UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 27, 2024

Tony Elliott

Press Conference

Q. Obviously nothing happening at the quarterback. What have you seen in terms of ball security development and how much did that factor into your choice?

COACH ELLIOTT: I've seen a lot of progress. That's an area where not just challenging A.C., but the entire program to take care of the ball. We refer to the ball as the program. So anytime you touch the ball, you have the program in your hands.

So we've been stressing that with everybody and putting all of our offensive skill guys through ball security drills and then we even took some time with some of our defensive guys, especially on special teams, to teach them proper ball security. But in relation to A.C., what I've noticed he's a lot more conscientious, when he pulls it down to run, of keeping it high and tight.

And also from a decision-making standpoint, just not -- some of those plays, he feels like he wants to pull the trigger. He's being a lot more conscientious in understanding the situation that sometimes it's better to just pull the ball down, throw it away, or run, get more yards, get down, as opposed to putting the ball into jeopardy by throwing it into coverage.

Q. How confident, what have you seen in terms of your career taking that from practice, because games is when you want --

COACH ELLIOTT: That's right. That's right. All we can do in terms of where we are right now is evaluate the live scrimmage reps. That's the closest thing we get to the game, and all indications is that the maturity has taken place related to A.C. just live scrimmage reps which gives us confidence that we're going to see improvement in the game.

But it's something that you have to talk it every single day, for the most part, just to keep it on the forefront of the mind of the guys, because again they get out there, they start playing football.

And also, too, one thing about ball security is when the body gets into an awkward position, it's not worrying about the ball, it's worried about protecting itself from going to the ground. So creating the muscle memory is what we have to work at every single day so that when it happens in the game it's just instinct to protect the ball.

Q. Since the end of last season you've added 14 transfers. The large majority of those guys are on the depth chart. As the transfer portal has become a bigger part of college football, has the staff become kind of more proficient at integrating these guys into the team quicker, than hey, this was a new phenomenon?

COACH ELLIOTT: I think it's relative to the individual coming into the program more so than the coaches because it happens so fast. And it's kind of strange because it happened so fast, then you turn them over to the strength coaches and the coaches either go on the road recruiting or time of the year where we have limited contact with the guys.

I would say a lot of the credit goes to the other players in the locker room of being open to the way that you have to build a roster nowadays and then as a staff we try to be intentional. We look for certain things, guys that we believe that's going to translate into a smooth transition, and we also start with the first year's too. We treat it the same way.

There's no hierarchy, so to speak. Everybody who decides makes a decision to come to UVA is part of the team. Nobody has to earn their right, so to speak.

I think a healthy goal for the locker room is what helps those guys transition and we try to do everything we can as coaches. But a lot of credit goes to the players.

Q. In terms of the quarterback position, how much do you think the locker room feels about the decision to -- I'm sure they have a feel for the guys. How much do you factor that and how close was the competition?

COACH ELLIOTT: I ask questions of Vinny, and I will expose the guys that I ask on the team. I ask the guys some questions just to get their perspective. Obviously it was just one piece of the puzzle. So I asked it wasn't I sat there saying I'm making a decision by myself because this is a program decision. Really every position battle is a program decision, but the quarterback more so in particular. So it was important for me to at least have their perspective on how they saw it.

I think it was consistent with what I thought because the competition was real. Like, it was a real competition. These guys battled every single day. It was extremely close. So when you start looking at all the factors, you look at last year, that's a part of the equation. We already evaluated last year.

And then you look at spring. Spring probably was not as good a piece of body of work to evaluate because Tony was hurt. Then it came down to, okay, now we're going to look at fall camp and every day, every rep, not just the live reps, just the reps away from the defense. Everything was evaluated. And it was very, very close.

And proud of A.C. and Tony, the way they handled it. Proud of how they handled when the decision was made. The thing that I think everybody in that locker room and in our program understands is we're going to need both of them. We're going to need both of these guys to go to win football games.

So where we're at right now is A.C. will be the first one to run out there versus Richmond. But the expectation is they continue to compete every single day because that's going to bring out the best version of each one individually and then collectively they're going to help each other put their best foot forward daily because they know their value.

Q. Ben Smiley is on the depth chart. Was it an injury or position battle? What stands out about (indiscernible)?

COACH ELLIOTT: Ben Smiley is more injury just got nicked up during camp and missed a lot of time and it's really kind of integrating back in this week. So we weren't sure at the start of the week. In fairness to our opponent, we wanted to be truthful. You could see Ben at some point. It's more him working back from injury as opposed to a position battle, and with (indiscernible), he's long and obviously surprised everybody because there's a guy that had opportunities to go play lacrosse other places. Decided he wanted to come to UVA and walk on. He's tall. He's lanky, but when he puts his hand on the ground, he plays football.

He comes from a situation where he has a great background. So we have a lot of young guys battling, and he just happened to be the one that was the furthest along at this point. And I anticipate that some other guys will continue to battle, will continue to develop Miles Greene, we got back during camp. So I think you're going to see the depth chart at that position continue to grow as we progress forward. But with Miles we didn't get him back until last week. And then Ben, he's back in the practice. Today was his first day back in practice for a while.

Q. He's one of the true freshman, Ethan also, what have you seen from those guys?

COACH ELLIOTT: So two of those guys came in early. So they were able to go through spring and what you saw in Ethan is first and foremost Ethan is a very intelligent football player. Played quarterback in high school. You saw within about a week that on paper and in his head he was able to get the playbook down very, very quickly. It just came natural to him.

Then you started to see the development of the skill set each day in practice and leadership, too. He's a young guy that didn't back down from a leadership perspective.

So he started leading his peer group of young guys of first-years. Then you started seeing him having older guys leading him just because how he conducted his business. That's what I saw out of Ethan.

Grant, he's been tested with guys up and down on the offensive line. I think he's played about every position now. Then we threw him there at center. He didn't spit the bit. He just kept going every single day. Comes from a really good high school program. So a lot of the credit goes to his coaches for having him ready to compete when he got here and then situationally with new guys up and down, he got opportunities and he took advantage of them.

Q. How cool and ex-kiting is it from your perspective to have a quarterback, if everything goes as plan, you'll have them as your starter for three years? When you guys started recruiting them, what did you see that everybody else missed?

COACH ELLIOTT: So the first part of that question, man, three years. That's an eternity. So we're just happy that right now we're able to focus on him being the guy. He's going to have to earn that.

I think what you know about A.C., he's not going to back down from any challenge. He's going to be up for any challenge. And as a staff it's our job to go recruit somebody to beat him out.

If he'll continue to develop and he'll accept the challenge, then there's a possibility for it to be four years. But I think in college football, nowadays, it's hard to plan for three weeks, to be honest with you, much less three years. But what you saw in A.C. is, first, very familiar with the area that he's from because I recruited him down in the Clearwater Saint Pete/Tampa area for a long time. It's good high school football and highly competitive.

You saw that he chose to go to a school that maybe traditionally the position and he commanded that locker room and that environment and then you saw him compete against some of the best players in the state of Florida and when you beat him you can see he's got a confidence about himself.

When you watch him and again you're still trying to figure out is it going to translate. Once he came to camp, just started throwing the football, you saw it.

What other people, what other people is missing is they put a lot of stock in measurements in terms of height and weight. We saw a very fluid passer with a lot of arm talent, and you could also see through some of the things we do in camp, the competitor he was.

So what we saw was a competitor, the arm talent, and then we also knew a lot about kind of the background of where he was coming from, how he came up in the high school ranks. We said, hey, man, we're not going to put too much stock in the measurables. This kid is a football. He loves to compete. He has the arm talent. So too bad for everybody else that missed. But we're happy that we were able to end up with him.

Q. That first spot the 4s secondary, the corners, in terms of how you're looking at that position in Cory, is that more based on matchup or are you looking for one guy to be the primary guy there?

COACH ELLIOTT: We're planning to play a lot of guys and hopefully play a lot of games. So we need depth at every position. The two have different skill sets so that gives us some flexibility. But really we need that at every position. I wish it was at all positions, truthfully, from a coaching perspective because you can never predict what's going to happen during the season. But that's been a good battle too. That's been fun to watch Cory and Malcolm, two older guys. Both of them transferring in and them accepting the challenge of the competition and then also providing leadership in their own different ways.

But we're not expecting it to be one guy. We need depth. Also, too, that gives us some flexibility because you're going to have different packages throughout the course of the season that you need to match up. When you have two guys with that flexibility, you can now get into some more three-down packages versus some of your truly spread terms that throw the ball a lot.

Q. Sports gambling has been legal for six years now in Virginia. You're not allowed to bet on Virginia programs if you're in Virginia. What has been the impact as you've seen it on college sports and what kind of education do you give your guys both on their involvement in it and some of the potential hardships that come out of it?

COACH ELLIOTT: Yeah, that kind of is a question out of left field. And I'm kind of the guy with his head kind of in the sand a little bit just because I've learned that the best way for me to function is just to simplify my life. So I've never been a gambler myself in any right, even like without something at stake. I'm not a gambler.

I'm not a fan of it being legal for guys because it's hard. When it's legal, but then you can't do it. There's a lot of things for these student-athletes that's legal but then they can't do it. So it's hard when everyone around them is able to do these things and then you have to tell them that they can't. So the designation is you try to point to the examples that are happening with some of the NFL guys, some of the NBA guys, that careers are being truly impacted and then also from the NCAA standpoint, compliance comes in and talks to guys about what they can and cannot do. And that's really unique status.

We don't spend a lot of time talking about it. I haven't had any issues that I'm aware of and I try to stay intune as best I can with the program and have a lot of ears.

That's not one of the things that really has come across my desk. Knock on wood, I hope it doesn't become a issue, but I do know that the more it's perceived as acceptable, then the harder it is going to be from a college football as a whole to be able to regulate it.

So it's a challenge not just for gambling but with other things that are legal in states and in communities around these guys but from an NCAA standpoint, when it's legal it creates challenges. You have to have a stance on it. Our stance is we're not going to gamble. I encourage them not to gamble at all with whatever they can do. Just stay away from it until you're done playing ball and then you can be like everybody else.

Q. What have you lacked from the offensive line in preseason and where does it leave a mark?

COACH ELLIOTT: What I like is you're seeing more cohesion with the group. And so there's not as many, I guess, in our terms guys turning loose. There's not as many of those situations telling the communication is where it needs to be. All five guys have a good understanding of not just their job but the guys next to them and what kind of communication they have together. But we've still got to get better technically across the board at all positions because that's really where you win at a high level is when you can win the one-on-one match-up when the game's on the line. Just seeing those guys continue to work on their technique.

The offensive line, it's a tough job. It's a tough job. Not many people understand especially people outside of their coaches understand what they do, how hard it is. But, man, they're quick to get the blame for everything. Right? Because there's not a true full understanding because it's hard to watch those five guys and really know how they're supposed to be connected together.

So for us, we have got to continue to improve on the technique, and then the depth too, keep pushing to improve the depth because it's a long season and guys get banged up. But the thing that I keep expressing to the guys, it doesn't matter who is out there. The expectations don't change. The other team's not -- they're not going to back down because maybe we might have a second team ranked tackle in there. The standard is the standard. The expectation is the expectation. We've got to improve daily to be able to live up to that.

Q. With Kam Butler healthy, Chico Bennett fully healthy going into the year, what are your expectations for them? What kind of advantage can they give you on defense if they are going the way you want them to go?

COACH ELLIOTT: I think the expectation was what they created when they were healthy playing at their best. I think you saw the first four games of the season. Last year Kam was playing at a high level. Then two years ago, Chico was playing at a high level. And now I think they're back healthy, and they have the ability to play at that level. So that's what the expectation is for those guys, is just get back to playing your best football. And then when that happens, everything else will take care of itself. So not trying to put numbers or status, expectations, just, hey, be your best day in, day out and everything else will take care of itself.

My hope for the entire defensive line is I want to see these guys play on the other side of the line of scrimmage in the run game and in the pass game and let's play in their backfield, so to speak. And I want to see them get to the quarterback.

The indications from Kam is that they really have taken that to heart and they're working hard on it. So I'm excited to see these guys when we get out there on Saturday, seeing if we can play in the opposite backfield and see can we get to the quarterback without necessarily having to bring pressure.

Q. Coming to the tailback, talk from when you got here, the running game. You have your running back from Clemson as your lead. Kobe, and Jack Griese has battled his way back from injury. Xavier Brown, Noah and Hawthorne, and how do you guys plan to use all those backs?

COACH ELLIOTT: Noah Vaughn got off to a really good start in camp and then had a stress reaction in his leg that we're being cautious with. It may be another week or so before we actually see Noah Vaughn. But he was making a lot of progress. And I think he's probably the most complete of all the backs that we have. His body has really taken -- built his body. His body looks good, real quick, good feet, can make all the cuts.

He's got a little bit of juice. If he breaks it, he's not a burner-burner, but he's going to run better than people anticipate. He's really started to take to pass protection and he's got soft hands out of the backfield. So I think he's got a ton of upside. Still a young guy. He's got to learn, but hopefully when he's back fully going off of the leg injury, then I think folks will see him kind of start to make an impact on what we're doing.

And Donte is a guy that played quarterback initially in high school, then moved to running back. Bigger back. Again, still just trying to get him up to speed with the understanding of the total requirements of that within our offense.

Then he was down a little bit in fall camp so he missed some reps. So where Donte is, I think he's a developmental guy that has good upside. We've just got to keep him healthy and find ways to get him the reps that he needs to fully develop.

So the way we'll use all those backs is we have to run the ball. And I think if you were at practice, I know there were a couple out at practice, seeing me get on the offensive line -- we have to move the ball. It's not just the offensive line. It's everything. Our passing game needs to be where it needs to be so we can complement the run game.

But we've got to run the ball. I think it starts up front and goes to the back. And truth be told, developing a mindset a good back is an eraser, erases a lot of mistakes up front, a good back will erase them. I think we have some guys that have that potential, and it could be -- right out the gate, you'll see the first three -- until we get Noah back and Donte up to speed -- but we'll lean on Kobe to set the tempo in the room. He's had a great fall camp, and I see his mentality is in the right place.

Can he stay healthy, is the question. And that's for any running back, not just anything in particular on Kobe, but can he stay healthy.

And Griese has done a good job of taking advantages of opportunities, and X is a changeup kind of guy. He's not as big as the other guys. He'll run hard for 195 pounds, but it's a little different when you're carrying 205, 210. So we'll use him as a little bit of a change up guy and let him go. If one wants to separate, then one guy becomes a workhorse or if they want to do it by committee, it's really up to them. But the biggest thing is understanding the production that we need to increase and improve in the run game.

Q. You talked prior to fall camp about just this being a first overall season that you guys have had in a long time. For you, how excited are you to get things going on Saturday?

COACH ELLIOTT: Super excited. It's been a long camp. Good camp, but it's been a long camp. Started August 1st. And we practiced against each other, school starts today.

So up until yesterday, it was just us. And when you've got a bunch of folks in highly stressful, competitive environment and it's all ball, everybody is looking for a little change, getting their life back.

So I'm ready to get on with the rhythm of a week. And I'm excited to see these guys just go turn it loose. That's the biggest thing is they worked hard. Great group of guy in the locker room. They're fully bought into what they're trying to do as a program, and now I just want to go see what they do it.

It's one thing to say you believe it. To be bought in Monday through -- I guess, Sunday through Friday, Saturday, you've got to go display it. We've been talking a lot about the words that we have, the core values that we have. We need to turn them into verbs. They can't just be nouns. They can't just be words, on the wall, piece of paper. We've got to bring them to life. That's the thing I'm most excited about is I want to see these guys have joy in playing.

They only get 12. They're only guaranteed 12. As a football player, you're relative to a lot of other sports, we work all year long. We only get 12 opportunities. A lot of sports, some double or quadruple that. We only get 12 we're guaranteed. We're trying to fight for a maximum, maybe 15, 16. I want these guys to go have fun, turn it loose. Play fast. Play fast. Both physically and mentally, be intelligent. I want them to be intelligent. Be the more disciplined team. Be situationally more sound than our opponent and be tough, toughness, both physical and mentally, to go finish games.

That's what I'm excited to see is can these guys who have been working really, really hard take all of that work and then go display it the few opportunities they get.

Q. What's your assessment of Richmond?

COACH ELLIOTT: Richmond, very well coached. They have a great staff that does a great job. And they're fundamentally sound. They're very rarely out of position. They're returning some experienced guys on defense that has some success. I think they were top 10 in the country in scores on defense and scored five times. They were top eight in sacks. They were, I think, top 22 in some other categories. So they're an experienced, confident bunch. It's a team that started three and five and then says you know what, we're going to finish so they understand what it takes to win and they make it around the playoff, programs win a national championship. So they've got coaching pedigree. They're returning a quarterback with experience that's tough. He can beat you with his arm. He can beat you with his legs. They've got skill guys that can run and make plays.

So my assessment is we've got a really, really good football team coming in here that is not going to believe the hype that an FCS team is not supposed to beat a group of 14. They're going to come here expecting to win. They're going to be very well coached, and they're going to battle for four quarters. We've got to play our best football right out the gate because this is a very capable, experienced football team that's very well coached and they're not going to back down.

Q. Jahmeer Carter has been here forever, been a big part of this defense for a while. Is he a better football player than he was a year ago? Where would you like to see him improve as he goes through his last season?

COACH ELLIOTT: He's a better football player on and off the field. I'll start with off the field. He's really embracing his role as a leader. If you spend much time around Jah, he's not going to say much until he becomes comfortable. But he's got a funny little personality when he lets it show. And I notice that he's becoming more comfortable challenging his teammates. One thing about Jah Carter that I appreciate he only knows one speed and he's going to give everything that he possibly has every day, and there's not many football players that you can actually say that about that. They're going to show up every single day and give you everything that they have. He's one of them.

From a football perspective, he's trimmed down a little bit, which has helped him from a movement standpoint. I think he's embracing the opportunity to improve as a pass rusher. I think everybody knows what he can do as a run stopper and being a two-gap guy that commands double teams to be able to move him, but I think he's realizing and embracing you know what, if I can get a one-on-one I can go win. I can go after the quarterback.

So that's where I've seen him improve. His body has trimmed down a little bit. He's moving a little bit quicker, and now I'm excited to see him kind of take it to the next level, can he go get some pressure on the quarterback.

Q. Pre-ball camp singled out the cornerback, what have you seen from the corners?

COACH ELLIOTT: I've seen progress. I think we've got three guys right now that we feel good about in the corner position. I'm not including Jendren and Malcolm, guys we know who can sit over there. I'm talking about Jam, Campton and Drey [phonetic]. Those guys have really embraced the competition. I've seen each of them get better in their own right. I feel a lot better now having had 20 practices or so and seeing those guys progress and going to still hold the fire to those guys to compete every single day, going to see all three of them and see can we get Trent Baker-Booker kind of up to speed and again he was battling. He was battling some GI tract issues where he was struggling for a little while to keep food down. Kind of slowed him down a little bit. But I think he's a capable guy.

When he's in there, he shows physicality for his size. But the fact he missed some time has kind of delayed his progress a little bit. We're going to need him to get up to speed and then Kevon is still a young guy, first year guy, got here this summer. He needs some time in the weight room and just time in the playbook before he'll truly be able to really compete.

That's to be expected because he's a young guy. We'll go with those three and hopefully they get the job done for us. If we need to, we have Kendren and Malcolm as guys that have played corner there.

This gives us some flexibility, and feel good about the safety kind of rotation. That's part of the deepest, we throw Kendren into that safety mix, throw Malcolm into that safety mix, with Ethan, with Antonio, with Jonas and you've got Corey. It's we believe we've got those three. We can find two. We'd love to have four just because of the amount of snaps and how violent the game is.

But that's how we're starting and I hope that our guys up front -- because most great corners that we talk about usually have four guys up front that helped them become great corners because they force the ball out quick. The quarterback doesn't have the chance to set the feet and make good throws and they don't have to cover as long. If you don't have to get pressure on the quarterback, then it's hard for any DB. Doesn't matter who you are to have to cover for four, five seconds.

If we can get some pressure on the quarterback, if you can force that ball out in 2.5, 2.7, then I think they'll be able to really help us.