Eugene Noble "Buck" Mayer was an American football player. He played college football at the halfback position for the University of Virginia Cavaliers football team from 1912 to 1915. In 1915, he became the first football player from a Southern school to be recognized as a consensus first-team All-American. Mayer died during World War I while serving in the United States Army. He was posthumously inducted into the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame in 1980.

The Virginia Cavaliers football team represents the University of Virginia (UVA) in the sport of American football. Established in 1888, Virginia plays its home games at Scott Stadium, capacity 61,500, featured directly on its campus near the Academical Village. UVA played an outsized role in the shaping of the modern game's ethics and eligibility rules, as well as its safety rules after a Georgia fullback died fighting the tide of a lopsided Virginia victory in 1897.