By Jack Keaveny
Every new season offers a clean slate—and the opportunity to dream big. The UVA football faithful are dreaming especially big this year, with the arrival of new head coach Tony Elliott. Leaving last season’s disappointing 6-6 record behind them, the Cavaliers and their fans are optimistic about Elliott, who plans to bring a newfound level of achievement and excellence to the UVA gridiron.
Elliott began his football career in 1999 as a walk-on wide receiver at Clemson University, earning first-team All-ACC academic honors. He left an engineering career in 2006 to become a football coach at South Carolina State, and then spent three seasons at Furman University before returning to Clemson in 2011. There, he worked his way up the coaching ranks to become the team’s assistant head coach and offensive coordinator, helping lead the Tigers to two national championships in 2016 and 2018.
Along with his leadership and championship experience, Elliott brings a new offensive coordinator, Desmond Kitchings, as well as defensive coordinator John Rudzinksi to UVA’s football staff. The Cav’s offense, led by star quarterback Brennan Armstrong, looks to continue the success it found last season, when it finished third in the country in total yards per game and 21st in points per game. The big question for this team remains the defense, which allowed 31.8 points per game last year.
Undaunted by a challenge, Elliott, who overcame a difficult childhood, including family separation, the death of his mother in a car accident when he was 9, and time without a permanent home, names faith and sports as two grounding forces in his life. He spoke to C-VILLE via Zoom about why Virginia’s a good fit for him, how to create a winning football environment, and the joys of getting dirty on a four-wheeler.
C-VILLE Weekly: With your experience as both an assistant coach and offensive coordinator at Clemson, it’s no surprise that you garnered interest from other schools. Why did you feel that Virginia was the best fit for you?
Tony Elliott: I felt Virginia was the best fit because it matched the profile that I set forth, about three or four years before, of the school that I would want to transition to. It started with high academics, and that was important because at the end of the day, education is the most important thing.
Football is prevalent in a guy’s life at this point, but long-term, education is the key, and to have an institution like Virginia and the brand recognition from an academic standpoint, and just the overall quality of the educational experience that you receive here was important for me.
An opportunity to build something the way that I wanted to build it and not necessarily have to be influenced by a bunch of external forces. The opportunity to play in a competitive conference that sets you up to have a chance to compete on a national level. Those were the big things, and the thing that sealed the deal was just the relationship that I was able to establish, as quickly as I was, with [UVA Athletic Director] Carla [Williams]. When you go through the interview process, it’s very difficult to kind of foster a relationship, but there was an instant connection between Carla and myself.
Coming from Clemson, coaching under Dabo Swinney, what did you learn from him in regards to building a strong team culture and creating a winning environment?
You have to be very intentional in what you’re doing and you have to put actions behind your words. It can’t just be bulletin-board material, it can’t just be pictures on the wall, you gotta be able to feel the message, see the message whenever you step into that environment, and ultimately, your culture that you create is what’s either going to take you to the top, or it’s gonna hinder you from going forward. Everybody wants to win games, but sometimes wins can be a false indicator of what the true climate is within your locker room and within your program. The key is just to focus on making sure you have a solid foundation based off the right things and build from there.
Clemson has consistently had highly ranked recruiting classes over the past decade. What did you learn from your time there about the recruiting process, and how do you plan to apply that knowledge at UVA?
I think that UVA’s recruiting is a little bit different than Clemson’s, just because of the academic profile. Clemson—that’s where I got my degree, and it’s a great institution—but at Virginia, I think there’s some different parameters that you have to make sure you evaluate to be successful because things are structured a little different here.
To start, you gotta make sure that they fit the profile—and what Coach Swinney was able to do at Clemson was pretty remarkable, he was actually able to change that profile to where you wanna be more selective in the guys and pay attention to the whole person, not just the athletic pieces, so that’s what I take away and I think that fits here at UVA.
Also, making sure you recruit locally. The more times guys can be on campus—as we say “on Grounds” here at UVA—the more invested they’re going to be, and what you’re looking for is high character, high academic guys, that are good football players, but more importantly, they love to play football and they’re invested.
I think if you get that, the rankings will take care of themselves because the culture and the guys that you do recruit are gonna recruit for you in the future and continue to allow you to sustain the high rankings that Clemson has had.
UVA has had a difficult time in recent years establishing a strong running game. What’s your plan, given your past experience and success in this area?
It’s risk-reward. You have to stay committed to it. There’s gonna be some times where it may not appear to be successful but you gotta look at the totality of it: What is the commitment level? It’s not just the statistics on the sheet, and also what are some of the unintended benefits of things that get overlooked.
Your play-action game may increase because of your commitment to run the football, even though your production may not be stellar on the stat sheet, your commitment to run the ball forces the defense to be honest. So even though your rush game may be down, but your commitment to being consistent and sticking with it pays dividends in other areas—your screen game can improve, your play-action shots can improve, so the other things that complement and come off of your game will be able to improve as well.
Another big question for this team is the relative inexperience of the offensive line after losing all five starters from last season. How confident are you in that unit?
I’ve been pleasantly surprised and pleased with the rate at which they’ve improved during the spring and fall camp.
The addition of [John Paul] Flores—he’s a guy that played a lot of football at Dartmouth, so even though he’s a new starter for us, he’s started a bunch of games, so he plugs in there. [Derek] Devine has been here for a while, hasn’t played a ton, but he’s got a lot of experience just being an older guy with practice, so he won’t be overwhelmed. That’s gonna allow [Johnathan] Leech, once he comes back, he’s another guy that is a veteran, just was behind other players so we got some pieces that we feel like can generate leadership that we need up front.
They’ve got some veteran experience from a practice standpoint, and just being around the program. They have to gain some game experience, but I feel good with having three guys that got some age to them, so to speak. Then we got Logan Taylor who is as talented as any young guy I’ve been around, he just has to develop—and he was injured in the spring—so I think we’re gonna have a good nucleus of guys, we just gotta keep them healthy and again, take the lumps of learning. But I think before it’s all said and done, they have a chance to gel together as a starting five and give us a chance to compete.
Everyone is excited to watch UVA’s high-powered offense, but what can you tell us about the way the defense looked in camp?
The defense looks a lot different than in the spring, with the addition of the four grad transfers along the defensive line. That’s been huge, they’ve added competition. [Ben] Smiley’s really emerged and developed as a guy that’s been in the program, but hadn’t had a whole lot of production and now you’re seeing him start to emerge. [Aaron] Faumui and Jahmeer Carter, he was just a younger guy that’s really taking his nutrition seriously, he’s in the best shape he’s ever been in, so I feel like we got more depth on the D-line, which will help protect the back end. We got some guys on the back end that are coming off of injury that gotta get themselves game-ready, so they’re gonna need to be protected. I feel good about our linebacking core, I think we got some talent at the linebacking core but it’s just gonna be a function of how quickly can these guys gel as a unit, because we have some talent in spots but we gotta be able to mesh it all together so we can become a unit that can get a stop when we need to get a stop.
Are there any standout freshmen who you expect to make an impact right away?
I think McKale Boley will do that on the offensive line. He’s been a guy that’s really showing that he loves to compete, he’s a fast learner. He came in with good size on him and good development. Still would benefit from a year in the weight room, but I think he’s physically in a position where he could contribute as a freshman. I think Houston Curry, down the road, the other offensive lineman is gonna be a really good player. Xavier Brown has done a good job,
Terrell Jones, on the D-line, I think we hit a home run on him. I think he’s got a very high ceiling. We may not see it this year, just because of the depth that we added on the D-line with the grad transfers but I think that by the end of his career, we’re gonna look back and say “we got a steal right there.”
I’m trying to think of the other guys. [Sean] Wilson, he’s got a big long body, more developed than Lavel [Davis Jr.] as a freshman, just physically, so I’m excited about him. I think Bracey, Steve Bracey, is gonna be a good player for us at linebacker.
You guys have a tough stretch of games later on in the season going against Miami, UNC, and Pitt. How do you typically prepare a team for a difficult stretch like that?
It starts with the mindset that you attack fall camp with, and understand that every game is a season in itself. You have to play every game like it’s the biggest game of the season, and know that there are no easy games, there are no off games.
You cannot play to an opponent, you cannot play to a situation. You have to respect every single game and if we can develop that mindset, then every game, all 12 games, is gonna be a tough stretch because we know that on any given Saturday, any opponent that we play is capable of coming out with the victory.
Do you have any opinions on the current direction of college football as a whole, with the recent changes to transfer rules and conference realignments?
My general opinions are that there are good intentions from the NCAA in the direction that they’re going, trying to allow for resources to be provided to student athletes. I do have reservations, just as anybody would about how you provide those resources to young people.
It’s great that they’re making opportunities, but I think there should be just a little bit of structure, and some consistency too. I think we’re in a stage now where it’s constantly changing, and I think all of us, in our lives, are looking for a little more structure, a little more discipline, a little more routine.
Do you have any hobbies or interests outside of football?
Yeah, I say I like to get dirty, so I don’t mind riding side-by-sides and four-wheelers. My boys like dirt bikes. I don’t fish, I don’t hunt—I do love baseball. In the offseason, I get to spend a lot of time watching my boys play baseball. I’m a homebody, so if I’ve got a couple hours, I don’t mind just sitting on the couch and watching a good movie and getting away for a little bit.
Are there any places in Charlottesville that you’ve taken a particular liking to?
The Local has some really good food, I’ve been there. Unfortunately, because of the way the recruiting calendar is and the way my schedule is, a lot of times when I do venture out into the city it’s because of a recruiting function, so I haven’t had a chance to visit everywhere. All I really know is 250 and 29. I know how to get to Crozet and back, and I know how to get to Stonefield and back, and that’s about it as of right now.