UVA Football: Tony Elliott Previews the 2023 Season at ACC Football Kickoff

Read everything Virginia head coach Tony Elliott said at the ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte

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Virginia football head coach Tony Elliott made his annual appearance at the 2023 ACC Football Kickoff event in Charlotte, North Carolina on Wednesday. Elliott previewed the upcoming UVA football season and discussed transfer quarterback Tony Muskett, the support from the UVA and Charlottesville communities following the tragic shooting last November, the depth and experience on the Virginia defensive line, in-state recruiting, the progress he expects the UVA offense to make this season, and what success looks like for Virginia football in 2023. 

See a full transcript of everything Tony Elliott said at the ACC Football Kickoff below:

Q. Coach, you brought in transfer quarterback Tony Muskett this offseason. Can you speak on his game and what stands out about him?

TONY ELLIOTT: Great question. Really excited, and you'll have a chance to hear from him in a minute, and he'll be able to probably express better what I'm about to express. But the thing about Tony Muskett is from day one you saw his confidence. It's not a cockiness. It's not an arrogance, but it's a confidence. From day one he wasn't afraid to go into the locker room and say, you know what, fellas, I'm here to compete. I'm going to do it the right way. I have tremendous amount of respect for everybody in here, but this is the way that I lead. 

It quickly galvanized the guys. When you go back and you watch him on film, one, he was very, very productive at Monmouth. He led his team the way that he needed to lead to be successful. You watch him throw the ball in adverse conditions, and you see that the accuracy is there. That's always a challenge when you are evaluating because you do a lot of evaluation on tape, especially when you are dealing with the transfer portal. When you got to see him in spring practice, like, okay, now he does throw an accurate ball. You know what, it's a very catchable ball.

Then from there he just continued to be who he is, and he is a guy that's got a lot of confidence, but he knows how to manage it. He is a team-first guy. He is always going to promote his team, and he just has that "it" factor. It's hard to describe. When you talk about quarterbacks, you can't coach it, right, but you know it when you see it, and he just has that presence about him. I think his teammates will attest to that, and you'll be able to gauge that once you hear him speak.

Q. Obviously last season off the field and on the field there was adversity in things that nobody should have to go through off the field. How have you seen this community come together? How have you seen these guys really put those numbers on their chest every single day and just live something they shouldn't have to live through, but live it so strongly and so proudly for their brothers?

TONY ELLIOTT: Right. Great question. First and foremost, got to thank the college football community, which includes all of you guys and everybody across the country for just the outpour of support. We felt it in Charlottesville. The same thing with the community of Charlottesville, the University of Virginia, our student body. Everybody came to our side immediately.

While we were in shock trying to regain our footing from what just happened, they held us up in the interim until we could kind of get ourselves grounded and figure out how we're going to navigate forward. This situation is unprecedented. There's no preparation. Even though I experienced tragedy as a young person and throughout the course of my life, it still doesn't prepare you for a situation like this.

The way that you get through it is together, and that's the beauty of football. It's an ultimate team sport, and it forces you to sacrifice and rely on somebody else. It forces you to do hard things that you may not want to do because you have a connection and a bond and a love for your teammates.

So these guys really is what gave me the inspiration to lead because it's very difficult in a situation like that to know what to say, know what to do, and then to have an understanding of is it working and trying to figure out how to lead not just the players, but the staff and then also the athletic department through that situation.

But these guys accepted the challenge. They understood that they have a responsibility to Lavel, Devin, and D'Sean to move forward in the right way, not moving on. There's a difference. That was a big message within the program is we're not moving on. We're never going to forget this. We're not going to put this to the side and act like it didn't happen. Unfortunately for us, it's our new normal. It's a part of our lives and will be a part of our lives forever, and we'll constantly be reminded of it.

There will be tough days, and they have to learn that they have to lean on each other in tough days. They also learned the importance of football, the structure that it provides, the safe haven that it provides, the community that it provides. 

To watch these guys every single day, they made a decision. The guys that came back in January made a decision to embrace the hard and live it every single day. These guys have done it beyond any expectations that I had of them, and it started with just having an attitude of gratitude and appreciation for life.

I think for us that are in it and hopefully going forward anybody that has a connection to our program will see that it's bigger than us. Ultimately, as we all chase purpose in life. We realize that purpose is not about me. It's about what I can do for others.

They didn't ask for this. University of Virginia didn't ask for this, but we were given this opportunity. A tremendous challenge, but we were given an opportunity. The opportunity that we see is that we can take something that is unexplainable, unprecedented, very, very difficult. You wouldn't wish it on anybody, and we can find the beauty of it and use it to inspire others going forward by the way that we respond, by the way that we play, by the way that they live, by the way that they go forward in the future and the individual ways that they decided they wanted to honor the legacies of Lavel, Devin, and D'Sean.

Q. What's the advantage to returning as much as you do on the defensive line. What does it do for your defense, and what's the advantage there?

TONY ELLIOTT: You're hoping that the advantage is that you got leadership. What I've learned in my experience in the college game is that the game is won in the trenches. The best teams that I've been around, you had great leadership at quarterback and then you had great leadership along the front, in particular the defensive line.

So you're returning a lot of guys with game experience. I think that's going to help the transition on the outside at corner where we lost some very, very productive guys.

You're not having to reteach, re-install, right? You're just having to refine. Hopefully what that's going to do is going to allow for the transition and the development of the young guys that we've brought in.

So it gives you the ability to lead, push forward, bring along, develop, and hopefully set the tempo because the game is going to be won in the trenches. It's a team sport. You know, you don't win championships on offense or defense. You win it collectively, but when you have good experience on defense, it's going to challenge the offense to get better.

Q. All the players you brought with you today are from Northern Virginia. I'm curious if that's intentional, and how much that maybe reinforces your commitment to recruit the state and specifically Northern Virginia as well?

TONY ELLIOTT: I don't think that was the parameter for the selection of these guys. I think it's their individual attributes and the contribution we expect for the team.

I'm glad that you pointed that out because there is an emphasis to recruit of state of Virginia, and I think we all know that it's a very, very talent-rich area, in particular Northern Virginia and some of the other areas.

We have a challenge at the University of Virginia from a recruiting standpoint. We're responsible for mending relationships. We have to change the perception of Virginia football.

The way that I kind of equate it is nowadays young people in particular, the audience that you are recruiting, they don't grow up loyal to a school. They grow up loyal to players; right? So you think about all of the great players that have come through. There's some really, really good players.

It's our job to reintroduce them to the great players of the past and then our guys have to do a good job on the field, right, to create that excitement and renewed interest in the program.

Then we've got to continue to build relationships with the guys at the high school level, the coaches in particular. Then more importantly, guys got to come to the program and have success. That's the way that we're going to turn the tides from a recruiting standpoint in the state of Virginia.

Q. Obviously there were some bumps and struggles as you adjusted to the new offense at this program last year installing what you wanted to install. How much progress do you think we'll see kind of early this season? How far did you get with that process? Then, specifically, if you would address the wide receiver position where obviously you will to rebuild a lot of that room.

TONY ELLIOTT: Right. Great question. I'll attack the first part. I think you'll see a significant amount of progress. I think what you have seen is there's a lot more buy-in.

In fairness to the guys that were there last year and transitioned, they had a lot of success from a Virginia standpoint. In their minds, why are we changing? Unfortunately, just a transition in coaching, you're going to change. There's going to be a philosophical change.

There was a lot of things. You've got pretty much a brand new offensive line. You've got all kind of different dynamics that contributed to it. Not making excuses, but just kind of setting the context of the situation.

But I think in year two, now what you have is when we went to spring practice, there wasn't as much of the installation of the program, the core values, the practice habits that were having to be corrected in spring practice, one; right? That you can focus more on the details of the system to get down to building the fundamentals that you need.

So I think as we transition past that into year two, there's a lot more familiarity with what we're doing. Then you look at Tony's transition and even Colandrea. They came in, and for them they had a different perspective, ready to change.

I think in fairness to them and prior to there was a little bit more ease of transition because when I look at it, what coaches did before I got there was really, really good, but it was unique. It was different, right? It was something that they kind of did on their own that they developed, which was different. So the terminology, all that stuff was different.

I think you'll see an improvement, a significant improvement, just with the continuity of what we're doing and guys understanding and now that they understand they can play fast. They can play physical. They can play free, which gives them the ability to execute at a higher level.

In particular the wide receiver position. Obviously the transition from a coaching standpoint, you know, wasn't expecting that, but understand it. Respect it. Then you've got to make a decision and move on.

You are losing a lot of experience, but also you have a ton of opportunity. You look at Malachi Fields, a young man that early on we identified that was going to be a contributor, and then he injures his foot and he misses the majority of the season. Then now Demick has another year in the system. He is further along in the transition process.

You add in Malik Washington, a guy that is very, very talented that had productivity at Northwestern, that's now in the system that provides some leadership are. J.R. Wilson, a young man that when given an opportunity late in the season when the big three were down for injury, he showed what he was capable of.

I think that the ability is there, and now that we've had a spring and we'll have 25 practices in the fall, I think you'll start to see a little bit more continuity and then also with them working with the quarterbacks in the offseason a little bit more chemistry, which will give a little bit more rhythm.

Again, you focus on the dropped passes, and that's a function of a lot of things, but when you are trying to transition and thinking too much as a wideout, it's difficult to catch the ball.

A lot of that responsibility is on myself and my staff, and hopefully going forward we won't have those issues, but I think the biggest thing is we got more time, a little bit more experience in the system. Guys are thinking less. They're able to go out there and play free.

Q. You mentioned having success and trying to rebuild the image of Virginia football. I think level-setting new expectations is a healthy way of just keeping things going. What does success look like for Virginia football in 2023?

TONY ELLIOTT: Great question. I think it's relative to the perspective of which you're asking and looking at it from; right?

I think as a coach there's different things that you look for to quantify success. Externally obviously your wins and losses is what people are going to determine, but our objective is to prepare to win every single football game when we step on the field.

Now, there's a lot that goes into fully being prepared. So the expectation is that everybody understands that. For me what I want to see is I want to see a football team that's playing complementary football, that is working together, that are complementing each other, that are having fun, that are playing with a tremendous amount of energy, a tremendous amount of passion. They're focused. They're playing physical.

I think if you establish those things, then you have prepared yourself to be in position to win. So for me that's what I'm looking for from a success standpoint.

Others will have expectations from a win-loss standpoint, and we want to win every single game, so our expectation is to win every single game. But we also understand that there's a certain quality of work and investment in the process of preparation to have an opportunity to win come Saturdays.

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