Virginia football coach Tony Elliott has named Des Kitchings offensive coordinator, according to Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith, who confirmed the news at his Monday press conference.
According to Smith, Kitchings, who had been the team’s running backs coach, is taking the UVA job immediately .
The Falcons were eliminated from the NFC playoff race with a 29-15 loss at Buffalo on Sunday.
Kitchings, 43, is a 2000 alum of Furman, where he was a consensus All-SoCon wideout and I-AA All-America kick returner, with four returns for TDs in his career.
He bounced around the NFL as a practice-squad guy for four seasons before returning to Furman in 2004 to begin his coaching career, spending four seasons at his alma mater as the tight ends coach and special teams coordinator.
Elliott also has a stop at Furman on his resume, but he and Kitchings didn’t work together there. Elliott was at Furman from 2008-2010.
Kitchings moved on to Vanderbilt in 2008, and in his final season at Vandy, in 2010, Kitchings was elevated to offensive coordinator, at the ripe old age of 32.
Commodores head coach Robbie Caldwell, who had replaced Bobby Johnson in the summer, would step down after just one season, a 2-10 campaign.
New coach James Franklin brought in his own staff, which included a guy named Brent Pry, who would follow him to Penn State and is now the new head coach at Virginia Tech.
Kitchings, for his part, moved on from Vanderbilt to a year at Air Force before a lengthy run at NC State, coaching running backs and tight ends, then adding the recruiting coordinator title for five seasons, from 2014-2018.
Kitchings then did a one-year stint as running backs coach at South Carolina in 2020 before joining the staff at Atlanta this season.
Story by Chris Graham
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