By Jerry Ratcliffe
If the College Football Playoffs started tomorrow, Virginia would be the No. 11 seed and would play No. 6 Ole Miss in Oxford. If it were up to Tony Elliott, his Cavaliers would remain uninformed.
Former Alabama coaching legend Nick Saban used to describe such glowing headlines as “rat poison.” Don’t swallow the poison.
That’s near impossible in the age of social media. As soon as the CFP Committee announced its first poll of the season Tuesday night, the news about the Wahoos and the other 11 teams splashed across every social media platform.
UVA, by the way, was ranked No. 14 in the CFP rankings, but was included in the playoff’s 12 spots because the Cavaliers were the highest-ranked team from the ACC, one spot ahead of Louisville (see complete rankings, etc., below this article).
On Tuesday morning, hours before the CFP rankings were released, Elliott told media that he wanted his team to drown out the noise. Lots of luck.
“Oh, we’re definitely not going to watch [the rankings show] together,” Elliott said when asked if the UVA team had plans to view the ESPN show. “No, no, but, so, I told them [Monday], I’m only going to address it once and that’s the only time I’m going to talk about it. This is the week that it starts and I encourage you not to get caught up in it, not to watch it. And truth be told, it doesn’t matter what you rank today.”
Elliott was right. It only matters where you’re ranked the first week in December, and there’s a whole lot of football to be played in the meantime.
“What happens today doesn’t matter,” the coach said. “We control what we do from here on out if we’re really serious about being where we want to be in December. That’s really all I’m going to say about it.”
Elliott said he realized he couldn’t stop his players from tuning in and that he also encouraged his coaching staff not to watch it either “because it’s not really for us right now to be honest. It’s just like preseason rankings.”
Virginia was ranked 14th out of 17 ACC teams in the preseason and now the Cavaliers, 8-1 overall and 5-0 in the ACC, are ranked No. 14 in all of college football in the only poll that really matters.
Lots of people are jumping on the Wahoo bandwagon, something Elliott cautioned his team about. He went through all that as a longtime assistant at Clemson, which won two national championships during that span.
“I’ve been trying to tell them what I know from my experience and I’ve tried to tell them that more people are going to come out of the woodwork,” Elliott explained. “You’re going to get a lot more messages after every game. A lot more people are going to want to be a part of what’s going on, and unfortunately that becomes a distraction.”
The No. 14 ranking Tuesday night is the highest CFP ranking the Cavaliers have enjoyed, the first time UVA has been included in the CFP rankings since 2019. This is only the fourth time Virginia has been ranked by the CFP.
Back in 2018, UVA was ranked No. 25 in the first edition of that year’s poll, and Nos. 23 and 24 during the 2019 season.
INJURY REPORT: Elliott said the Cavaliers came out of the California game in fairly good shape and noted that offensive lineman Ben York will be back this week, and that running back Noah Vaughn, who is still struggling with an ankle injury, possibly could be back, but wasn’t certain. Receiver/return man Jayden Thomas was expected to participate in Tuesday’s practice, but Elliott wasn’t sure of his status.
ON WAKE FOREST: Virginia is a 6.5-point favorite over visiting Wake this Saturday night (7 p.m. kickoff, ESPN). The Cavaliers are 5-0 at home.
The Demon Deacons are 5-3 overall, 2-3 in the ACC and coming off a 42-7 defeat at the hands of Florida State. FSU ended a nine-game ACC losing streak by beating Wake.
But don’t let that score fool you, Elliott cautioned on Tuesday.
“That 42-7 is not indicative of this football team that’s coming in here,” the coach said of Wake. “They play really hard. They play a physical brand of football. They have some very dynamic weapons on offense that can score at any time. That game was what, 13-0 in the third quarter? It was a close game.”
FSU led 14-0 at the half, 28-0 going into the fourth quarter.
“This team here in Charlottesville has been warned and been told, you better not buy the lie, because [Wake] is a talented team that’s starting to figure it out,” Elliott said.
The Deacons present a challenge up front defensively, creating havoc with all sorts of twists and movement. Wake is ranked No. 34 nationally in total defense, giving up 325 yards per game.
In a 13-12 upset victory over SMU a couple weeks ago, the Deacs held the Mustangs to less than 250 yards and won on a walk-off, 50-yard field goal by freshman Connor Calvert.
Offensively, Wake has a strong-armed QB and what Elliott described as “probably the most dynamic running back in the league” in Demond Claiborne, which is quite a compliment.
