Virginia football fans will be very happy with today’s news involving the coaching staff: Tony Elliott has retained wide receivers coach Marques Hagans and defensive line coach Clint Sintim, a pair of UVA alums, and well-regarded offensive line coach Garett Tujague.
Hagans, a 2005 Virginia graduate, recently completed his ninth season at Virginia and oversaw a receiver’s group that saw four different players gain more than 600 yards during the season. That group included all-ACC receivers Dontayvion Wicks and Keytaon Thompson.
During his time at Virginia, Hagans has coached nine of the 15 wide receivers who are on the school’s top-20 all-time career receptions list.
Sintim is also a UVA graduate (2009). He joined the UVA staff prior to the 2020 season. Sintim’s front line in 2020 helped the Cavaliers finish No. 11 in the nation with 3.2 sacks per game. UVA’s 32 sacks rank No. 6 all-time on UVA’s single-season list as 9.5 of those sacks were registered by defensive linemen.
This past year, Tujague’s offensive line featured second-team All-American center Olusegun Oluwatimi, who was the program’s first Rimington Trophy finalist. He was one of three Cavalier offensive linemen to be named to an all-conference team.
Coach TJ’s offensive lines have helped UVA to amass more than 5,000 yards of total offense in three of the team’s last four seasons. Prior to the 2018 season, UVA only surpassed 5,000 yards of total offense four times in program history.
The 2021 season was Tujague’s sixth at Virginia.
Elliott also announced the hiring of Adam Smotherman as the football program’s head strength and conditioning coach. Smotherman comes to UVA after spending the past nine seasons on the Clemson football strength and conditioning staff.
Smotherman previously worked as the assistant director of strength and conditioning at Furman from 2012-13.
He interned in the weight room at his alma mater, Vanderbilt, in 2011, where he had been a four-year letterman and multi-year starter at defensive tackle at Vanderbilt. He earned the team’s Ironman Lineman Award three times, the Lifter of the Year Award two times, the Dedication Award, and was elected team co-captain his senior year
Additionally, Nate Pototschnik will remain with the Cavalier program and has been promoted to associate strength and conditioning coach. He has been a full-time member of the Virginia strength and conditioning staff since 2017.
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Chris Graham
