Notebook: What the UVA Football guys were saying at the 2026 ACC Kickoff

This time last year, UVA Football was on its way to being picked 14th in the ACC by the media members in attendance at the annual ACC Kickoff.

Virginia, as you know, went on to finish in first in the regular season, and lost in the ACC Championship Game in OT.

Fourteenth. Huh.

The focus from the media doofuses who gave the program less than zero in terms of respect last summer seems to be on, OK, great, you won 11 games last year, can you do it again?

Which, fair.

Though you can tell from the way they asked the questions, they don’t think so.

I digress.

“My desire for this upcoming season is that, what you see is who we are, what we say our identity is, is a fit football team, fast, intelligent, tough,” said head coach Tony Elliott, who went from winning 11 games total in his first three seasons at UVA to leading his team to an 11-3 finish, just missing out on an improbable berth in the College Football Playoff.

“To answer your question about where do I see us going, that means sustaining that excellence,” Elliott said. “Does that mean every season is 11-3? I can’t predict that. What I hope is, every season we’re maximizing the potential of what that team has, and we’re also maximizing the potential of what each individual scholar-athlete has within our program.”

Boley on sustainability: ‘Right from where we left off’

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The question on the topic posed to offensive lineman McKale Boley was worded this way:

“The theme and what people have asked about this team is, is it a flash in the pan, is this sustainable? Offensive line is a cornerstone position you think about when building. What is the attitude, the mantra, of the offensive line group in that determination to be sustainable?”

“For us, it’s that we kind of just had to bear the weight on our shoulders,” Boley said. “If anything’s hard, if the team is going through anything, the O line has to be the guys to step up and lead the team and carry us through any hardship or any type of burden.

“I think that’s important, because at least for the O line, it’s a group that has to be connected to be good. If you have no connection, then the O line, you can’t really succeed as a non-connected group. Just having that trust, like going back to what they said over there, with the amount of experience and veterans that we’re bringing back, you don’t have to go through the process of building that trust again and building that connection.

“We don’t have to start from zero. We can start right from where we left off,” Boley said.

Meet the QB1: Beau Pribula

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Among the oddities in college athletics in this Year of our NIL/Transfer Portal 2026 is that Beau Pribula, publicly anointed QB1 by Elliott on Wednesday, was on the other sideline for last year’s Gator Bowl.

“I don’t know what the odds are of that. No, at the time that I was in the portal, I had zero idea I would be headed to Virginia at the time they played Missouri,” said Pribula, who led Missouri to an 8-4 record last season before sitting out the Gator Bowl, after entering the transfer portal.

From what I’ve been hearing, Pribula’s unique skill set – he averaged 8.7 yards per carry on designed runs and 7.6 yards per run on his scrambles – has had the O line coaches changing up their approach to conditioning for their guys, so that they can keep up.

Don’t think offensive coordinator Des Kitchings, who loves to use his QBs in the run game, isn’t salivating at the prospects here.

“Since the day I arrived at Virginia, Coach Kitchings, the offensive coordinator, has been super collaborative, probably the most collaborative I’ve been around as far as a coordinator,” Pribula said. “He’s always kind of picking my brain and vice versa. Just the other day, we were in the QB room drawing up different plays that I ran in the past that I’ve been comfortable with. He’s great from that aspect and always trying to find the ways to make me more comfortable.”

Kam Robinson: He’s ba-a-ack

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Kam Robinson was on track to be the ACC Defensive Player of the Year when he tore an ACL in the win at Duke in November.

Good news – great news – from the Kickoff is, Robinson appears to be ready to go for the Week 0 opener with NC State.

I like how he broke the news.

The question from a reporter that prompted Robinson was innocent enough.

The question: What is unique to this year’s defense?

Robinson’s answer: “What’s unique to this year’s defense? I mean, I’m going to be back, so, that’s unique.”