Tony Elliott's Key Remarks at ACC Media Day Press Conference

Opening Statement

Good afternoon. It's great to be here in Charlotte with each of you. I really appreciate your attendance today, especially sticking around for the last group. I know it's been a great day so far, but really appreciate you being here.

I also want to express how truly grateful I am to stand before you today representing the University of Virginia, the University of Virginia Athletic Department and the football program. There's nothing better than being a part of one of the most prestigious universities in the country that also is part of the best conference in the country. Accomplishing greatness is truly a way of life on the campuses of the schools that make up the ACC.

These very distinguished scholar athletes and myself would not be here today without the tremendous support and leadership that we receive from the university's Board of Visitors, our university administration, faculty and staff. I'm very blessed to work for a phenomenal athletic director in Dr. Carla Williams. Her vision, passion and leadership is inspiring and empowering.

There's a lot of excitement surrounding this year's team. I absolutely love being around our young men. Another huge thank you to our administration, Dr. Williams, our donor base and staff for contributing the resources, the time and the effort to assemble the deepest and most complete roster that we've had in four seasons.

Speaking of the staff, we're one of only six Power Four programs to return our entire staff. This off-season we added 54 new players. 32 of those through the transfer portal and 22 of those being high school signees. I'd also like to add that our staff has gone about building to this point, and we've done it the right way. Three years ago on the front end we made a decision to honor the commitments of the young men that were committed to the previous staff. We also decided to honor the commitments of the young men that were currently on the roster, to embrace them and work alongside them until graduation.

Our current roster is very balanced. 46 percent of our players are upperclassmen and 54 percent are underclassmen. With the addition of the players that we added in the transfer portal, we added 850 games of college football experience.

We held a lead in nine of our 12 games last season, and we're hopeful that the added depth and experience will help us in working towards closing out games in which we have a lead.

As a staff and administration, we're hard at work building a competitive roster. The scholar athletes are hard at work on the grounds in the classroom. In the spring we set a football record with a 3.23 team GPA, and as a program we've been above a 3.0 GPA five of the seven semesters we've been on the grounds. In our seven semesters, we've averaged 77 members of our team accessing a 3.0 or Above Club each semester. This season we have seven home games, four of which are within the first five weeks, and our staff and players are excited to see our outstanding fan base pack Scott Stadium and create an environment that makes it the hardest for opposing teams to play in.

I'm joined by four, three of which are up here, Mitchell is on the side, but I'm joined by four outstanding young men of character, four highly gifted athletes and four phenomenal leaders, Noah Josey and Jahmeer Carter have been a part of the program the entire time our staff has been in Charlottesville. Both Noah and Jahmeer have been instrumental in changing the culture in our facility, in the classroom and on the field. Words cannot express how thankful I am for them and their commitment to UVA football.

I don't have to tell you, but they're also really good football players.

Chandler Morris and Mitchell Melton joined our program in the spring and have brought instant character, leadership and swagger to our program. Their football pedigrees speak for themselves, and I'm most excited about their championship experience that they will be bringing to our locker room.

You guys are all in for a treat as you get to talk to them over the next few minutes. As we get ready to transition to questions, I would like to close by acknowledging the Davis, Chandler and Perry families. You all are constantly in our thoughts and in our prayers. Lavel, Devin, D’Sean, we love you, we miss you, we know that you'll be smiling down upon us. We are UVA strong because of 1, 15 and 41. With that, I'll open it up to questions.

On Staff Continuity

Continuity is big for me, and I've been very intentional with creating an environment where I can earn the trust and loyalty of the staff by their belief in the vision that we have and then also the environment that creates a good space for work/life balance. But I think it's important for the student-athletes to hear a consistent voice. Changeover in this environment, with all the change around them, the last thing they need is a change in the meeting rooms.

Then also it brings stability, also it allows us to not have to start over every single year. So when we hit the practice field running, especially when we're bringing in 54 new guys, we know where we're going, we know what we're doing, and that also instills confidence in the guys because they can see the cohesion, the chemistry. In order for us to have a great team in the locker room, we first have to have a great team in the staff, and for us to have a great team, we've got to have time spent together so that there's trust, there's cohesion, there's chemistry. So it's critical and very important to me and I'm very intentional in making sure that we maintain continuity with our staff.

On Transfers Entering the Program

Great question. I talked about Jahmeer. I talked about Noah. It's really, really important to have these guys' complete buy in so when we bring the new guys into the fold, they quickly can let them know these are the expectations, these are the ways that we do things.

They've done an exceptional job of welcoming the new guys in with open arms and embracing them. These guys, Jahmeer and Noah in particular, have endured a lot over the last three years. Speaking for them, I think I can say, they want to win. They want to win badly. They had opportunities to leave, but they believed that what we're building, we're on the verge of doing something special.

So it's critical for the guys that are in the program to let the guys know that when we go in the weight room, we tuck our shirts in, or these are the socks that we wear, this is how we finish through the line. Then for the new guys, their role is really to infuse talent, to infuse the culture from a winning standpoint that they're coming from because we were very intentional in evaluating guys that we felt like would fit the University of Virginia.

Now, evaluation, we were able to do some of that in the spring, but we also brought in 13 additional guys in the spring portal. So now we're going to have to go back to work, in particular on the back end and the secondary. That was the biggest area of need in the spring portal window, and that's what we'll do over the 25 practices. We were able to get a little bit of a head start with about six structured workouts, but we're not in pads so we can't see the actual true football aspect of it, but I've been very pleased with the upgrade in the length, the speed, the athleticism that we've been able to add to our roster.

On New Pieces for This Year's Offense

Yes, I am an offensive guy. What I do know is, the most important thing with offensive football is chemistry. So with all of those guys that you highlighted, the biggest thing is creating chemistry, because you can be very talented, but if they're not a cohesive unit then you're not going to be efficient, and ultimately you're not going to be productive. But I'm excited about where we are.

What I do know, offensive football is won in the trenches. Even though I'm a receiver at heart and coached skill guys my whole life, you win up front. And that's why the biggest area that we addressed was the offensive line and adding depth to the offensive line.

Probably the one position that we've been playing catch up the most over the last three years, but with the addition of the seven guys that we brought in this off-season, I think we're in a space now where we can have competitive depth, which creates for competitive practice, which allows us to create that chemistry. I think as we figure out kind of the strengths, the weaknesses and get the guys in the right seats, then we can start to build towards Chandler's strengths as a quarterback. He knows a ton of football, and the beautiful thing about offensive football is we like to say we're geniuses and gurus, but we're not reinventing anything. We're just ripping off from each other and stealing stuff and changing the name.

So the biggest thing for him is to figure out how to get the terminology to where he's comfortable with it and then play to his strengths. That's what we'll do, and when we have a tight end that you mentioned, like Dakota Twitty and Sage Ennis and some of the younger guys that are developing, you have the glue that holds it together. So now we can play an 11 personnel, be an uptempo team when we need to, and then we can huddle. We can run the ball out of presentations where we're in 10 personnel and quickly get to 11 personnel, but then also in 3rd down, we don't have to change personnels and tip what we're getting ready to do and we have a passing threat.

So I'm excited about the addition of Jahmal Edrine to our room, JT Thomas, a couple guys coming in at receiver to kind of bolster the group that we already had in place to get Chandler some weapons.

So I'm excited about the potential. Now we have to bring it all together, and you'll be able to hear a little bit more from Chandler about how he feels about where we are, but it's not -- it may look a little bit different, but then there also may be some components that are the same, and it'll be dependent upon these 25 practices coming up in fall camp to determine exactly what the identity of this group of young men is. But I know we're better up front, and Josey and his boys are going to lead the way and we're going to kind of ride those guys as far as they'll take us.

On the Transition This Offseason and the Investment in the Program

Appreciate that question there. Truly grateful to the individuals that decided to support the efforts this off-season and provide the resources for us to be able to go be aggressive and productive in the transfer portal.

We knew that we were coming off a year where we would have a very, very large senior class, and I referenced that in my opening statement about the decisions that we made three years ago that we were building to this point to where we were going to have a chance to really transition the roster.

So there's really no downtime, and you go right to work trying to figure out how you're going to position yourself before the dead period hits. You've got to get the high school guys signed that first week in December, and then you've got about a two-week window of craziness where you're just trying to get guys to come see you, and every team in the country has the same problem.

I thought Tyler Jones and Justin Speros did a great job of identifying the guys that we felt like would fit the needs that we had open, and the staff just did a great job of working the phones, trying to build relationships as quick as possible. Then we got them in for spring practice and got the guys moving around, got them through about eight weeks of winter training and then hit the grass for 15 practices. Then we also were evaluating where additional needs were and that's what led to the direction we took in the spring portal window.