Jay Woolfolk Stepping Away From UVA Football to Focus on Baseball Full-Time

"I've reached a point where at this time it's best for me to focus on my future in the sport of baseball," Woolfolk said in a Tweet

Matt Riley/Virginia Athletics

Virginia quarterback Jay Woolfolk is stepping away from the UVA football team to focus on his baseball career, he announced on Thursday morning. 

"I've reached a point where at this time it's best for me to focus on my future in the sport of baseball," Woolfolk said in a Tweet. 

Thank you for everything @UVAFootball pic.twitter.com/QRzannTKUm

— Jay Woolfolk (@WoolfolkJay) July 13, 2023

“It’s been a been a pleasure and an honor to work with Jay (Woolfolk) over the last year and a half from a football perspective,” head football coach Tony Elliott said. “He’s an extremely-talented young man with a skill set in both sports. At this point in his career, he believes he needs to make a decision long term and unfortunately for us, it's not going to involve football. I fully support and respect his decision. He desires to go chase that dream and play Major League Baseball and I don't fault him for it.”

For the last two years, Woolfolk has been maintaining an uncommon feat of athletic achievement, playing as a quarterback for a Power Five college football program while at the same time pitching at a high level for one of the premier college baseball programs in the country. Woolfolk twice earned the job of backup quarterback behind Brennan Armstrong in his first two seasons with the UVA football team, appearing in nine total games and making one start in 2021 against Notre Dame, becoming the first Cavalier true freshman to start at quarterback since Bryan Shumock in 1977. 

That's how Woolfolk, a rising junior from Chesterfield, Virginia, spent his summers and falls at Virginia. In the winter and spring, Woolfolk served as one of the strongest arms in the bullpen for the UVA baseball program. With a fastball that occasionally touches the mid to upper 90s, Woolfolk made an immediate impact for Brian O'Connor's Cavaliers, pitching 37.2 innings in 29 games as a true freshman in 2022 and posting 55 strikeouts to 20 walks to go along with just 12 earned runs. Woolfolk maintained that level in 2023, registering a 2.91 ERA with nine saves, 38 strikeouts to 20 walks, and 11 earned runs in 34.0 innings pitched. 

Many Division I athletes play multiple sports in high school and commonly excel at more than one. But for most of those athletes, they must choose to focus their time on just one sport before they get to college. Jay Woolfolk has proven to be the exception to that rule over the last two years, playing at a high level as a member of both the Virginia football and baseball programs. 

Woolfolk said last year that he would attempt to play both sports as long as his body would let him, but there has always been a deadline at which he would have to eventually decide to play just one of those sports. And at this point in his career, it's an obvious choice. 

Woolfolk has a significantly more lucrative future ahead of him as a professional baseball player. Even while splitting his time between football and baseball, Woolfolk has developed into an effective closer for a major college baseball program and could be a high draft pick in next year's MLB draft, the first year that he would be eligible for selection as a collegiate junior. If he focuses entirely on baseball, Woolfolk could still reach new heights in what would likely be his final season at Virginia next spring, setting himself up to be a potential second or even first-round draft selection next July. 

Woolfolk's football prospects aren't nearly as promising. Monmouth transfer Tony Muskett is expected to earn the starting quarterback job heading into the fall and true freshman Anthony Colandrea has made a strong push since arriving on Grounds in January. Woolfolk would have his work cut out for him to even retain the backup quarterback job in fall camp, fending off Colandrea and the other quarterbacks who have gotten more reps in practice and spent much more time with the football team in the last several months than Woolfolk, who allocated most of his time towards the baseball team this spring as he helped the Cavaliers reach their sixth College World Series. 

So, it simply makes the most sense for Jay Woolfolk to set aside his football career to focus entirely on baseball. Sadly, that means the end of the Bo Jackson comparisons, but it was fun while it lasted. 

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