‘Be the Buffalo’: How Virginia Baseball Built a Resilient Top-10 D1 Team

The Virginia Cavaliers baseball team has already faced its share of adversity in the early weeks of the 2026 season. Like many other programs across the country, the ‘Hoos have scuffled through injuries and yet have found themselves 14-3 and a top-10 team in the country.

Virginia has shown resilience following losses to Stetson and Charlotte, embracing the opportunity to respond positively to setbacks. The team has embraced the phrase, “Be the Buffalo,” and the program has instilled that motto into their everyday work and performances. 

“Some animals, when the storm comes, just panic and freak out,” UVA graduate catcher Noah Jouras explained. “Other animals try to run away from the storm and try to avoid it,  but end up getting tired, so the pain and the suffering last longer. The Buffalo just goes straight into the storm and attacks it every day.”

College baseball teams and sports in general are no strangers to unique team slogans or mantras. New UVA head coach Chris Pollard’s 2024 Duke squad, which won the ACC Tournament and nearly hosted a Regional, used the phrase “Stay on Black” as their rallying cry throughout the season.

Inspired organically by fifth-year Blue Devil Chad Knight, “Stay on Black” was a metaphor that emphasized the need to stick with the process; the results would come. Pollard’s 2025 Duke squad also had a mantra, but it was never disclosed to the media.

The origin of this year’s Virginia team creed dates back to the Virginia Baseball Coaches Association Convention last December, which Pollard and his staff hosted at Disharoon Park in Charlottesville.

Adam Moseley, a renowned high school head coach in Alabama who has also coached at Team USA, shared an experience at that event that resonated with the Virginia coaching staff.  

“He shared a really poignant, really powerful story about a loss in their program and how they adopted the Buffalo motto coming out of that loss,” Pollard said.

It’s one thing for the coaching staff to buy into a mantra like that, but it’s another to get the players to buy into it. When the team returned from winter break to prepare for the season, Pollard shared that story with them, and it has quickly become the battle cry for the ‘Hoos this year.

The buffalo has long been a beacon of American culture, dating back to the days before European settlers arrived on this land. They are majestic creatures, known for stoicism and resilience in any conditions. They stand fast and face the blizzard, accepting that what’s coming is coming.  

“When the storm is coming, you turn, and you walk straight into it,” Pollard said. “You charge it, and you get through it more quickly.” 

The ‘Hoos faced an obstacle before the season even began, when they learned that their ace and two-way star, Kyle Johnson, was going to be shelved to start the year due to a kinetic chain issue. Additionally, starting backstop Jake Weatherspoon was expected to miss the first month of the season.

Johnson’s Friday night replacement, Henry Zatkowski, struggled over his first two starts of the year against Wagner and Monmouth before mechanical adjustments locked him ahead of the VCU series. Max Stammel was behind schedule and not fully stretched out, while second-year Michael Yeager was unexpectedly thrust into a weekend role.

Virginia responded with dynamic offense over those first two weeks, setting the tone ahead of an underrated in-state series with Virginia Commonwealth University. Jouras, a transfer from Davidson, stepped up alongside first-year catcher Thomas O’Connell to ensure UVA found temporary success without Weatherspoon.

“If you welcome that adversity and just attack it, you can get through it much quicker,” said Jouras, who is hitting .292 with a triple and two home runs on the young season. “And then you come out even stronger on the other end.”

There were concerns and overreactions abound on social media following Virginia’s 14-0 run-rule midweek loss to Charlotte on March 3rd. The offense managed just two hits in that first game against the 49ers and was mere days away from facing one of the toughest pitching rotations in the country to start ACC play.

Head coach Chris Pollard challenged his team to view the dominant defeat as an opportunity rather than a failure, which is a key component of “Being the Buffalo.” 

“This will be a good gut check for us,” Pollard said following that Charlotte loss. “This game has presented us with a really good opportunity– an opportunity to see how we get off the mat and how quickly we can flush poor performances.” 

Virginia came out the next day and won 8-1 before opening ACC play with an impressive series win at North Carolina in Chapel Hill. It’s safe to say that players seized the opportunity to respond and did so emphatically.

Part of “Being the Buffalo” is about embracing failure and finding opportunities in darker moments. It’s a good lesson for life, not just baseball, and the saying has helped more than a few of the players on UVA’s squad.

Harrison Didawick has spent four years at Virginia and is enjoying a resurgent 2026 following a difficult junior campaign. He’s credited the coaching staff and the Buffalo for his improvement on that disappointing 2025 season.

 “Coach Pollard always says celebrate your failures,” Didawick said. “I think that is huge for me, and it’s huge for everyone on our team. When you fail, like be happy about that because then you can respond. You have a chance to become stronger with it, which kind of goes hand-in-hand with ‘[Being] the Buffalo’. That is the biggest thing that’s helped me.” 

The senior captain is hitting .348 and leading the team in stolen bases after hitting .225 with just nine extra base hits in 138 at-bats. He launched his first home run over the weekend at North Carolina and already has five extra-base hits in 2026. 

“It’s helped our team so far to celebrate failures, not just success,” Didawick added. That mentality will serve Virginia well when facing the storm. 

Most experts and pundits chose North Carolina to win the series over Virginia this past weekend to start ACC play, but the ‘Hoos had other plans. Zatkowski and Stammel were fantastic, and the offense drove up the opposing starters’ pitch counts and delivered clutch two-out hitting.

The first two games weren’t close. Virginia run-ruled the Tar Heels on Friday night in 7 innings, winning 13-3 before following that up with a 9-2 rout Saturday afternoon. The third game looked to be heading the same way, with UVA up 5-1 after 4 innings, but UNC rallied to win in extras.

When asked how “Being the Buffalo” has been critical to UVA’s success, he said, “It’s huge. I told our guys in our pregame meeting at the hotel, I said, ‘stop and reflect. You’re a way tougher team than you were six months ago. 

“‘You’re a way tougher team than you were six weeks ago. You’re even a tougher team than you were six days ago, because every time you go through these moments, and you come out of the other side of it, it builds resilience.’”

The players have bought into the concept completely. A few weeks ago, freshman pitcher John Paone hurled six-shutout innings on the road at VCU to help complete a weekend series sweep. 

While he pitched well, he worked around plenty of traffic after giving up six hits and plunking two batters. After the game, he credited “Being the Buffalo” for his ability to lock in and focus on one pitch battles, no matter what was going on behind him. Like a buffalo, Paone weathered the storm and delivered the first quality start of his young career.

The players even have a singles celebration honoring the team’s motto. After a base knock, when the hitter gets to first, they’ll put their pointer fingers to either side of their head to simulate the horns of the buffalo, a nice reference to the mantra they’ve all embraced.

Nobody remembers who started the celebration, but it originated on opening weekend in Virginia’s sweep of Wagner.

“We were just like, ‘Yeah, let’s do the buffalo,’” Jouras said. “It’s kind of stuck, and it’s cool that it cements this team.”

“I think it’s awesome,” Pollard added. “The fact that they’ve embraced it so much is just another testament to the buy-in from this group. It’s been fun to see these guys buy in and use it as a rallying cry.”

The season is still in its early stages, and there will be plenty of ups and downs to go before the postseason, but Virginia seems prepared for the challenges and opportunities ahead of them. 

For the ‘Hoos, “Being the Buffalo” is becoming more than a mantra; it’s becoming a mentality. And that makes this team very dangerous.

The post Being the Buffalo: How Virginia Is Embracing the Storm appeared first on Just Baseball.