Center.
In no small part because of the contributions of those newcomers—quarterback Chandler Morris, tailback J’Mari Taylor and Harrison Waylee, wide receiver Cam Ross, center Brady Wilson, defensive ends Mitchell Melton and Daniel Rickert, and safety Devin Neal among them—the Wahoos reclaimed the Commonwealth Cup, finished the regular season atop the ACC standings, and won 11 games for the first time in program history.
In this era of player movement, significant roster turnover is likely to be an annual occurrence in most Power 4 programs. The Wahoos signed 14 high school seniors in December, and they added 29 transfers after the portal opened that month. (There’s no longer a spring portal.)
Elliott, who’s in his fifth year at Virginia, met with media members Wednesday, which was officially signing day, to discuss the new class.
Of the 43 signees, 34 are already enrolled at UVA and training under the supervision of head strength and conditioning coach Adam Smotherman. The other nine, who include two transfers from the Ivy League, will arrive on Grounds after the school year ends. Of the 29 transfers, 13 will compete as graduate students in the fall.
In all, the transfers have combined to play 22,953 snaps of college football.
It’s challenging to integrate so many newcomers into a program, Elliott acknowledged, but in 2025 the Cavaliers “were able to prove that it can be done. And so the key for us going into this cycle was making sure that we understood how we were able to do it and what it takes to be successful and try to replicate that formula as best we can, considering that the landscape was going to change again.
“I didn’t anticipate losing as many guys from our roster as we did, but at the same time it made sense. Guys were looking for opportunities to go have a more significant role and get on the field a little bit quicker. So this class is not quite as big [as last year’s], but there still is a considerable number of transfer guys that we did bring in.”
Virginia’s top two quarterbacks last season were Morris and Daniel Kaelin, both of whom have moved on. Cole Geer, who appeared in two games as a true freshman in 2025, is back, but the Cavaliers needed to bolster that position group, and they added two transfer quarterbacks: Beau Pribula from Missouri and Eli Holstein from Pittsburgh.
When the portal opened, there was a chance Morris could receive another year of eligibility and return to UVA. The Cavaliers’ coaches were “very, very transparent” about that possibility with quarterbacks they were pursuing, Elliott said, “and we were patient. But then as we got towards the end of it and we got a little bit of clarity of the direction that that situation with Chandler was headed, we just kind of put our cards on the table, and it was what [Pribula and Holstein] were looking for. And I think having a chance to come in and visit and see it and feel it and understand the culture that we have established in our locker room sold the guys. They’re competitors and they were looking forward to it, the opportunity to go compete. And they’re going to bet on themselves.”
Holstein, who began his college career at Alabama, started 14 games in his two seasons at Pitt. Pribula started for Missouri during the regular season last year but opted out of the Gator Bowl, where Mizzou, coincidentally, faced (and lost to) Virginia.
“When you look at Eli, obviously he came in at Pitt and tore it up for a little while and has a big arm, can make all the throws,” Elliott said. “He’s also been in different programs, so you know kind of the DNA that he’s bringing in the door. And then Beau is a guy that’s had success when he’s been in there. He can use his legs a little bit more [than Holstein], and also can make all the throws. And so kind of a similar situation to what we lost, when you look at what we had in Danny and what we had in Chandler.”
Of the 14 high school players who signed in December, seven are from Virginia. Two of the transfers also grew up in this state: defensive back Brandyn Hillman (Portsmouth) and tailback Peyton Lewis (Salem). Hillman and Lewis played at Michigan and Tennessee last season, respectively.
The Cavaliers pursued both players when they were in high school, Elliott said, but “truth be told, at the time It didn’t make sense. This building”—the Hardie Center—”wasn’t built. We hadn’t had the success on the field to prove what we were capable of as a staff. So, yeah, it made sense for those guys to look elsewhere. But I told them, ‘Man, what I’m building is trying to build something to where you guys don’t have to leave the state.’
“So I think really the key was how we handled the recruiting on the front end, when we recruited them out of high school, and they remembered that. And then for them to see the tangible things that we said we were building towards really come to fruition, I think was key.”
An honorable-mention All-Big Ten selection last season, Hillman was “a guy that I really, really wanted to stay in state, but just didn’t have enough firepower, as I told him,” Elliott said. “But now I got a little bit more firepower.”
Hillman, who starred at Churchland High School, is one of eight defensive backs in the transfer class. All together, they’ve made 130 starts.
“So just on paper, you feel like, OK, you’re bringing in some experience,” Elliott said. “Now we’ve got to get them adjusted to what we do schematically, but we feel much better about where we are this year as opposed to last year, because all those guys are here for the most part. We got one guy in the secondary that’s not coming until the summer”—Patrick Campbell from Dartmouth—”but the rest of those guys are here, as opposed to last year. I think we signed six [defensive backs] in the second portal window after spring ball.”
The transfer class includes three running backs—Lewis, Solomon Beebe (UAB) and Jekail Middlebrook (Middle Tennessee State)—who joined a position group with such returners as Xavier Brown, Noah Vaughn and Xay Davis.
“When you look at the three that we brought in, I think they all complement each other very well,” Elliott said. “I think you got some size and you got some speed, some elusiveness.”
Competition for playing time at tailback figures to be fierce. “But I think you now have some versatility and some flexibility, which allows you just to be more creative on offense,” Elliott said.
Taylor, an All-ACC selection, carried 222 times in 13 games in 2025, and that workload took a toll on him late in the regular season. “That’s a lot for one guy,” Elliott said, “and now you can have the opportunity to offload that a little bit.”
Several wide receivers with eligibility remaining transferred from UVA to other schools after the Gator Bowl, most notably Trell Harris and Eli Wood. To fill those holes, UVA picked up four wideouts from the transfer portal.
“Don’t know exactly what we have until we get them out there in our system and watch them run around and in the in the schemes that we ask them,” Elliott said, “but I like them so far. Watching them work and watching them run these last couple of days, I like the skill set. Now we’ll just have to see how it all plays out.”
Wideouts who chose to stay at Virginia include Kameron Courtney, who had a change of heart after entering the portal, and Jahmal Edrine. Courtney caught 25 passes for 234 yards last season. Edrine had 46 catches for 564 yards and one TD. He was second on the team in receiving yards and third in receptions.
“I think his ceiling is, he can be an NFL guy,” Elliott said of the 6-foot-3, 221-pound Edrine, who transferred to UVA from Purdue last year.
Fourteen of the players in Virginia’s latest transfer class have more than one year of eligibility remaining.
“If you look at the guys that we were able to recruit in the past that have multiple years, it has a chance to impact your program and give you some continuity to help you establish and maintain a culture,” Elliott said. “So I don’t know if it was a design, like saying going in that some 50% of our class is going to be multi-year guys. It just kind of worked out that way. But I think there are some potential benefits to that long term.”
