UVA Football: Thinking through who replaces Tyler Jones as the GM

UVA Football coach Tony Elliott said there are “a couple of ideas and potential directions that we can go in-house” to find a successor to Tyler Jones, the GM of the football program, who is leaving for a promotion at Stanford.

“We got a little bit of time. He’ll still be here through the end of May,” Elliott told reporters this week. “We got a little bit of time to onboard and then have a transition plan. Really enjoyed working with him.”

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ICYMI: Tyler Jones archives

• UVA Athletics: Tyler Jones named GM for football, women’s basketball
• The focus for UVA Football GM Tyler Jones: ‘Making data-informed decisions’
• How did UVA Football put together a Top 25 transfer class? Speed dating
• UVA Athletics now requiring student-athletes to sign ‘binding’ contracts
• Are college athletes mercenaries? UVA’s Williams, Jones address the question of the day
• UVA Football jumps in ‘with two feet’ on NIL: Competitive, yes, but is it sustainable?

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It stings, losing Jones, whose titles at UVA Athletics included the basic, deputy athletics director; the sensational, chief strategy officer; and the specific, general manager of the UVA Football program.

If you didn’t know the name Tyler Jones, you know what he was responsible for – the infusion of cash into UVA Football, and the construction of a front office resembling that of an NFL franchise, which used the money to great effect in a magical 2025 season that saw Virginia go from a 5-7 season in 2024 to 11 wins in a 2025 campaign that included an appearance in the ACC Championship Game.

“The success that we had last year wouldn’t have been possible without the contributions that he made,” Elliott said. “Super, super excited for him to have an opportunity to make a decision. And that’s really all we want, you know, is we work really, really hard to put ourselves in position to have a decision to make. He’s a very thoughtful, very meticulous, detailed individual, so I know that, you know, it had to be the right situation for him to, because he wasn’t looking for it. The opportunity came looking for him.

“I hate to see him go, but at the same time, that’s really what we want as a program, is an opportunity for people to be rewarded with bigger opportunities and more responsibility because of the success that they have where their feet are,” Elliott said.

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I’m looking at TJ’s new job at Stanford as certainly a step up for him professionally – he will be the athletics program’s chief operating officer.

Really the only logical move from there is to be a Power 4 AD at some point in the next few years.

Gotta take that job, if a Stanford is offering it to you, as Elliott alluded to.

As long as he doesn’t take the people he built his operation at UVA with him to the Left Coast, we should be OK.

“He invested for it to last and not just to be a shot in the pan,” Elliott said. “So, we know that, yes, he is leaving, but we also know we got a great partner, and all the information that he has, he’s going to share with the next person from a GM standpoint, and also from a from a sport admin standpoint to help us keep going.”

Let’s hope so.