Florida State Seminoles vs Virginia Cavaliers Prediction, Odds and Picks for Friday, 09/26/25

We have an absolutely loaded week of college football action ahead of us this weekend, and the action begins in earnest on Friday with a matchup between the Florida State Seminoles and Virginia Cavaliers from Charlottesville. This is a matchup between a clear contender in the ACC and an upstart team that has a chance to make some real noise in conference play.

Virginia brought in a bunch of players over the offseason via the transfer portal and while I was skeptical of how all the pieces would coalesce, this offense has some real juice to it. Chandler Morris has been around the block a few times and he’s an experienced quarterback that leads an offense that is putting up points at a very high rate. The Cavaliers are a top 20 unit in passing success rate, 3rd and 4th down success rate and points per drive per CFB-Graphs, while Virginia is also 4th nationally in quality drive rate. Tony Elliot’s team should be able to succeed against a Florida State defense that is stout up front, but has some exploitable areas in the secondary (52nd in EPA per dropback), as we saw against Alabama back in Week 1. There’s no doubt that the Seminoles have been very impressive to this point, but considering that 2 of their wins came against the likes of East Texas A&M and Kent State, the competition they’ve faced certainly leaves a lot to be desired.

On the other side of the ball, the Florida State offense has been in cruise control to start the season, and I do expect that the Seminoles will be able to score against a Virginia defense that has middling metrics when it comes to rushing success rate allowed and Early Downs EPA. This game certainly has the potential to devolve into more of a shootout, which should leave the backdoor open for Virginia, even if the Cavaliers find themselves trailing for most of the contest. There’s also the matter of this game being played on a short week on the road for Florida State, and Mike Norvell’s team also has a massive game on deck with Miami coming to town. With that in mind, it could be a challenge for the ‘Noles to get up for a road game against a Virginia team that has this one circled. This will be a clear step up in class compared to Florida State’s recent competition, and I’m not sure that the Seminoles will be able to win by multiple possessions on the road.

Florida State vs Virginia prediction: Virginia +7.5 available at time of publishing. Playable to 7.

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