Ranking Virginia football's 3 deepest position groups heading into 2026

The Cavaliers have a lot of depth this year at multiple positions, but three spots stand out.

Xavier Brown | Virginia Athletic

Virginia's roster went through a pretty large overhaul over the past three to four months, and with that comes all kinds of emotions. At first, things looked pretty worrisome when it came to depth because the program lost a good amount of talent to both graduation and the transfer portal.

Thankfully, UVA's coaching staff did an excellent job of replacing those players and upgrading at a couple of crucial positions. Now, at least on paper, it looks like the Cavaliers could have a few position groups that are some of the deepest in the ACC.

It honestly wouldn't be surprising to see Virginia enter the season with a solid rotation of 4+ players at each of these spots in 2026.

1. Running back

Running back is without a doubt the deepest position on UVA's roster right now. It's been quite a while since any college football program legitimately had five ball-carriers who could start on an FBS team, but the Cavaliers undoubtedly do. Peyton Lewis, Jekail Middlebrook, Solomon Beebe, Xay Davis, and Xavier Brown could all take turns starting each week and nobody would bat an eye.

The craziest thing about it is that they all have their own unique skill set that could be used in different game plans each week. Lewis, Middlebrook, and Davis are the top pure runners, but Beebe and Xavier Brown are the most dangerous pass-catchers out of the backfield. Middlebrook might be the most well-rounded of the bunch, and he should have a huge role in the offense to begin the year alongside Peyton Lewis.

2. Cornerback

After suffering at the cornerback position last season, Tony Elliott and Co. decided that they weren't going to mess around in this department when it came to the transfer portal. The team added Patrick Campbell from Dartmouth, Omillio Agard from Wisconsin, Justin Ross from Navy, and Jacobie Henderson from Rutgers in January.

This talented group of newcomers joins Donavon Platt, Jam Jackson, Ja'Maric Morris, and Josiah Persinger to form one of the absolute deepest cornerback groups in the conference heading into 2026. Like UVA's situation at running back, any combination of these players could see a legitimate amount of playing time this season. Platt, Jackson, Henderson, and Agard are probably the top four, but we've been hearing great things about Morris and Campbell this offseason as well.

3. Defensive end

Another year, another wave of transfer portal defensive ends looking to wreak havoc on opposing quarterbacks for Virginia DC John Rudzinski. After "hitting" on pass rushers like Fisher Camac, Daniel Rickert, and Mitchell Melton last season, the staff decided to go out and bring in Matthew Fobbs-White from Baylor, Ezekiel Larry from Yale, Nnanna Anyanwu from UTSA, Justin Towsend from Columbia, and Devon Baxter from Michigan.

Being able to pair these new guys with Billy Koudelka, Evan Ward, and Jewett Hayes (who's been looking great this offseason) gives Virginia another solid defensive end room for the 2026 season. There's a realistic chance that we could see a 6-man rotation at defensive end this year, which would be wild.