The Missouri chapter was more complicated than the box score admits. Pribula won the starting job after transferring from Penn State, led the Tigers to a 6-1 mark in games he started and finished, and posted a 174.25 passer rating against Kansas (30-for-39, 334 yards, three touchdowns). The nine interceptions and a late-season ankle injury muted the headline numbers, but the underlying play-by-play was kinder: 87th-percentile completion rate, 84th-percentile pass success rate on 219 tracked dropbacks.
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The limiting factor is obvious in the data. Pribula's average depth of target sat in the 26th percentile and his explosive-pass rate in the 22nd, meaning he lives underneath the coverage. That is a workable offensive identity — not a flaw — if Virginia offensive coordinator Des Kitchings builds a system around quick-hitting routes and designed runs. Pribula also brings six rushing touchdowns and 95 carries from 2025, enough mobility to keep defenses honest in a spread-option framework.
The 2026 stake is simple: Virginia needs a starter who can manage an offense without self-destructing, and Pribula is already favored to win that job. A clean pocket and a scheme that plays to his strengths could make him one of the ACC's more efficient distributors. Push him to win vertically, and the 34th-percentile explosive rate becomes the ceiling in a hurry.
Through four games, that has been settled in practice: Pribula started and played every offensive snap for Virginia, including a 279-yard, four-touchdown outing against Delaware in Week 4, while Eli Holstein — the other transfer brought in to compete for the job — has appeared only in mop-up duty during blowout wins. Virginia is 3-1, with the lone loss a 38-27 home defeat to West Virginia on September 19 as double-digit favorites; Pribula played every snap of that game too. The 'presumptive starter' framing above is no longer a projection.
Missouri
Penn State