Alright, folks. I’m going to own it. I’m the guy who would have to ask the hard questions of Tony Elliott after an ugly loss.
Thing is, while I’m the bad guy in print, I haven’t been the heel in person.
Truth be told, I prefer life on the fringe.
I do the digging into contracts and money figures, deep-dive analyses of where teams’ strengths and weaknesses.
Other people do the quote-based writing, which I see having little value in this day and age, because nobody ever really says anything revealing, even when they are pressed, which, OK, that actually never happens, either.
Pres conferences are performative theater: media members pretend to ask hard-hitting questions, coaches and players pretend to answer them.
After today’s 41-14 loss to North Carolina, and the postgame presser that I just ran through the AI to generate a transcription, I’m now of the opinion that maybe UVA Football postgame pressers need somebody in the media gallery to be the a–hole.
For example, somebody needed to ask Tony Elliott, hey, what was going on down there with McKale Boley in the fourth quarter?
Boley got into it with an assistant coach, then Elliott got in Boley’s face, and Elliott ordered Boley back to the locker room.
Interwebs sleuths are saying that Boley mouthed the words “I quit” as he walked away from Elliott.
Nobody asked about that.
Not one question.
Seriously, not one question?
That’s stunning.
Nobody asked about the offense, as a unit, giving up on chasing down the 84-yard thicc-six.
Jahvaree Ritzie, all 290 pounds of him, looked to be begging somebody, anybody, to tackle him beginning at around the 30.
Poor guy was almost pleading, please, I’m going to die!
Dude looked like he was running Heartbreak Hill in the Boston Marathon, which is what happens when you’re 290 pounds, and you’re running more than 10 feet.
No questions on that.
Nobody asked Tony Elliott if he thought it possible that having players scrapping with coaches on the sidelines, having a unit giving up on a fat guy running back a pick for what seemed like several minutes, giving up 10 sacks to a team that gave up 70 points to a jabroni JMU team, might be giving up on him and his staff.
No questions on, coach, you’re 4-4, with three straight losses, you’ve got four left, three against ranked teams, one at Virginia Tech, you’re staring 4-8 and a seven-game losing streak squarely in the face, are you feeling the heat?
I know that nobody there likes me.
I’m barely tolerated.
There’s one guy on the media-relations staff, I don’t know his name, but the guy stares lasers through me every time I try to make eye contact.
Even so.
Somebody needs to ask these questions.
Elliott takes the fall for this one
The UNC defense had given up an average of 505.0 yards per game over its last four games, all losses.
Virginia had 77 yards of offense in the first half, finished with 288 – and 142 of that came in the fourth quarter, which was entirely garbage time.
The Tar Heels had 10 sacks; they hadn’t recorded a sack in either of their last two games coming in.
Des Kitchings never did seem to figure out how to counter what Carolina was doing – which was, getting consistent pressure in the face of Anthony Colandrea from the A gap, with the guys on the edges preventing him from escaping to the perimeter.
A simple fix would have been, keeping extra guys back in protection – a running back, a tight end.
Another simple fix: not having the 5’10” QB dropping back so much, but rather, having him move the pocket on rollouts.
Defensive coordinator John Rudzinski had the secondary dropping back in coverage to prevent the deep ball, and still gave up six pass plays of 20 yards or more.
Having the secondary in zone should have extra guys available to help in the run game.
Omarion Hampton ran for 105 yards on 26 touches.
The game plan was as flat as the players were on the field.
Tony Elliott addressed this in his opening statement.
“I owe an apology to the administration, to the players in the locker room, the staff. I did not do a good job of having them prepared to play. So, what you saw out there today, that’s on me, and I got two weeks to really figure it out, to have us ready to play our best football down the stretch,” Elliott said.
“You know, there’s, there’s no excuses. I mean, it doesn’t matter who’s in there, you know, the expectation is the expectation. And you know, the other way you look at is, man, guys got an opportunity, and they got to be they got to be ready. But that starts with me, so I have to make sure that I have them prepared and ready to go to be able to compete and execute at a high level,” Elliott said.
“Probably the most frustrating thing, is, man, I’ve seen these guys perform and play at a high level, so I know they’re capable of it, but it all comes down to decisions, daily decisions. And today we just, we didn’t have our minds in the right place,” Elliott said. “And again, I take ownership, because that’s my fault. My job as a head coach is to make sure that collectively, everybody’s on the same page, pulling in the same direction, with the same mindset, and I failed at my job today.”
Halftime pep talk
Elliott did get asked about what he told his team at halftime.
“What I said at halftime, I can’t repeat, to be honest with you, because I was just trying to challenge the guys,” Elliott said.” I was trying to flip the mindset, right, trying to get the guys to snap out of wherever they, wherever they were mentally. But obviously I didn’t say the right things. So, I got to evaluate myself to make sure that, one, I have them prepared better mentally, and then I can figure out which buttons to push, you know, when they’re when they’re having a tough time, to get them back, you know, back to where they need to be.”
Takeaway: whatever it was he said, don’t bottle it.
Why was the offense in shotgun on first-and-goal at the 1?
On Virginia’s first possession, a 17-yard pass, catch and run from Colandrea to Xavier Brown set up a first-and-goal at the 1.
The next play had Colandrea in the shotgun, and Noah Josey, who started at center for Brian Stevens, snapped the ball over Colandrea, who was able to chase the ball down at the 12.
Two incomplete passes later, Will Bettridge got Virginia on the board with a 29-yard field goal.
Why go with a shotgun snap there? Why not go with the Grady Bunch play with third-string QB Grady Brosterhous, who leads the team with four rushing TDs?
The explanation from Tony Elliott here:
“You find out that your center is out on Friday afternoon, and the center you got in there hasn’t practiced, you know, that particular play,” Elliott said. “And, you know, I, from that mindset, you go with what they’re comfortable doing, and that whole drive, you know, we had been, we’ve been in the gun, all right, so you don’t anticipate that. So, I knew we were gonna get questions about it, but I stand firmly on the decision. You know, you got a, you got a center in there that hasn’t had a chance to really practice that, so that, and he’d been snapping in the gun all drive up to that point.”
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Chris Graham
