Checking the temperature: How UVA Football opponents did this weekend

Looking back: Good job by the D on Nate Sheppard

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UVA Football fans remember Duke tailback Nate Sheppard throwing the game-winning TD pass last month.

Sheppard, otherwise, had a quiet Friday night in Charlottesville – 55 yards on the ground, two catches for 11 yards.

In the three games since, Sheppard has put up 445 rushing yards, including 131 in Duke’s 36-25 loss at Miami on Saturday, in which he also had 12 catches for 93 yards.

For the season: Sheppard has 1,320 rushing yards and 399 yards on 44 catches through the air.

That comes to 132.0 yards per game on the ground and 171.9 all-purpose yards per outing.

WVU sitting at 5-5

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In my postgame after West Virginia handed Virginia its first loss of the season back in September, I observed that WVU, at that point off to a 3-0 start, would be lucky to win six games.

Which gets us to Saturday: when Kansas, 3-6 coming in, went to Morgantown and won, 37-14, behind 448 yards of total offense, and a defensive effort that limited ‘Neers QB Michael Hawkins to 36 net yards rushing on 25 attempts.

You’ll remember that Hawkins burned Virginia for 123 yards and three TDs on the ground.

WVU fans let me know that they didn’t appreciate me saying our D made a guy whose future is being a backup in the Arena League look like the second coming of Lamar Jackson.

Yeah.

And the WVU D, which laid the blueprint for how to defend the Virginia offense, holding Virginia under 300 yards before allowing a garbage-time TD drive: it’s ranked 137th in FBS (495.7 yards per game).

There are 138 teams competing in FBS this season.

How are things going for the dog-killer?

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Norfolk State, led by second-year head coach Michael Vick, has lost four straight after a 4-3 start, though that start comes with an asterisk.

One of the wins was over Chicago State, which is in its first year in FCS, and is 3-7 this season; another was over Virginia University of Lynchburg, which isn’t affiliated with any of the three NCAA divisions, and is 0-9 this season, losing games by an average score of 47.3-3.8, with five of the losses being shutouts.

One of Chicago State’s wins was, ahem, over Virginia-Lynchburg.

The other NSU wins:

• Winston-Salem (2-8 in 2026)
• Hampton (1-10 in 2026, the win being, Virginia-Lynchburg)