Clemson Football Oppo Research: Virginia Cavaliers

Clemson Football welcomes the offensive coordinator for two national championship teams back to Death Valley.

What: Virginia Cavaliers at Clemson Tigers

When: October 19th, time to be determined

Where: Clemson Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina

Series History: Clemson leads the all-time series 40-8-1. The Tigers currently have a five-game winning streak. Clemson won the last meeting 41-23 in 2020. The season before that they defeated Virginia 62-17 in the ACC Championship Game. The Cavaliers' last victory in the series was in 2004.

Virginia 2023 Statistics

All stats per teamrankings.com against FBS competition only

Points per game: 22.9 (90th)

Yards per game: 361.2 (79th)

Points allowed per game: 35.6 (121st)

Yards allowed per game: 427.3 (113th)

Some thought Tony Elliott might not survive his second season at Virginia. His quarterback, Brendan Armstrong, transferred out, as well as some other key players like Fentrell Cypress, Jr.

3-9 isn’t a great record at all, but most people had such low expectations of the Cavs that the end result didn’t look that bad for most people. Part of the reason for that was the exciting play of freshman quarterback Anthony Colandrea.

Colandrea played in eight games and had almost 2,000 yards of passing. Virginia’s other quarterback, Tony Musket played in six games and had just over 1,000 yards of passing. Both return in 2024.

The Cavaliers have added Chris Tyree, a wide receiver from Notre Dame. They also return all five starters on the offensive line. Observers justifiably believe the offense will continue to improve in 2024.

The isn’t a huge amount of evidence the defense can improve significantly, but circumstances do provide hope. Virginia dealt with several injuries last season that depleted depth. Many of those injured players return, along with the younger players who got valuable experience.

UVA can also point towards the details beyond the 3-9 record. One of those three wins was against North Carolina, which was ranked in the Top 10 at the time. Five of their losses were by a score or less.

The schedule includes two games Virginia should win. It also includes three games that they will probably lose. The other seven are winnable but not slam dunks. If they split them down the middle, UVA is looking at either 6-6 or 5-7, both of which would represent an improvement over 2023.

How Virginia wins, however, could be as influential as the final record. Wahoo fans will want to see them be competitive, especially against teams like Clemson.

The positives of 2023 helped overcome some of the lopsided losses, like Tennessee and archrival Virginia Tech. How they perform against programs like the Tigers could have a big impact on the perception of the program in Elliott’s third season in Charlottesville.