UVA Football wideout Jahmal Edrine was indicted on Monday on rape and abduction charges stemming from an incident from August of last year, six days before the season opener.
Edrine, 22, a key contributor to Virginia’s 11-win team in 2025, who had announced on Jan. 6 that he was returning for what would have been his grad-senior season, was taken into custody on Thursday, and is being held without bond at the Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Jail, according to a media release from the Albemarle County Police Department.
This news seems to have caught the media-relations complex at the University of Virginia completely unawares.
ICYMI
The news release from the Albemarle County Police Department was time-stamped at 5:09 p.m. Thursday.
I emailed the media-relations office at UVA Athletics at 5:19 p.m. to ask if there would be statements on Edrine from Tony Elliott and Carla Williams; word back to me, in a 5:43 p.m. email, was that my request for comment was being forwarded to University Communications, i.e. the big boys.
Finally got this, from UVA spokesperson Bethanie Glover, at 6:32 p.m.:
“The University is aware of this matter. While the University is prohibited by federal student privacy law from commenting on specific cases, we can confirm that this individual is not currently enrolled at the University. Albemarle County Police are continuing their investigation into this matter, and the University will cooperate fully with that investigation.”
They had the afternoon to come up with something, and that’s what we got.
When were Tony Elliott, Carla Williams made aware of the incident?
We know, from the ACPD media release, that the alleged sexual assault was reported to police on Aug. 25, 2025, and that the incident in question reportedly took place a day earlier, on Aug. 24.
I can file FOIA requests until the cows come home, but we won’t know until trial when the various people in this story and on its periphery would have been made aware that police were investigating.
It doesn’t seem like it would be standard protocol for a police department to notify the school or the athletics program that a student-athlete was under investigation, any more than it would be protocol for a PD in a lower-profile case involving regular folks to notify an employer or anyone else not directly involved.
Would it be reasonable to expect that Edrine would go to a coach or administrator to let them know, just as a heads up?
Should we expect a teammate who might have been aware to tell somebody in a position of authority?
An assistant coach or other staff member?
Who knew what, when, is going to be key, from a public perception standpoint.
Because just on the face of it, it is reasonable to look at the timing of how this all played out – the incident took place six days before the season opener, the student-athlete involved went on to play the entire season, and Edrine was a key contributor, with 46 catches, third-most on the team, and 564 receiving yards, second-most, as what appears to have been a slow-walk investigation eventually leads to charges after the season – and think, huh, something’s fishy here.
There’s no way we’ll get anything authoritative on the record on this anytime soon, and since the entity we’re dealing with here is the University of Virginia, we may already know what we’re going to know.
Elliott on Edrine: Just yesterday
From the Plausible Deniability Department: as it turns out, the Virginia court system database listed Jahmal Edrine as a fugitive as of 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Twenty-four hours and change later, on Wednesday, at 10 a.m., Tony Elliott was in front of reporters for a signing-day press conference; the last question of the day, coincidentally, was about Jahmal Edrine.
The question: “I just wanted to ask you about retaining Jahmal Edrine. What’s his ceiling and how critical was it for you guys to get him back to have a returning starter?”
Elliott’s answer: “Yeah, I think his ceiling is, he can be an NFL guy. I think he can play on the next level. I think he’s got the ability to be an all-conference caliber player. Now, I think last year he had a huge challenge, because he was a guy that came in that really, really, really had to push it in the classroom, because he had a path to graduation, but it was like, OK, there’s a lot of work that has to be done. He had to hit a certain amount of hours in that first spring and summer to be eligible, which he did. But that also took a lot of his time.
“I think now he’s in a situation where he’s got a little bit more balance. He’s on track to graduate, but he doesn’t have to hump it like he did last spring. So, we can really focus on some of the developmental aspects. He’s a guy that loves to train. He’s also one of those guys that are overtrained, so we kind of got to get that, he loves it so much that so we got to make sure he doesn’t get too big, right. So, there’s some things that we can help him with that I think we’re in a position to do right now, but I think the ceiling is, he can be an all-conference caliber player and a pro prospect.”
Doesn’t appear there that Elliott thinks he’s talking about a guy who was officially a fugitive at the moment.
Life moves fast
From Elliott’s glowing statement about Edrine as both a student and an athlete at the Wednesday morning presser, we’re now at a place where the chief UVA spokesperson is coldly telling the world that “this individual” – Edrine – “is not currently enrolled at the University,” and a glance at VirginiaSports.com reveals that his bio has been scrubbed from the 2026 UVA Football roster page.
The story of the 2025 season seemed to be ready to go to the printer: a school-record 11 wins, a near-miss at a spot in the College Football Playoff, so much to feel good about, so much to look forward to going forward.
Now, I dunno, this is an obvious pall.
Edrine, like anyone accused of a crime, is to be considered innocent until proven guilty, but guilt or innocence is just part of this story.
Who knew what, when?
If the coaching staff somehow didn’t know that Edrine was under investigation, is that a sign of a disconnect between the student-athletes and the staff, and administration, that is a sign of a bigger problem?
And if it was known behind the scenes that Edrine was under investigation, did UVA Athletics conduct its own investigation to try to ascertain at least basic facts before deciding on how to proceed with Edrine in terms of his continued participation in team activities?
They had to, right?
Final thoughts
There’s a lot to this, and none of it is good – and that’s not even counting that there is a person out there who is apparently the victim of a heinous crime.
I would have liked to have seen something from Tony Elliott and Carla Williams acknowledging the apparent victim here.
Instead, the University of Virginia hid behind a mealy-mouthed statement about the legal process.
Reminds me of how UVA continues to keep the report on what led to the 2022 shootings of four football players and a sprinter under wraps.
For shame.
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Chris Graham
