No. 19 Virginia held off Missouri and reached 11 wins for the first time in school history with a 13-7 victory in the Gator Bowl on Saturday night in Jacksonville, Fla.
Chandler Morris completed 25 of 38 passes for 198 yards, Harrison Waylee rushed for the go-ahead touchdown and the Cavaliers (11-3) controlled the clock to secure their first bowl win since 2018.
“Unbelievable leadership from the top down. Complete buy-in. They believed when everybody said they couldn’t. They were picked to be 14th out of 17 in the ACC,” Virginia coach Tony Elliott said. “… They wanted to be the best team ever in school history, the first team to win 11 games, and really, they’ve revived me as a coach. They brought the fun back.”
The Tigers (8-5) scored a touchdown on the game’s opening drive but were blanked the rest of the way to fall to 0-5 this season against ranked opponents.
Missouri All-American Ahmad Hardy ran for 89 yards on 15 carries. With 1,649 yards, he broke the Missouri single-season record of 1,627 set by Cody Schrader in 2023.
True freshman Matt Zollers started with senior quarterback Beau Pribula entering the transfer portal and managed 101 yards on 12-of-22 passing with an interception.
Virginia opened the second half with a 19-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to take its first lead at 10-7. The Cavaliers converted two fourth downs and took 10:07 off the clock, capped by Waylee’s 2-yard run.
Virginia got the ball back on an interception by Emmanuel Karnley, and Will Bettridge’s 39-yard field goal extended the lead to 13-7 late in the third quarter.
Missouri began its final drive with 1:33 left at its own 18 with no timeouts. Zollers completed passes of 11, 14, 7 and 24 yards to reach the Virginia 21. On fourth-and-10 with 8 seconds left, Zollers had to come off the field after hitting his head on the ground. Walk-on Brett Brown’s pass into the end zone was broken up by Devin Neal.
The Cavaliers converted 13 of 23 third downs and 2 of 4 on fourth down and dominated time of possession, 38:34 to 21:26.
The Tigers only converted 3 of 12 third-down attempts and failed on all three fourth-down efforts.
Hardy broke off a 43-yard run on the game’s opening drive. Two plays later, Jamal Roberts scored on a 5-yard rush for a quick 7-0 lead that turned out to be the Tigers’ only points of the game.
Bettridge had a 42-yard field goal early in the second quarter.
–Field Level Media
