Tony Elliott "Not Surprised" by Virginia Picked to Finish 16th in ACC

Matt Newton | Aug 1, 2024

Tony Elliott was "not surprised" that his Virginia Cavaliers came in at 16th in the 2024 ACC Football Preseason Poll. / Virginia Athletics

On the same day that the Virginia Cavaliers officially opened fall camp, the Atlantic Coast Conference announced the 2024 ACC Football Preseason Poll, revealing that UVA had been picked to finish 16th, or second to last, in the conference this upcoming season. Inevitably, both head coach Tony Elliott and his players were asked about the bleak prediction and they didn't dodge the question. In fact, Elliott didn't even disagree with the results of the poll.

"Not surprised. You know, we earned that the last time we stepped on the field in an ACC game, we did not do our part," Elliott said of Virginia getting picked to finish 16th. "So not surprised, obviously, we got a lot of work to do. We believe that we can finish better than that. This is the preseason. I told the guys don't worry about what people are saying in preseason. All that matters is what they're saying at the end of the season and today was the start of us making our case for that."

While sophomore linebacker Kam Robinson agreed with his coach that the focus is proving the doubters wrong on the field, he did express disapproval with his team being ranked that low in the poll.

"We just gonna wear it on the chin right now. We can't say nothing until first game, Richmond, and then we're just gonna go from there," Robinson said on Wednesday. "We're not no 16 team, we know that... We're going to outperform that."

Robinson was asked what ranking he was expecting from the preseason poll and his answer was as bold as his play on the field last year when he was named a Freshman All-American.

"Top five. I know what we got. It's not like we're a bad team, just got to put it all together."

While there's no doubt that the Cavaliers will be using the poll to fuel them this season, Elliott noted that he wasn't intending to even reference the poll anymore after Wednesday's practice.

"It came out today. Today will be the only day that we even reference it. Our plan is to go down in the submarine, so to speak, and just focus on what we can control, focus on our process," Elliott said. "We get 12 Saturdays, that's what matters. We get 12 Saturdays... Every year when you look at it, they get it wrong. There's always teams that get picked to finish high that don't finish high and there's always teams that get picked to finish low that don't finish low. We got 25 practices and 12 Saturdays and all the days in between to do something about it. And that's really all that was said today."

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