The UVA Football offense was among the best in the nation through the first five games of the 2025 season, averaging 45.6 points and 539.6 yards per game, before injuries to the offensive line and to QB Chandler Morris forced Des Kitchings’ hand.
Kitchings, the offensive coordinator, had to shift his O linemen around to account for the injury issues up front, and with Morris, who banged up his left shoulder in the third quarter of the season opener, it was touch-and-go with him all season long.
If you want to know why the productivity of the unit dropped off as the season wore on, it was because Kitchings had to game plan conservatively to make sure he could get his tattered offense through games in as close to one piece as possible.
Going into the 2026 season, Kitchings has depth and talent on the line, and two Power 4 starters behind center, in the guy named QB1 before the start of camp, Missouri transfer Beau Pribula, and Eli Holstein, a starter at Pitt for parts of two seasons before transferring to Virginia in the offseason.
I’m not sure which is more important – can I get away with saying, both?
Starting with the line, Virginia has three returning starters (McKale Boley, Noah Josey, Drake Metcalf), a guy who was set to start before going down in spring practice in 2025 (Monroe Mills), and a mix of returnees with game reps and guys from the transfer portal with significant experience.
“I mean, obviously, it’s very comforting, because you feel like when you step off the bus, you have an opportunity to go in there and establish your identity of being a physical team,” Kitchings told reporters in a media gaggle after practice on Friday.
“We talk about that, physicality, is not just in the run game and pass protection. One of our core values is to protect the program. And protecting the program, that’s protecting the ball and protecting the quarterback. Everybody plays a role in that,” Kitchings said.
O line room: 2026
- G Noah Josey (Virginia): 983 snaps, 12 pressures/zero sacks allowed
- G/C Drake Metcalf (Virginia): 911 snaps, 17 pressures/one sack allowed
- T McKale Boley (Virginia): 856 snaps, 11 pressures/two sacks allowed
- T Makilan Thomas (Arkansas State, 2024): 650 snaps, 15 pressures/three sacks allowed
- T Monroe Mills (Louisville, 2024): 566 snaps, seven pressures/one sack allowed
- T Ben York (Virginia): 262 snaps, 11 pressures/ two sacks allowed
- G/C Noah Hartsoe (Virginia): 65 snaps in 2025
- T Jon Adair (Virginia): 51 snaps in 2025
- G Grant Ellinger (Virginia): 45 snaps in 2025
- T Ryan Brubaker (South Carolina): 39 snaps in two seasons (2024, 2025)
- T Alex Payne (Southern Cal): four-star recruit; redshirted in 2025
At QB, having Pribula and Holstein with experience as starters at the P4 level is depth that most OCs can only dream of.
Kitchings had the challenge of trying to turn an FCS transfer, Tony Muskett, into a Power 4 starter in 2023, only for Muskett to get injured early, forcing true freshman Anthony Colandrea into the starting role.
Colandrea ended up being the QB1 for the bulk of 2024, before Kitchings and head coach Tony Elliott went back to Muskett for the season finale with Virginia Tech.
“We took a lot of lumps, right? There were some highs and some lows, right?” Kitchings said, and – checking the archives from 2023 and 2024, he checks out there.
Morris brought stability in 2025, but playing dinged up most of the season finally caught up to him in the November home game with Wake Forest, when he got knocked out of the game in the second quarter on a cheap shot hit by a pair of Wake defenders.
Daniel Kaelin, the backup, had not taken a meaningful college snap to that point in his young career, “and it kind of showed in that game against Wake Forest. We got it to the fourth quarter, but weren’t able to capitalize and finish,” Kitchings said.
“I don’t want anybody to get hurt, but the sport happens that way, and we feel like we’re very fortunate to have two guys that have won games at a Power 4 level, right, Beau in the SEC, and Eli in the ACC, and both of them have thrown the ball well, they’ve moved their teams up and down the field to score points,” Kitchings said.
QB room: 2026
- Beau Pribula (Missouri): completed 67.2 percent of his passes for 1,941 yards, 11 TDs and nine INTs, with 434 sack-adjusted yards on the ground – 244 yards on designed runs, 190 yards on scrambles.
- Eli Holstein (Pitt): over two seasons, completed 61.8 percent of his passes for 3,309 yards, 29 TDs and 13 INTs, with 576 sack-adjusted yards on the ground – 198 yards on designed runs, 378 yards on scrambles.
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Chris Graham
