Coming off a breakthrough 11-3 season, Virginia finds itself in the rather unusual position of returning an offensive line basically intact and having to replace just about everything around it. There are worse places to start when it comes to rebuilding an offense, though.
The o-line returns a couple of guys who were third-team All-ACC honorees last season, including left tackle McKale Boley and also adds in a couple of veterans who were supposed to be impact transfers last season before getting hurt. The starting five listed on UVA’s depth chart for this week includes two seventh-year players, two sixth-year players, and one young fifth-year guy. Sign of the times, huh.
This should be the clear strength of Virginia’s offense, which is good given that it is going to need time for new quarterback Beau Pribula to acclimate to his new surroundings. Pribula wasn’t very good at Missouri last season (11-9 TD-INT, 7.2 YPA), as evidenced by the fact that he is no longer at Missouri, and he along with a largely new receiving corps leaves plenty of uncertainty for the Cavaliers to sort through. UVA hedged a bit in bringing ex-Pitt starter Eli Holstein in as well—which could end up looking like a shrewd move, depending.
UVA hit on several big running plays in Raleigh last season and averaged over 8.0 yards per carry for the game as a result, but gone is 1,000-yard rusher J’Mari Taylor (he ran for 150 against State), and in his place to begin 2026 is Jekail Middlebrook, who ran for 752 yards at Middle Tennessee last season.
I’m sure Virginia would love to dictate terms up front and take as much pressure off of its passing game as possible. It’s tough to guess at the ceiling of that passing game or how cohesive it will look in the first game of the season, but if the Cavs end up pushing NC State’s defensive front around, they can work around a lot of issues.
So this is a pretty important early measuring stick not just for State as a whole, but for its defensive front, which needs to be more disruptive if the defense as a whole is going to be better in 2026. There’s a significant challenge in front of them here.
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