UVA Football: Elliott addresses late-game issues that have marked his tenure

UVA Football was sitting at 4-1 with a lead in the final two minutes against Louisville, which went on to win nine games, in mid-October, just couldn’t close it out.

Among the issues: a botched punt, struggles in the red zone.

Thatclose to 5-1 at the midpoint of the 2024 season.

The JMU loss in 2023 was simple inability to keep focus through a weather delay in the fourth quarter.

For some reason, I ended up taking the heat on that one, for pointing out the lack of focus.

The NC State loss in 2023 was: struggles in the red zone, a penalty on a missed field goal in the final minute that gave the Pack a second chance.

Let’s see: there were late field-goal losses in 2023 to Boston College and Miami, and another blown fourth-quarter lead to Louisville.

Tony Elliott’s first season, 2022, had a last-two-minutes loss at Syracuse, the four-OT home loss to Miami, a three-point home loss to UNC.

That’s nine games, by my count, that were defeats snatched from the jaws of victory.

Elliott is 11-23 through three seasons at Virginia.

A 20-14 record through three isn’t a lot to write home about, but it’s better than 11-23.

“We’ve got to learn from our mistakes. We’ve lost too many football games around here by self-inflicted wounds late in the game, losing our discipline,” Elliott told reporters last week, letting us in on, discipline is an obvious area of focus in training camp.

Discipline isn’t just not committing the penalty giving the State placekicker a second chance.

It’s staying in your gaps, not blowing a coverage or a blocking assignment, running the right pass route.

“We’re going to be a disciplined football team, you know, we can’t, like, we can’t beat ourselves, right? We can’t lose to Virginia,” Elliott said.

Some of this is experience; a lot of it is depth.

Guys forced to play too many snaps in a game, and then multiple games over the course of a season, get worn down mentally late in games, which is when mistakes are magnified.

Depth shouldn’t be an issue for the 2025 UVA Football team.

The challenge for any football coach is: football is an emotional game.

“That’s one of the challenges, because they see so many things on social media that people in that moment say are acceptable, but ultimately they’re not,” Elliott said. “I don’t want to lose football games because we’re an undisciplined football team, and so that’s my job, to acknowledge that, recognize it and recognize it, acknowledge it and correct it.”