Where Would Virginia Play If The College Football Playoff Started Today?

Tuesday’s announcement marks the first time since 2019 that UVA has appeared in the CFP rankings and only the fourth time in program history. The Cavaliers were ranked No. 25 in the first edition of the 2018 poll, and Nos. 23 and No. 24 during the 2019 season.

With an overall record of 8-1, Virginia is off to its best start in 35 years. The Cavaliers are the ACC’s only unbeaten team in conference play, having opened league action with five straight wins for the first time in program history. UVA enters Week 11 on a seven-game win streak — a stretch that includes three overtime victories — matching the longest win streak in school history.

Not worried about the rankings

Earlier today at his mid-week press conference, UVA head coach Tony Elliott said that he is not going to watch the rankings and encourages his team not to:

"Oh, we're definitely not going to watch it together. No, no. But I told them yesterday, I'm going to address it once, and that's the only time I'm going to talk about it. This is the week that it starts. And I encourage you not to get caught up in it, not to watch it. And truth be told, it doesn't matter what you rank today.

You wanna worry about the one after that first week in December. That's really what the focus is. And so what happens today doesn't matter, right? We control what we do from here on out if we're really serious about where we wanna be in December. And that's really all I'm going to say about it, and encourage them not to watch it.

I can't stop them, but we're definitely not going to sit down and watch it. And I told the staff, I said, ‘Hey, I'd encourage you not to really watch it because it's not, it's not really for us right now, to be honest with you.’ Because again, it's just like preseason rankings, right? I think everybody was making a big deal of where we were ranked in the preseason. And I was like, okay, it's a preseason ranking.

We have an opportunity to do something about it. So we won't take that approach, but really not going to talk about it much more with the guys. And hopefully, but I know I told him I tried, and all along I've been trying to tell him what I know from my experience and I've tried to tell them that more people are going to come out of the woodworks. You're going to get a lot more messages after every game. A lot more people are going to want to be a part of what's going on, and unfortunately, that becomes a distraction.

So if you want to stay focused, you're going to have to, you know, so that'll be the message. And we've also kind of simplified our focus down the stretch and really don't talk about the big picture at all, really just focus on trying to go 1-0 each day so that we can go 1-0 on Saturday. "

Virginia will have a chance to improve its record this Saturday at home against Wake Forest (7:00 p.m. ET, ESPN).