Home Mailbag: Does Tony Elliott have any clue what he is doing? Will UVA win a game this year?
UVA Football

Mailbag: Does Tony Elliott have any clue what he is doing? Will UVA win a game this year?

Chris Graham
tony elliott
Photo: UVA Athletics

Who is this cocky and undersized #10 who replaced Tony Muskett? The offense is nonexistent. Probably will be most of the season.

Two quick questions for you.

  1. Does Tony Elliott have any clue what he is doing?
  2. Is it beyond the realm of possibility that this team could lose every game this year? I don’t see more than two wins, and that’s a maybe.

I can’t imagine the additional schools Cal and Stanford bode well for recruiting either.

– B.P Hagen


More high heat from the readers, today, from our buddy, B.P.

Ahead of the questions, I generally really like the “undersized #10,” Anthony Colandrea, but he struggled a bit in his mop-up duty on Saturday, and my hope for him is that we don’t have to burn his redshirt, because he will be more valuable in Year 5 than he will be this year in Year 1.

First question: I assume Tony Elliott is a really good play-caller, because he was that at Clemson. I’m not sure he’s a good head coach, which is an entirely different job.

In defense of Elliott and the person who hired him, Carla Williams, you don’t really know if a guy who is a really good play-caller is going to turn out to be a good head coach, which is more an administrative job, until a person actually does that job.

The job, to me, would seem to involve being able to lay out a vision for how you want to play the game on all three units, then hiring good coordinators and good position coaches who can coach to that plan, then putting together a plan for acquiring talent (high school recruiting and the transfer portal) to be able to work toward making everything that is planned a reality.

Elliott has one good coordinator – John Rudzinski on defense – and awful coordinators on offense and special teams.

Assessing the position coaches, from a results standpoint, I’d have to say that we’re not getting what we need from our QBs coach, our OL coach, and our running backs coach – despite having what seems to me to be solid talent back there, we’re not getting much out of that talent.

The recruiting, meanwhile, both the prep and transfer portal, has been abysmal, and it’s hard to imagine it getting any better with the results on the field to this point.

Second question: I can see a loss in every game, like you do. Maybe we beat a bad Boston College team up there, maybe we beat W&M at home (but they’re really good), and the two Techs are close to as bad as we are.

A lot of maybes.

Nothing definite.

The other issue: I think the additional schools in Cal and Texas may help the ACC in terms of recruiting overall, just by giving our conference exposure to recruits in those states that we hadn’t been getting before.

Specific to UVA, though, maybe we just get access to more third-tier talent from those states, because that’s what it seems we’re getting in our home base.

Wahoowa!

Multimedia

 




Chris Graham

Chris Graham

Chris Graham is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, TikTok, BlueSky, or subscribe to Substack or his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].

Latest News

uva football entrance
UVA Football

UVA Football: ‘Hoos open 2026 season with dominant 34-8 win over NC State

online troll bully
Trump's America

Mark Warner presses Polymarket, Kalshi on election disinformation efforts

Mark Warner and Alex Padilla are pushing for answers from the people who run the Polymarket and Kalshi prediction market platforms amid reports that the platforms are paying influencers to spread election disinformation.

health insurance
State Government

Healthcare: Virginia individual market rates set to increase significantly in 2027

The nine health insurance companies that plan to participate in the Virginia individual market in 2027 have requested rate increases that range from 3.9 percent to 22.7 percent, with an average monthly increase at 16.7 percent.

Fall Foliage at Sherando Lake
Region/State

Fall foliage outlook: Not good, because of the ongoing Mid-Atlantic drought

uva soccer
UVA Olympic Sports

Soccer: Virginia snaps early losing skid, with dominant 4-0 win over American

uva field hockey
UVA Olympic Sports

Field Hockey: #5 Virginia escapes in opener at Penn State, winning in OT, 4-3

blue ridge parkway
Arts & Culture

Blue Ridge Parkway author event at Humpback Rocks Visitor Center next weekend