Love your articles. I appreciate the honest review of UVA Football and UVA sports in general. I also only want the ‘Hoos to succeed, but am totally frustrated at the lack of honest introspection.
Regarding Bronco versus Elliott, at least Bronco earned the right to be stubborn about his staff (although Dr. Bob Anae was frustrating, and Nick Howell was awful!). Six years of winning seasons and bowl games.
What has Tony Elliott ever done to earn that right to stick with Des Kitchings (the worst!) and Keith Gaither (also terrible – why do we always fair catch both kickoffs and punts, and don’t get me started on punt team blocking…)? This is his first head coaching job, so it isn’t like he’s a proven winner. How many assistant coaches on national championship teams can claim the same cred? Lots!
I was supportive of hiring a younger, offense-minded head coach, but Elliott isn’t calling the plays and seems to act like he’s the CEO of some special club, with some “special sauce.” His team is boring, recruiting pitiful, and game management awful.
Time for the higher-ups at UVA to stop screwing around and make a move to an experienced coach, a true proven winner, with an exciting offense and/or stifling defense, who can generate some excitement. Maybe use a better search firm? It doesn’t seem a hard formula to follow, so why can’t UVA ever follow it?
– Marc
Marc hits all the salient points here. Tony Elliott may be the best example of, just because a guy is a great play-caller, that doesn’t make him the best guy to be a head coach.
I think the verdict is already in on him, and all we’re doing now is waiting until the higher-ups figure that out.
I have really enjoyed reading your columns this UVA Football season. It makes me feel less alone in my misery every Saturday, knowing that there is still someone out there who cares about this miserable program as much as I do.
After UVA inevitably loses to Tech this Saturday, and Carla Williams inevitably keeps Tony Elliott (despite it being blaring obvious that he cannot prepare this football team properly), we are all going to feel pretty hopeless about the state of the program. Carla Williams has continued to run us into the ground, passing up on Mike Freaking Elko and after running the best man for the job out of town.
This is stuff you know already, so I’ll cut to the chase: Is there any hope for UVA Football? Any at all?
I’m the ripe old age of 23 and I’m afraid I will never see another competent football team in Charlottesville for the rest of my life.
– Parks
At 23, Parks wasn’t even alive for the years of relevance, sadly.
I grew up a UVA fan on the other side of the Blue Ridge (25 miles away in Waynesboro), and I was lucky enough to be a first-year student at UVA in 1990, the year we were #1 in the country for three glorious weeks.
At Parks’s young age, he may not remember much before, say, that 2007 season that was a 9-4 finish, and we’re stretching it to say that he’d remember much about that.
We will never get back to being in a position to being #1 in the country for three weeks ever again – though on that note, Virginia Tech has never been #1 in the country in football, so, we have that going for us, which is nice.
As far as competence: I think it’s reasonable to assume that we can again get to the level of being able to win seven, eight or even (occasionally) nine games most years, but I don’t think it’s with the current regime.
The next coaching search, which I don’t see happening until this time next year, will need a lot of good candidates, and people on the search committee willing to do hard work.
I’m rooting for all of us that they can get this figured out.
Chris, great analysis on Tony Elliott‘s philosophy and where things stand. Vanilla is a great word for the play calling, and I have never been, after getting a decent sample size, a fan of Des Kitchings’s play calling. Too many 1- or 2-yard runs, often called at oddball down and distance.
It seems very obvious he should play Tony Muskett at this point. I get that he doesn’t want Anthony Colandrea to transfer, but at this rate he won’t be the coach anyway, so why not?
I also understand we are one win away from a bowl, so an improvement record-wise; however, if you look at the season game by game, there was a decent amount of success left out there due to bad play calling and bad coaching in my opinion.
You can’t shock the world with two yards and a cloud of dust; you need to be creative and aggressive. We play not to lose by a lot (which unfortunately still happens), and not to win.
– Eric
I agree here with Eric. We shouldn’t be happy with five (or even six) wins. We gifted the W to Louisville, the staff didn’t have the kids ready at all for UNC, and Maryland makes no sense at all.
I’m still of the pollyanna mindset that our guys can win this weekend.
I’m just setting myself up for a hard fall, I know.
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Chris Graham
