Elliott won’t interfere with UVA offensive play-calling

By Jerry Ratcliffe

It’s time for Virginia football to turn the corner. The Cavaliers have reeled off three consecutive losing seasons. Their 11 wins over that span is the lowest in major college football.

If UVA is going to win enough to qualify for a bowl game this season — six games — then the Cavaliers must make major strides on the offensive side of the ball.

Let’s face it. Virginia’s offense has been a huge disappointment during Tony Elliott’s three seasons as head coach. Wahoo fans have expected much more from the former Clemson offensive coordinator, who helped the Tigers win ACC championships, national championships and make College Football Playoff appearances.

Why hasn’t that offensive success transformed UVA’s program? A portion of the fan base had hoped Elliott would take over play-calling responsibility at some point, but Elliott has turned over all of that to offensive coordinator Des Kitchings, who has come under heavy criticism from Cavalier fans.

UVA has struggled to put points on the scoreboard over the past three seasons, finishing 16th out of 17 ACC teams in scoring in 2024 (22.67 points per game); 12th out of 14 ACC teams in 2023 (23.25 ppg); and last out of 14 teams in 2022 (17.0 ppg).

Last season, Virginia was 15th out of 17 teams in total offense (360.9), 9th out of 14 in 2023 (368.7) and 10th out of 14 in 2022 (344.0).

Also, the Cavaliers have not finished amongst the league’s top 10 rushing teams over those three years — 12th in ‘24, 13th in ‘23 and 11th in ‘22.

As far as passing offense goes, UVA finished in the league’s top 10 once during that three-year span, as high as fourth in 2023 when true freshman Anthony Colandrea wowed the ACC with his gunslinging passing style (250.83 yards per game).

While Elliott said during interviews at Tuesday’s ACC Kickoff event in Charlotte that he misses play-calling and coordinating offenses as he did so well at Clemson, he doesn’t plan on changing in 2025, even though this season is being judged from outside the program as a make-or-break year.

“Oh, I miss the coaching piece of it, the play-calling,” Elliott said. “There’s times when you feel that, I miss more just having my own room of guys and going in and teaching the game. I’m involved to the point to where I don’t want to slow Des down at any point. You don’t want somebody second-guessing your call. Everybody knows the right call after the results are already there, so I’m there just to be an extra set of eyes.

“How can I help? These are some of the things between series, but I let [Kitchings] do his deal. And then on Sundays, we’ll talk.”

While Kitchings will be busy attempting to advance the offense, Elliott’s focus will be evaluating and building chemistry from 54 new players on the roster, including 31 from the transfer portal.