At least one UVA fan was predicting what Tony Elliott was going to say after the Cavaliers’ ugly 45-17 loss to Georgia Tech before he even made it to the podium.
“I expect him to go back to superficially taking responsibility, as in, ‘It’s on me. I need to do a better job of finding a way as coach of convincing players not to become complacent, not to lack commitment, and not to stop using their fundamentals that we coach.’”
This was a poster who goes by the CB handle Cvillemerton on the message board of The Sabre.
Elliot was actually already talking to reporters as this post was going live.
His opening remarks:
“It’s on me. I did not do a great job of having this football team prepared and ready to play at a high level,” Elliott said. “You know, about the guys, you know, it’s kind of telling, football, how momentum can swing, and how things in the game can change quickly, and we weren’t able to capture the momentum once it changed. For a little while, we were going back and forth, and it was competitive football, and then, you know, we started making some critical mistakes, and then they found some, you know, they found some answers and made some adjustments that we could not adjust back to.”
Cvillemerton, credit due, was prettydamnclose.
Chris Graham on UVA Football
Elliott, to be fair, has become adept at delivering this self-deprecating message postgame. The former national champion offensive play-caller at Clemson is now 5-14 at Virginia, 2-10 in ACC games, and still (!) hasn’t won a home ACC game in his tenure.
And it’s always something. On Saturday, it was early injuries, to starting quarterback Tony Muskett and outside linebacker Kam Robinson, that changed the calculus for Virginia, which led 7-0 early, but couldn’t get the offense going after its second offensive possession without Muskett, and couldn’t stop Georgia Tech from gaining big yards on the ground after Robinson was knocked out of the game late in the first quarter.
The margin for error for Virginia under Elliott is mighty slim, given his workmanlike effort to run off as much of what he inherited roster-wise from his moderately successful predecessor, Bronco Mendenhall, after taking the job in December 2021.
For instance, the QB room is so thin that it’s Muskett, an FCS transfer, true freshman Anthony Colandrea, who had to burn his redshirt to come in after Muskett went down at the end of the first offensive series on Saturday, then a walk-on, Grady Brosterhous, who, god love him for his effort out there, but he’s a walk-on.
Robinson, the difference-maker on the edge for the Virginia D this season, is, like Colandrea, a true freshman, and without him, UVA had no answer for the Georgia Tech read-option run game, which could only muster 26 rushing yards in the first quarter before Robinson went down, but put up 170 yards on the ground in the second quarter as the Yellow Jackets scored three touchdowns to race out to a 24-10 halftime lead, and finished with, gulp, 305 yards rushing on the day.
This one hurts more given that Virginia, after an 0-5 start in 2023, had seemed to turn the corner, building off a tighter-than-the-score-indicated 27-13 win over William & Mary on Oct. 7, ahead of a bye week, with a 31-27 upset of then-#10 North Carolina, then playing Miami to the end in a 29-26 OT loss last weekend.
That three-game stretch had fans and observers thinking, OK, this is something to build from – it will energize the fan base, be a boost to recruiting.
The fan base, as it turns out, was not energized – officially, there were 42,000 and change on hand for the first game at home in a month on Saturday; unofficially, the ushers were telling us the number in the building was less than 30,000.
Not that many made it back from halftime after seeing the way Georgia Tech sliced and diced the D in the second quarter, and a turnover on downs early in the fourth quarter sent the relative handful who had stayed on toward the exits to beat the traffic, such as it was going to be.
You have to wonder what Carla Williams, the AD who ran Mendenhall off two years ago because he wouldn’t make a change at defensive coordinator after a second consecutive .500 season, following the 2019 trip to the Orange Bowl, was thinking over there in the president’s box, as she watched a fourth quarter play out in front of a nearly empty Scott Stadium.
She ran off the coach who finally took Virginia Football to a meaningful bowl game, got her guy in, and he’s 5-14 in two seasons, and we all know where this is headed.
No, no: this is the University of Virginia; no quick hook is coming.
There’s at least another year, probably at least another couple of years, of this before the people in charge even start to think about what might need to be done.
In the meantime, we get more long mea culpas from the guy that, to be fair, was the hot hire back when Williams was able to land him, after chasing the guy who’d had some success back out west.
“We’re gonna go back to understanding what generated the success that we had,” Elliott told reporters after the ugly loss, by way of taking the blame, again.
Forgive him for not reading the room. Two wins in three weeks might have felt like championship-level football given how things have gone for Elliott to this point, but seriously, one of those wins was over an FCS team, the second was over a team that is getting exploited by everybody right now, and the loss came in a game that Virginia dominated, and still found a way to lose.
“I reminded the guys today in the locker room, that what success that, quote unquote, we had, was a function of the things that we did, right, in preparation, OK,” Elliott said, sounding more like, I hate to say it, Mike London, than he could possibly know, because when Mike London was making a mess of things here, Elliott was on his way to taking over the world down at Clemson.
“We have to learn from this situation,” Elliott said. “What we’re not doing is, we’re not scrapping, what we’re doing, OK, we’re owning this one, taking accountability for it, we’re gonna correct the mistakes, and we’re gonna continue to move forward, it’s a part the growth process, it’s a part of football. You have to be able to compartmentalize it, you know, put it in perspective, and then focus on the next play.”
More word salad was to come.
“What we’re all gonna learn is, man, you got to respect every opponent, and when you have had some progress, then you can’t just assume that it’s going to happen, right,” Elliott said. “That’s why we have the mentality of going 1-0 every single week, right. You got to respect every opponent, you got to respect every single rep, you got to respect every single day of preparation, because the margin for error is instant, you know, a couple of those turnovers, and it could be a different you know, different situation. So, dip in the in the preparation, no opportunity to grow, right, everyone’s gonna have an opportunity to look in the mirror and say, OK, what can I do better, and did I, right, at all times, because again, nobody’s going to know fully except for the person that looks in the mirror.”
Virginia Football fans don’t have good memories of coaches talking about the man in the mirror, for the record.
That one didn’t end well, either.
In the meantime, this 2023 UVA team is now sitting at 2-7, and the next game is going to be a load, at Louisville, a Top 15 team that just waxed Virginia Tech, which had been playing pretty good of late, 34-3.
The last two games are at home – against Duke, which is 6-3, but may have already peaked, and the aforementioned Virginia Tech, which fell to 4-5 with the loss, but has won something like 99 of the last 100 in the series.
The goodwill that Elliott bought for himself with the win over UNC and the narrow loss at Miami can only go so far.
If the program is going to have any momentum heading into the offseason – think: transfer portal, which Elliott is going to need to work the hell out of to boost next year’s two-deep – he’s going to need some kind of strong finish.
Not necessarily wins, but no more 45-17 laid eggs.
Honestly, if we can get to the Saturday after Thanksgiving without another I didn’t do my job again this week speech from Tony Elliott, maybe there will be something to build on going forward.
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