Tony Elliott on Brent Pry firing | ‘You don’t want to see that happen to any coach’

A reporter asked UVA Football coach Tony Elliott on Tuesday about the firing over the weekend of Virginia Tech coach Brent Pry – from the just one of those questions that somebody has to put out there, awkward as it may be department.

There was, not surprisingly, a sense of, There but for the grace of God go I to Elliott’s response.

“Man, hate it for him and his family. You don’t want to see that happen to any coach,” Elliott said. “We know it’s a part of what we sign up for, but you hate to see that. I don’t know all the details behind all of that, and really, it’s not my job to go and find that out. Just know that Coach Pry’s a heck of a football coach.”

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ICYMI

• Virginia Tech fires football coach Brent Pry | President: ‘Results on the field were not acceptable’

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Pry and Elliott both were high on the preseason hot seat lists put out by the various and sundry self-appointed college football pundits, for probably obvious reasons.

Pry was 16-21 in three seasons at Tech coming into 2025, at a school that routinely won 10 games and more for a long stretch in the 1990s and 2000s, with a fanbase that still thinks a return to prominence is just around the corner, absurd as that may be at this point.

Elliott, for his part, was 11-23 in his three seasons at UVA coming into the 2025 season, with the money people, desperate for a return to the relative prosperity of the George Welsh years, reportedly going all in to give him a $30 million NIL budget in the offseason – making Year 4 put up or shut up time.

Elliott, here in mid-September, has his team sitting at 2-1, with expected easy wins over Coastal Carolina and William & Mary, and a frustrating four-point loss at NC State.

You would have expected at least 2-1 through three weeks for the ‘Hoos, with that schedule.

I think it would have been fair to expect Tech to be 2-1 through three weeks given its early schedule – a neutral-site game against South Carolina, then home games with Vanderbilt and ODU.

Instead, the Hokies are sitting at 0-3, losing by double digits in all three games – blowing a 20-10 halftime lead in a 44-20 loss to Vandy in Week 2, and falling behind 31-0 to ODU in a 45-26 loss that was made to look less awful because Tech scored two touchdowns in the final 4:20.

Elliott, glad that it’s not him picking up the pieces – not yet – said he and Pry had gotten to know each other during their tenures in the Commonwealth.

“Over the last few years, Coach Pry’s been good to me. I thought we had a good relationship here working together in state, even though we’re rivals,” Elliott said.

On the firing, and the timing:

“I hate to see that, hate that for the young people in the locker room at this point in the season,” Elliott said. “But ultimately, you got to trust that the administration had a plan, knew what they were doing. But just praying for Pry and his family as they go through this tough time.”