No. 25 Virginia and West Virginia will renew a long-dormant rivalry when they meet Saturday night in the Duke’s Mayo Classic in Charlotte, N.C.
The game is at Bank of America Stadium, the same site where the Cavaliers defeated the Mountaineers 48-22 in the Continental Tire Bowl in their most recent meeting on Dec. 28, 2002.
Virginia (2-0) has outscored its first two opponents 93-11, including last Friday’s 59-3 demolition of Norfolk State. West Virginia (2-0) also won in lopsided fashion with a 52-7 thumping of UT Martin last Saturday.
The border rivals met for the first time in 1898, and the Cavaliers hold a 12-10-1 lead. The Mountaineers’ most recent victory in the series was in 1981.
Their teams may not be familiar with each other, but the coaches are. When Virginia coach Tony Elliott played wide receiver at Clemson in 2000, his offensive coordinator was current West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez.
“I know Coach Rodriguez well … and he loves to run the ball,” Elliott said. “And so we’re gonna have our work cut out for us in Charlotte.”
Rodriguez’s Mountaineers have been running wild through two weeks, averaging 5.3 yards per carry and 298.5 yards per game with seven touchdowns. Quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. has only attempted 21 passes so far and is also the team’s leading rusher with 199 yards and three touchdowns, just ahead of Cam Cook with 194 rushing yards and three scores.
“It starts with the run game,” Rodriguez said after West Virginia ran for 316 yards against UT Martin, including a 71-yard touchdown run by Hawkins. “We thought we should be able to run for a few hundred yards. We didn’t get as many big runs as I thought we could get.”
Virginia’s defense allowed just 2.4 rushing yards per attempt and 65.5 rushing yards per game in wins against North Carolina State and Norfolk State, surrendering only one rushing touchdown.
The Cavaliers’ defense got a boost last weekend with the return of senior linebacker Kam Robinson, who made five tackles in his first game since sustaining a season-ending knee injury against Duke last November.
“I just couldn’t wait to get back out there, being the first game in a long time,” said Robinson, the runner-up in voting for ACC Defensive Player of the Year in 2025. “So being back in Scott (Stadium), I think I was definitely anxious at first, but once the game got on, I got more comfortable.”
West Virginia, 2-0 for the first time since 2018, knows getting to 3-0 will be a challenge against what Rodriguez called a “grown man Virginia team.”
The Cavaliers are led by Beau Pribula, a Missouri transfer who has completed 21 of 25 passes for 317 yards, five touchdowns and one interception so far this season. He is also one of three Virginia players with more than 100 rushing yards (102), along with Xay Davis (120) and Noah Vaughn (102). Da’Shawn Martin and Jacquon Gibson both have two touchdown receptions.
Safety Brandyn Hillman, a transfer from Michigan, collected his second and third interceptions of the season in Virginia’s win against Norfolk State.
The West Virginia defense has not allowed any points in the first half this season. Seven different players have already tallied a sack for the Mountaineers.
“Our fans will travel well. Theirs probably will,” Rodriguez said. “Environment should be really fantastic. They’re ranked, so it’s a great test to see where we’re at right now.”