Virginia unranked in 2026 AP preseason football poll, receives only one vote

Well, at least someone believes in them.

Coming off a school-record 11-win season, the Virginia Cavaliers were almost entirely omitted from The Associated Press' preseason football poll, which was released on Monday. They received a single 25th-place nod from the 69 voters.

For the glass-half-full crowd, that's actually one more vote than the Cavaliers earned in the AP preseason poll in 2025, when they surprised everyone by winning their first-ever outright Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title. Tony Elliott entered his fourth season on the proverbial hot seat, but was named ACC Coach of the Year after his team went 7-1 in league play and finished 16th in the final polls.

Several of the players responsible for that success graduated or transferred, but Elliott and his staff hit the NCAA portal hard for a second straight offseason and assembled the most experienced roster among Power Four teams. The 2026 Cavaliers have 30 graduate students, including all five expected starters on their offensive line.

Still, the program's internal optimism doesn't appear to be shared by the national media — or by Elliott's peers. Virginia was also unranked in the American Football Coaches Association Poll released Aug. 4, although the Cavaliers did receive 40 points in that survey, seventh-most among teams that did not crack the Top 25.

In the AP poll, they're tied for 26th in the Also Receiving Votes category, along with state rival Liberty. James Madison got three votes, and Virginia Tech — coming off a 4-8 season that included a 27-7 loss to Virginia — received six. There's a buzz around the Hokies after they hired former Penn State coach James Franklin to rebuild their program and also brought in a large transfer class.

Even new starting quarterback Beau Pribula's former team, Missouri — which lost to Virginia in the 2025 Gator Bowl — made the preseason rankings at No. 25.

So if Elliott wants to refer to a perceived lack of outside respect as an ongoing motivational factor for his team, he now has the receipts.

It's important to remember that preseason polls matter less than a high school freshman's verbal commitment to his favorite school. In the 2025 preseason AP poll, Penn State was ranked third and Clemson sixth. The Nittany Lions fired Franklin at midseason after a three-game losing streak, and Clemson started 1-3 and finished 7-6.

And despite its strong showing last season, Virginia hasn't been anything close to a consistent contender for ACC supremacy since Hall of Fame coach George Welsh retired after the 2000 season. In the past two decades, the Cavaliers have finished with winning records in consecutive seasons just once (2018 and '19 under Bronco Mendenhall).

Plus, Virginia has a slew of new faces on this year's roster, including likely new starters at every offensive skill position. Pribula succeeds the graduated Chandler Morris at quarterback, and most of the running backs and receivers are new to the program.

And Virginia's best defensive player, senior linebacker Kam Robinson, is still recovering from a torn ACL that ended his 2025 season prematurely.

Still, as the Aug. 29 season opener against visiting NC State approaches, it's clear that the college football world is waiting for Elliott and the Cavaliers to prove that 2025 was not a fluke. They have the talent, experience and schedule to quiet their critics for a second straight year.

And as they proved a season ago, where you finish means much more than where you start.

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