Tailback is a position in football with a lot of churn, up there with the O line. UVA Football coach Tony Elliott is as aware of that as anybody, with the way his team’s 2025 season ended up.
With his lead tailback, J’Mari Taylor, sitting out the Gator Bowl with an eye on this week’s NFL Draft in mind, Elliott had Harrison Waylee, the fourth-stringer in the season opener, and far-down-the-depth chart guys Xay Davis and Davis Lane for the game with Missouri.
And even when Taylor was in the lineup, he was banged up and limited for the last month of the season, with the heavy workload that resulted from the injuries earlier in the season to his primary backups, Noah Vaughn and Xavier Brown.
“I’m excited about what we have,” Elliott told reporters last week, on the eve of the program’s spring game. “Still not a big enough sample size yet for anybody to separate, but I think we’re a deeper running back room with more versatility than what we’ve had in the past.”
Tailback room
- Jekail Middlebrook (Middle Tennessee): 750 rushing yards, 5.4 yards/attempt, four TDs, two fumbles, 40 catches/60 targets, 412 yards.
- Peyton Lewis (Tennessee): 630 yards and 10 TDs in two seasons, averaging 4.7 yards/attempt.
- Solomon Beebe (UAB): 338 rushing yards, six TDs, 31 catches/38 targets, 284 yards.
- Xavier Brown (Virginia):241 rushing yards, 4.7 yards/attempt, one TD.
- Noah Vaughn (Virginia):174 rushing yards, 7.6 yards/attempt.
- Xay Davis (Virginia):41 yards on 12 attempts in the 13-7 win over Missouri in the Gator Bowl.
“You got some speed, some elusiveness, and I think even with the guys that may not be power guys, they run down behind their pads,” said Elliott, who wants to run the ball, and have the passing game work off the run, drawing defenses in to set up play-action and deep shots.
Virginia ranked fourth in the ACC in rushing (178.7 yards per game), a big step forward from 2024 (12th in the ACC, 131.9 yards per game) – Elliott’s first two UVA teams ranked 11th (123.1 yards per game) and 13th (117.9 yards per game) in the conference, back when the ACC was still a 14-team league.
The offensive scheme from Elliott and his coordinator, Des Kitchings, asks a lot of the tailbacks, who have to be able to run the ball, aid in pass-blocking, and run routes out of the backfield and occasionally line up in the slot.
The guy who looks like he could be this year’s J’Mari Taylor (1.062 rushing yards, 14 TDs; 43 catches/54 targets, 251 yards, one TD) is Jekail Middlebrook, a transfer from Middle Tennessee, who had 750 yards rushing and 40 catches out of the backfield in 2025.
“What he’s showed me is that he can play in every situation. He can be an every-down back,” Elliott said. “He’ll get down behind his pads. He’s tough for his size. He falls forward, he understands football. Really good demeanor. He’s consistent every day. He’s the same dude every single day.”
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Elliott is also big on Peyton Lewis, who didn’t get much run at Tennessee, but was a four-star recruit coming out high school at Salem.
“I think as Peyton takes more reps, he’s probably, well, I’m not going to say probably, he is the complete package in the room, right?” Elliott said. “When you look at his size, his speed, and what impressed me about him was his feet and vision for a bigger guy. I mean, he’s a big back, a bigger guy, and we all know he’s got documented straight line speed. But what I didn’t know was his eye-feet coordination, the ability to find the creases, and he showed me that. Now, we’ve just got to get him back. continue to help him build his confidence, not that he lacks confidence, it’s just, it’s new, right?”
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Chris Graham
