Cavaliers Now

Xavier Brown Sparks Virginia's Ground Game With Breakout Rushing Performance

Matt Newton

Xavier Brown ran for a career-high 171 yards in UVA's victory at Coastal Carolina on Saturday.
Xavier Brown ran for a career-high 171 yards in UVA's victory at Coastal Carolina on Saturday. / Virginia Athletics
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Two years ago, one of the surprising developments during fall camp ahead of the first Virginia football season in the Tony Elliott era was the emergence of then-true freshman running back Xavier Brown. In a running back room that featured highly-experienced ball carriers like Mike Hollins and Perris Jones, Brown was lauded by the Cavalier coaching staff as one of the most ready to play freshmen on the roster.

In that 2022 season, Brown got 50 total carries and finished with 210 yards, averaging 4.2 yards per rushing attempt for a Virginia offense that, like most seasons in recent UVA football history, struggled to run the ball as a team.

Brown then endured a trying 2023 season that saw him miss most of the year with an elbow injury and had his momentum towards a comeback in 2024 disrupted by another upper-body injury in fall camp, this time to his shoulder. He was able to return to the field by the time the season began but found himself third on the UVA running back depth chart, behind Jack Griese and Kobe Pace.

Four weeks later, Brown has made a very strong case that he should be RB1 moving forward. Brown currently leads the Cavaliers in rushing with 293 yards despite having fewer carries than both Kobe Pace and Anthony Colandrea. Most recently, Brown delivered a breakout performance to help Virginia take down Coastal Carolina on the road, rushing for a career-high 171 yards, the most by a Cavalier running back since 2018.

It's what you've been seeing all season. I mean, the carries that he's been given, he's taken advantage of," UVA head coach Tony Elliott said of Brown. "He's been running hard all year, and today, he was able to finish and not get nicked up. I think that's the only thing that's really been been keeping him back, is just getting getting nicked up. But we knew from freshman year that he was a little bit different. He's got a different style. He's explosive. And just super, super happy for him to have success today."

The statement that Brown had "success" is putting it mildly. He racked up those 171 yards on just nine carries, averaging 19 yards per rushing attempt. A bulk of that yardage came on a single play, a 75-yard scamper in the third quarter that was the longest-rush by a UVA running back since 2018.

While the Coastal game was a breakout performance for Brown, he has been trending in a positive direction since the beginning of the season. On 33 total carries, Brown has yet to be tackled for a loss. He is averaging 8.9 yards per carry, tops in the ACC and fifth in the country among running backs with a minimum of 30 rushing attempts. The 75-yarder helps boost those stats, but Brown has been finding space and capitalizing on it all season, registering rushes of 12 and 13 yards against Richmond, 12 and 14 yards and Maryland, and rushes of 10, 16, 24, 29, and 75 against Coastal.

"It's just the biggest thing is keeping him healthy, right? Because he's not the biggest guy, but he runs really, really hard for his size and and again, wear and tear on his body. That's the only thing holding him back," Elliott said of Brown. "But the biggest thing is just staying available. Staying healthy is the only thing that would keep Xavier Brown from having a more expanded role."

As a team, Virginia rushed for 384 yards on the ground, the most rushing yards in a game since 1998. It's also the first time the Cavaliers rushed for at least 300 yards in a game since 2018.

No one expects Brown, or the entire UVA running game, to have this level of production every week, as the Cavaliers capitalized on a hefty advantage at the line of scrimmage that they will not have against ACC opponents. But the hope is that Brown, Kobe Pace, and the Virginia rushing attack can use this game to spark significant improvement moving forward with the goal of establishing a semi-reliable ground game that will at least make defenses respect the run and open things up for Anthony Colandrea and the passing game.

"Now that kind of output, man, that's very, very difficult, right? Those are career type of games to be able to rush for that much as an offensive unit. But it was working," Elliott said. "The guys, there's confidence. Their confidence built throughout the game, and the backs ran extremely hard. The offensive line gave them holes, they broke tackles, and really, really proud. But we want to run the football, right? We want to be effective running the football, we want to be efficient. And then in games where we have opportunity to lead and dominate with the rush, that's what we want to do."

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UVA Football: Five Takeaways From Virginia's 43-24 Win at Coastal Carolina

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Matt Newton
MATT NEWTON

Matt launched Virginia Cavaliers On SI in August of 2021 and has since served as the site's publisher and managing editor, covering all 23 NCAA Division I sports teams at the University of Virginia. He is from Downingtown, Pennsylvania and graduated from UVA in May of 2021.