The UVA defense picked up two conduct penalties with North Carolina in victory formation, and head coach Tony Elliott and defensive coordinator John Rudzinski aren’t on the same page about what we all saw there.
Kam Butler was penalized for a personal foul after a hard, helmet-to-helmet hit on UNC QB Drake Maye on a kneeldown, and a play later, Olu Agonloye was assessed for an unsportsmanlike-conduct foul on another Maye kneeldown.
Ugly fouls, both – looked like the kind of thing that sore losers do.
But Rudzinski was all for it.
“We’re gonna play to the last snap,” Rudzinski said. “As long as that ball is live, shoot, I’ve seen a ball pop out there at the end and guys get an opportunity to get the ball back. And so, our guys are doing what they’re coached to do. I know that you’re gonna get in that formation, but we’re going to make sure that you have to earn it for 60 minutes.”
A reporter pressed him on the penalties, asking if he was frustrated by them.
“The young men did and executed what we asked them to do defensively,” Rudzinski said.
OK, then.
Elliott offered a different perspective.
“We’ve got to be smart,” Elliott said. “We don’t want any personal foul, or we don’t want anybody ejected from the game in that situation. We’re trying to see if we can force them to make a mistake, but at the same time, too, you gotta be smart right there. And one thing we talked about is winning and losing with class. There at the end of the game, you see the guys getting each other’s faces after the game, we don’t have any time for that. When you win you want to be humble, and when we want to be humble in defeat as well.”
He might want to address that with his DC.
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Chris Graham
