What Is The Big Point Of Emphasis This Spring For The Virginia Cavaliers?

Spring practice is well underway in Charlottesville as Virginia gears up with training for the 2026 football season. Spring is a great preview to see some of the young players, veterans, and even freshmen who look to climb up the depth chart and make enough of a name for themselves to see the field next fall. As with any spring, there are injuries that play a factor and some guys who are rehabbing and taking it easy. It is no different for the Cavaliers.

Points of emphasis this spring

Some of the main storylines coming in are the QB competition between Beau Pribula and Eli Holstein, the new look running back room, and the defensive line. Some of the questions and storylines should be answered before spring is over. However, head coach Tony Elliott has a point of emphasis on what he wants to see this spring.

"Right, so start defensively, just tackling. And too many missed tackles on defense. And then there's going to be other things and certain concepts that we're working on, like in man coverage, certain techniques, same thing with some of our zone stuff. Pad level, hand placement are all things defensively. We have to continue to improve our run fits, and then offensively, same thing, pad level, hand placement, eye discipline, those are all things we have to improve. Catching the ball, we got to improve on. We had way too many drops last year. Ball security, right,?” said Elliott.

“So we got to continue to improve protecting the football offensively because if we would have protected the ball better we could have been one of the top turnover margin teams in the country because defense got a ton of them for us this past season, and we want to continue to emphasize that defensively right and how positive that was for us. I think that a third-down defense. I mean, third down offense in the red zone is a big thing for us. Touchdowns in the red zon is a big thing for us to continue to improve upon. And then also try to maintain the level of production that we had on both sides on third down.

So that's an area where we want to, even though we were good there, we want to continue to be good there. So we got to make sure that we continue to put an emphasis on that."

The emphasis went to tackling better and being able to fit gaps better from Elliott. Virginia lost their star linebacker Kam Robinson to a torn ACL last season and had to rework the lineup to fill his absence. Robinson is out as well for the spring, along with Maddox Marcellus. It will be intriguing to see how some of the newcomers at linebacker and young players perform at that position. Offensively, a big emphasis is on protecting the ball and winning the turnover margin. There were instances when Virginia had inopportune turnovers, which derailed their momentum and ability to blow out opponents. With a new offensive core in 2026, perhaps it can look different for the Cavaliers. At the end of spring, we will know more if Elliott is satisfied with the point of emphasis and if the team is coming along well.