2024 was, all things considered, a good year for Virginia Athletics. Women’s swimming and diving captured its fourth consecutive national title to go alongside the many records broken by senior Gretchen Walsh, graduate student Alex Walsh and Class of 2023 alumna Kate Douglass. Baseball returned to Omaha for the third time in four years, reestablishing itself as a perennial national powerhouse. Men’s lacrosse made it back to Championship Weekend for the second straight season.
All of this success landed Virginia fifth in the 2023-24 Director’s Cup — a holistic ranking of all NCAA schools. The Cavaliers ranked best in the ACC. Even now, Virginia stands in third in the 2024-25 standings after a very solid fall season. But troubles have repeatedly visited the Cavaliers’ two biggest sports, and nothing is ever certain in this era of college athletics. So here are the five biggest questions heading into the new year.
Will the big revenue sports turn the ship around?
The basketball program got totally derailed in 2024. It collapsed in both postseason tournaments after a middling regular season, got rocked by Coach Tony Bennett’s sudden retirement and now is mired in its worst start to a season in over a decade.
Meanwhile, the football team finished its 2024 campaign 5-7 after starting off 4-1. That is a complete breakdown of a season.
These two programs are the biggest sports and also the ones that generate the most revenue for the school. Yet, they have been mediocre.
Suffice it to say, Elliot is heading toward a season that will decide whether he retains his job — so far, he has done a good job recruiting from the transfer portal. Basketball Interim Coach Ron Sanchez is staggering along in what looks increasingly like his only season as head coach. Virginia needs to figure out its two big sports before they both become too pedestrian.
Will alumni continue to fund Virginia’s programs through NIL donations?
The big reason the football program has been able to recruit top transfers has been due to NIL money donations given by alumni. By August, Virginia ranked 13th nationally in its NIL efforts, and that was before large donations came in over the last month for football and women’s basketball.
Celebrity alumni have donated massive amounts to many of the nation’s top programs. With two anonymous people making multi-million dollar donations to Virginia football, and with Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian making the largest donation in Virginia women’s basketball history, Virginia has gotten the ball rolling.
Quarterbacks at the Power Four level can fetch close to $1 million per year in NIL deals, and players in both football and basketball can command six figures or more. So, in order to succeed in 2025, Virginia Athletics will be counting on famous alumni to follow the recent trend and donate big-time money.
Will Virginia utilize the transfer portal to its advantage?
Ever since the NCAA ruled that transferring athletes will no longer have to sit out for a year before playing, transferring has become increasingly normalized in a variety of sports. In fact, many of the Cavalier teams utilized the transfer portal in 2023 and 2024 to improve their rosters. Notable examples include the baseball team nabbing graduate catcher Jacob Ference from Salisbury, the basketball team adding players like junior forward Elijah Saunders from San Diego State and sophomore guard Dai Dai Ames from Kansas State and the volleyball team adding senior outside hitter Elayna Duprey from Virginia Tech.
However, in order to be successful, programs often have to win in the transfer portal year in and year out. While Virginia has already bolstered its football roster for next season by adding graduate quarterback Chandler Morris from North Texas and junior defensive lineman Hunter Osborne from Alabama, many of the other Virginia programs will get the chance to do the same in 2025. Look for Virginia to utilize its wealthy NIL fund to land big transfers in a variety of sports to stay competitive on the national stage.
Will Cavalier fans see more than one national title this year?
Only at a school like Virginia can this be asked on an annual basis. For this fanbase, at least one national championship is almost an expectation year in and year out. Virginia has won 14 national titles since 2015, which is easily above the bar of one per year.
With many of its pieces returning, the women’s swimming dynasty looks primed to contend yet again. But will another program match its mark? The spring sports seem most likely to, as baseball, tennis and men’s lacrosse are all national powerhouses. With baseball and lacrosse both coming up just short in 2024, look for one of those two to once again ascend the mountain and give the Cavaliers another national title to go alongside what seems like a preordained championship in women’s swim.
Will Carla Williams finish 2025 as athletic director?
While an old adage says money talks, that cannot be said for the Cavaliers’ revenue sports. Despite having ample financial resources, both football and basketball have been disappointing at best since 2019. Some may point to making coaching changes as the solution, but others might say it starts at the top with Director of Athletics Carla Williams.
While many of the Virginia programs have seen success during Williams’ seven-year tenure, including basketball and football in her first few years there is no doubt that she has failed to sustain success in either of those sports that was not gifted by the previous administration. Football and basketball fuel the other sports in an athletic department, and without them an athletic department is nothing. If changes in leadership or results are not made in 2025, the blame will shift to Williams. Do not be surprised if the Cavaliers enter 2026 looking for a new athletic director.
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