Since Florida State joined the ACC in 1990, Virginia has won or shared the conference football regular-season championship twice. Both title runs included a dramatic victory over the Seminoles.

The old saying goes that once is a fluke, twice is a coincidence and three times is a pattern. With a trip to FSU up next, the Cavaliers sure hope so.

“My mindset has always been that if you want to win this league, you’ve got to go through Tallahassee,” Virginia coach Tony Elliott said about Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. matchup. “That’s just the mindset; that’s just the way that I see it. That’s the level of respect I have for Florida State.”

Virginia (3-1, 1-0 ACC) has won just one of 10 visits to Doak Campbell Stadium, a 14-13 nail-biter in 2011. The Cavaliers are 5-15 all-time against FSU, with the most impactful victories coming at home.

In 1995, a late goal-line stop of Warrick Dunn on the game’s final play preserved a 33-28 prime-time Thursday night victory that handed the second-ranked Seminoles their first loss in 30 conference games and punctured their aura of invincibility. Virginia and FSU went on to share the ACC title with one league loss each.

Thirty years later, the Cavaliers won a 44-38 thriller after FSU’s Duce Robinson juggled a potential touchdown catch that could have forced a third overtime. As in 1995, students and fans swarmed the Scott Stadium field.

It was the first signature victory in a seven-game winning streak that spurred Virginia to the outright regular-season title — and started FSU down a path of four straight losses.

“Last year was a really big win,” junior receiver Kam Courtney said.” I felt like that game kind of gave the entire team confidence that, ‘Ok, we can really make a run at this.’ And I feel like it’s the same this year.

“They’re a hungry team, of course, a good team. So (we need to) come back prepared and finish the job.”

Once the undisputed ACC kingpin, FSU is just 2-2 this season (0-1 in the ACC) and has won the conference title just once since 2014 — in 2023, when the Seminoles got snubbed from the four-team College Football Playoff despite a 13-0 record. That’s one of just two winning seasons since 2017.

The Seminoles didn’t even win the ACC’s Atlantic Division from 2014-20, thanks to strong Clemson teams that featured Elliott as offensive coordinator. Those epic battles — including the “butt-whoopings” he said he previously absorbed as a Tigers player and coach — are the source of Elliott’s respect for FSU.

“You can make the mistake and throw out what’s happened over the last couple of years if you want to,” Elliott said. “but they’re extremely talented, they’re well coached, and if you want to find your way to Charlotte (site of the ACC championship game), you’ve got to win down there in Tallahassee.

“This will be the first time we’ve taken a team down there. It’s a tough place to play. I’m glad it’s not a night game, to be honest with you, because it gets pretty rocking down there. But nonetheless, it’s a blue-blood program. It’s Florida State.”

But these Seminoles don’t appear to be of the same caliber as Bobby Bowden’s perennial contenders — at least not defensively. The program that produced Deion Sanders ranks 135th out of 138 FBS teams in passing yards allowed per game (290).

That’s good news for the Cavaliers and Beau Pribula, who went 24-for-28 for 279 yards and four touchdowns in little more than a half’s work in last Saturday’s 42-3 rout of Delaware.

The emergence of transfer Rico Flores Jr., who had one reception in Virginia’s first three games as he battled hamstring issues, came at an opportune time. The former Notre Dame and UCLA wideout had nine catches for 113 yards and a touchdown against the Blue Hens and joins Courtney, Da’Shawn Martin and Jacquon Gibson as legitimate targets.

“I think it was a glimpse of what Rico can do, what Kam Courtney can do,” Pribula said after the Delaware game. “There’s a lot of guys we have that can make plays like that.

“I think the experience (Flores) has, and he’s just a savvy guy. Reliable guy, and he knows how to play the game of football.  And when you have experience like that, I think it helps the whole room.”