Remember when y’all were all calling me crazy when I said in the spring that UVA Football coach Tony Elliott would win eight games this season?
Turns out, you were right, though not for the reason you thought.
Elliott actually won 10 games this season, and is the 2025 ACC Football Coach of the Year.
The award was selected by an 82-member voting panel featuring 65 media voters and the conference’s 17 head coaches.
Pretty much the same jokers who picked the ‘Hoos to finish 14th in the 17-team ACC in the preseason.
ICYMI
- Preseason ACC Football poll: Clemson is the favorite, UVA Football 14th
- UVA Football coach Tony Elliott: ‘I ain’t worried about what they say in the preseason’
I’m sitting in Uptown Charlotte as I write this, and it’s not because I’m here to cover Clemson-Miami in the ACC Championship Game.
Shows what they know.
I mean, I get it – Elliott was 11-23 in his first three seasons, including a 5-7 mark in 2024 that got out to a 4-1 start, and ended with a 1-6 thud.
But that was playing with both hands tied behind the back.
The money folks gave Elliott a $35 million budget for NIL/House in the 2024 offseason, and Elliott and the program’s general manager, Tyler Jones, used it well – recruiting a roster that landed 15 guys on the All-ACC Football Team announced earlier this week.
ICYMI
- Did the UVA Football money people really give Tony Elliott $30M to build a roster?
- How did UVA Football put together a Top 25 transfer class? Speed dating
- UVA Football: School does a 180 with ‘support’ from admissions helping recruiting
Money is only a part of it; still got to coach and scheme ‘em up.
For the results of the work on the field, Elliott gets another nice bump in the bank-account department.
The ACC Coach of the Year award is worth $75,000.
I can see him getting his share of votes for national coach of the year: that would be worth another $100,000.
This would be on top of the ACC Championship Game appearance that had already netted Elliott a $50,000 bonus.
A win on Saturday is worth another $50,000, plus – gulp! – an additional $500,000 for the College Football Playoff berth that comes with an ACC title.
Win a national title, which, we can dream, and he gets a cool million dollars in cash.
The 10-win season and ACC Championship Game appearance also triggered a clause in Elliott’s contract giving him an automatic one-year extension, which means he’s now tethered to UVA Football through the end of the 2028 season, so, three more years.
Elliott is set to be paid $3.9 million for the 2026 season, with a raise to $4.05 million for 2027 that will now be in effect also for 2028.
It would shock me if Elliott isn’t given a longer extension and a sizable raise sometime this month.
He started the season on the hot seat, remember.
2025 ACC Coach of the Year Voting
- Tony Elliott, Virginia – 57
- Jake Dickert, Wake Forest – 13
- Brent Key, Georgia Tech – 5
- Manny Diaz, Duke – 2
- Mario Cristobal, Miami – 1
Dave Doeren, NC State – 1
Pat Narduzzi, Pitt – 1
Rhett Lashlee, SMU – 1
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Chris Graham
