Elliott rants at end of practice about lack of discipline

By Jerry Ratcliffe

A small pool of media figures stand outside the gates waiting for Virginia’s football practice to end, then head upstairs in the Hardie Football Center to the team meeting room for interviews.

On a couple of recent occasions, media was held up a little longer than usual because an intense Tony Elliott was delivering a strong message to his team, followed by wind sprints by the players. Elliott’s voice carried over the covered fences that surround the practice fields as he expressed his discontent with the effort, reminding players of past mistakes that cost Virginia close games.

Elliott has had enough, and wasn’t shy about getting in his team’s collective faces.

The coach was asked about those outbursts after a recent practice and Elliott didn’t mind sharing his thoughts about the yelling, something pretty common among coaches.

“There’s expectations of how we conduct ourselves and what the standards are … we talk about a high level of accountability and one of the things that I have to do, and hold myself accountable, is to make sure I don’t look the other way,” Elliott said. “So when there’s things that need to be addressed, now we’re going to address them. I think they’ve gotten to a place to where they can hear the message and maybe not the tone sometimes, because I’m a highly competitive guy, too. And man, when it’s go time, it’s go time.”

With 54 new players on the roster, 31 coming via the transfer portal, Elliott believes there are guys that need to quickly understand his expectations: humility, effort, accountability, respect and toughness. He expects respect on the practice field, in the football center. He expects his players to be humble, but at the same time give great effort and display toughness.

It’s not personal. He cares about the players. He just wants their best.

“I know what changed my life, is male figures being honest with me,” Elliott said of his upbringing. “Sometimes I didn’t always like [hearing the truth] and sometimes they said it, maybe in a way that I didn’t like it, but I’m glad they did.”

Some of Elliott’s rants were about a lack of late-game discipline, making unforced errors, dumb penalties, sloppy execution, which proved disastrous.

Virginia was heavily criticized in an over-the-summer critique of the program by anonymous rival coaches in an article by Athlon.

One of the comments must have struck a nerve from an unnamed ACC coach who said of UVA: “They’re sloppy on both sides of the ball.”

Another said: “This is a team you never really worry about playing. They lack discipline and they have no real identity.”

Elliott acknowledged this week that his team needs to learn from past mistakes and to quit beating itself.

“We’ve lost too many football games around here by self-inflicted wounds late in the game, losing our discipline,” Elliott told media. “So that’s probably what you hear (in the post-practice rants). Hey, we’re going to be a disciplined football team. We can’t beat ourselves. We can’t lose to Virginia.”

He pointed to the NC State game in 2023 and to the Louisville game last season, when some special-teams snafus cost UVA the game. Against State two years ago, it was stupid penalties that robbed the Cavaliers of a win.

The Louisville game last year was particularly disappointing, because a win would have made Virginia eligible for a bowl.

“We’re in a backed-up situation because of some penalties, right? We’ve got a chance to win, right? Man, I don’t want to lose football games because we’re an undisciplined football team, and so that’s my job, to acknowledge it, recognize it and correct it.”