The people in charge of UVA Athletics, and the UVA Football program, had a chance to do the right thing, when they were made aware that star wideout Jahmal Edrine was under investigation in a sexual assault case, days before the 2025 season opener.
Sometimes it’s hard to do the right thing, but in this case, it wasn’t going to be hard at all.
At the least, a quiet announcement about a suspension for an undisclosed violation of team rules would have sufficed.
That would have bought time for the department to conduct its own internal review of the Edrine matter.
Best case: they find, a few days, a week or two, into the season, that, nothing to it, get the kid back on the field.
Worst case, you learn that there might be more to it, and he sits out the season, and what happened in February – when Edrine was indicted on rape and abduction charges – makes Carla Williams, the athletics director, and Tony Elliott, the head football coach, look like heroes.
Elliott, with Edrine on the sidelines, almost certainly doesn’t lead the football program to a school-record 11 wins; Edrine wasn’t the team MVP or anything, but he played in all 14 games, had 46 catches, and was a guy that opposing defensive coordinators had to game-plan around, given his size (6’3”, 220), speed and play-making ability.
The 11-win campaign proved lucrative for Elliott, who entered 2025 with an 11-23 record at Virginia, and a sense that a fourth straight losing season could put him on the outs with the donor base.
In March, he signed an extension that included a million-dollar-a-year raise.
The fortunes of an AD at a Power 4 school are tied to the success of the football program, so even though Williams had already signed an extension keeping her at UVA through 2030, the contracts have buyout clauses for a reason.
ADs don’t often get the chance to fire a football coach that they’ve hired, then hire his replacement.
They knew!
Edrine told police on Aug. 26, 2025, as he was being interviewed in connection with a reported sexual assault at his apartment two days prior, that he had told his coaches what was going on.
The interview came a day after Albemarle County Police had executed a search warrant at Edrine’s luxe apartment on District Avenue, behind The Shops at Stonefield.
Sometime that day, Aug. 25, 2025, the ACPD notified the University of Virginia of the details of the execution of the search warrant, including the name of the student-athlete at the center of the investigation.
I know this, because I’ve reviewed court documents and a report from the Title IX office at UVA, neither of which wouldn’t have been available to either Williams or Elliott as the hours counted down to the season opener with Coastal Carolina on Aug. 30, 2025.
But they knew that Edrine was under investigation, which is more than any of the rest of us would know until months later.
Leading to the obvious question: what were their duties and responsibilities, given what they knew?
Stone cold indifference
Gotta say here, I’ve been surprised at the lack of communications on any of this from readers.
I routinely get dozens of emails from people complaining about QB play, the deficiencies of the offensive coordinator, poor tackling from the defense, but, literally, not one this week related to our reporting on this case.
Surprised is me softening how I really feel about the lack of response.
Pissed off is closer.
We had a 2,500-word piece on Tuesday filling in the numerous blanks on what was known publicly about the case, which, read it, and you will come away with a dramatically different perspective on what happened at Edrine’s apartment on the late afternoon of Aug. 24, 2025.
ICYMI
Edrine’s defense attorneys has used the prosecution’s unwillingness to go into detail with what it knows from the investigation to sell the public on the notion that the rape allegation is really just a matter of a troubled young woman either having second thoughts, or actively trying to hold up the star football player for money.
Again, read the story; that’s not what went down, not by a country mile.
On Thursday, we broke the story about Elliott and Williams having been informed of the investigation within hours of police executing the search warrant on Edrine’s apartment on Aug. 25, 2025.
ICYMI
No big deal, huh?
I mean, I feel ya there.
We put our time, mental energy and money into sports to escape having to think about things like sexual assault.
And here I am, trying to ruin your good memories of a school-record football season, which got thisclose to seeing our favorite team get into the College Football Playoff, for chrissakes.
You read my columns on AFP to find out what I know from my deep dives into why the team is struggling on offense this year.
Not to read about how one of the players on last year’s team raped a high school friend as she was trying to leave for the airport to go home.
I get it, I’m the bad guy here.
As usual.
Too bad: you need to care
The same fingers that type out lengthy missives on sack-to-pressure ratios are the ones helping me ask aloud: why don’t we know if UVA Athletics conducted even the most cursory of internal investigations into the incident before deciding to allow Edrine to remain on the active roster?
For the record, I asked, and the department declined to tip its hand, through a spokesperson.
If you took my direction and read the stories that we’ve already published on the criminal investigation this week, the decisionmakers at UVA Athletics either:
- did try to get to the bottom of whatever happened, and knowingly let a guy who forcibly detained a young woman, then sexually assaulted her, represent the University on the football field;
- or they decided to do the absolute bare minimum, hoping that it would never come to where it did.
Edrine was ultimately indicted by an Albemarle County grand jury on Feb. 2, so, if the higher-ups were gambling, the gamble didn’t pay off.
Where things stand now is, Edrine was set to face a jury trial next month – but the charges were dropped, because the accused, through his attorneys, wouldn’t agree to a continuance requested by prosecutors due to issues with getting witnesses scheduled to testify in the trial, who include law enforcement and medical professionals from out of state, lined up and ready to go.
Edrine’s defense attorneys are trying to sell the court action last week as being akin to an exoneration, but it’s anything but – prosecutors have signaled that they intend to file fresh charges, perhaps as soon as December.
All of that having been spelled out, the worst-case scenario is now playing out for Carla Williams and Tony Elliott.
I’ve now let you know that their actions, or collective inaction, allowed a student-athlete who is facing a credible and damning accusation of sexual assault to represent the University of Virginia on the football field.
And you still think the biggest issue facing the UVA Football program is that this year’s starting quarterback stinks?
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Chris Graham
