CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia Youll have to excuse Carla Williams. Shes a bit emotional.
As Virginia fans streamed around her, destined to bring down those goal posts (they never did), the Cavaliers athletic director wept.
Shes got good reason. So does coach Tony Elliott. And quarterback Chandler Morris. So does running back JMari Taylor and all these fans trouncing on the muddy grass.
Theyve all got a story to tell, each an individual tale about their life and their careers. But all of them, right now, right this second, arent as important as the story of Virginia football. And theres no better time to tell it, no easier way to explain it, no timely reason to unfurl it, than after what transpired here on Friday night.
Virginia 46, Florida State 38.
How in the heck did this happen?
The big-spending Seminoles, all of their football history, the titles and the rings, the hall of famers, the team that took down Bama just a month ago, the one that seemed poised to rebound from a two-win season a year ago, felled by Virginia.
Better yet, they did it amid the most trying time in college athletics for the likes of the Virginias of the world, when the purported money gaps between the haves and have-nots are all the rage.
An emotional Williams glares from the end zone as mayhem surrounds her.
Weve had it harder than anyone in America, Williams sternly says, through almost gritted teeth.
So proud of the coaches, so proud of the players, so proud of the university for not quitting, she says with a pause.
Shes not only referring to this game a double-overtime, heart-pounding, gutsy-as-youll-ever-see affair. Shes referring to Virginia football, the little brother to its championship basketball program, an afterthought at times among the academics here.
Did you know that, until a year ago, Virginia was believed to be the last power conference program without a standalone football facility? The team shared a weight room, too, had just one practice field and very little NIL cash.
Its coach, Elliott, lost 12 of his first 15 games, faced the COVID pandemic in his very first season and then, in a tragedy that still shakes this place to its core, endured the death of three football players all of them shot by a coward on a bus while returning from a class trip.
Theres more.
In this game in particular, Virginia played without at least three projected starting offensive linemen, including their No. 1 center, and their quarterback had a banged-up hand for much of the way.
So, when Williams says this means everything, as she gestures to those field-storming fans whizzing past her, she says it with authority, with conviction. Everything, she repeats.
Theres something deeper here.
So many counted out Virginia football in this new era of athlete compensation, wrote off the small academically minded school nestled amid the Blue Ridge Mountains, the one that cares more about its library halls and professors than its locker rooms and coaches.
They wont invest at Virginia.
They wont make it.
Theyre done.
There is unprecedented adversity in college athletics, Williams says with a piercing glare through bloodshot eyes. We refuse to quit.
On an unseasonably muggy night here, with the No. 8 team in the country in town, the big bad Seminoles, the school that sued the conference, the antithesis in many ways of Virginia football, stately and pure, modest and humble, the Cavaliers chose not to quit.
There were plenty of opportunities to do so, many chances to lay down, to stop, to surrender to the more talented and expensive roster across the way.
They gave up a 14-0 lead, trailed by a touchdown in the second quarter and were pushed to two overtimes.
People are going to say its cliché, but, Elliott says with a pause, Belief. Belief. At the end of the day, its belief.
They just kept pushing, kept running, gouging Florida State on the backs of (mostly) second-string offensive linemen (211 yards rushing), behind Taylors workhorse effort (27 carries), Morris beautifully floating passes (just nine incompletions on 35 attempts) and, lastly, a defense that overcame game-long lapses to stuff the Noles on their last fourth-down gasp.
As FSU quarterback Tommy Castellanos pass fluttered to the turf, a celebration ensued here like years of pent-up emotion, roiling within only to be shot out like a hydrant of jubilation.
Fireworks erupted into the air and a packed student section flooded onto the field. Thousands stomped, sang and swayed. They leaped into one anothers arms and paraded across the grass like kings.
One kid, so swept away with emotion, didnt bother wiping the noticeable blood gushing from his nasal cavities. Another ran along the sideline with a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth (if theres a time to do illegal things, now would be it). A shirtless student propelled himself onto the cross bar of the north end goal posts and another joined in as they attempted to topple the yellow pipes.
Williams watched from the opposite end zone. Elliott got lost in the midfield moshpit. And Morris signed autographs injured hand and all. At some point, he sprained his hand while banging it against a Florida State helmet on a follow-through during the game.
It mattered not for Morris, the son of the former Arkansas coach and a man competing at his fourth school in five years.
He willed the Hoos to the win while playing for a coach who rolled the dice during a back-breaking fourth-quarter drive. With a chance for a go-ahead field goal, Elliott twice decided to attempt a fourth down.
You cant coach scared, he said afterward.
Morris found a receiver on a crossing route to extend the drive on fourth-and-3, Taylor ran for 3 yards on fourth-and-1 and then, on third-and-3, the running back converted with his feet again. A play later, Morris hit Xavier Brown in the end zone.
When the Noles marched down to send the game to overtime with an improbable fourth-down touchdown, Virginia football fought back again.
From 4 yards out, on a designed run-pass option, Morris tucked the ball and rolled across the goal line. He says he blacked out, has little memory of the play, before he watched the defense make their grand stop and elicit that field-storming celebration.
The win is justification for the changes here. The facilities built. The staff paid. The roster founded.
In fact, a surge in donations this offseason here led one player agent to guffaw in a phone call with a reporter earlier this spring, Virginia is spending, spending big.
Elliott mined the transfer portal for their quarterback, Morris, and seven offensive linemen. The problem: five of them were unavailable on this night.
So, how in the world did they rush for more than four yards a carry, mount scoring drives of 12, 15 and 16 plays and convert more than half (7) of their third downs?
At the end of the day, its belief, Elliott said. You believe beyond your circumstances. You believe despite whats in front of you. They didnt know how it was going to get done. I didnt know how it was going to get done.
Elliott emerged from the post-game news conference to see his waiting athletic director, the woman who hired him, plucking him from Dabo Swinneys staff to help rebuild Virginia football.
That ones for you, he told her in an emotional embrace. Thats for you.
Elliott turned to a reporter moments later, She took a chance on me. She stood by me.
But even Elliott acknowledges to doubting himself over the years. The losses piled up. Tragic events. COVID. Injuries. Lack of funding and facilities.
Belief, he said. Tonight was about belief.
Virginia is for lovers, they say.
And, apparently, those who believe.