CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In his welcome to Charlottesville press conference, UVA's next head football coach, Tony Elliott set the bar pretty high. He outlined his vision this way, "To become the model program in college football. My goal is to contribute to changing the narrative in college football and demonstrate that you can win at the highest level and you can do so while achieving excellence in education, leadership and service."
Tony Elliott makes a splash in Charlottesville
In listening to Elliott talk you're convinced he can actually make that happen. He ranks as one of the top assistant coaches in college football having spent the last 7 seasons as the offensive coordinator at Clemson. It's common knowledge what he has done there. Elliott fills us in on what we should know about him, "I'm a man who was once a lost child and overcame tragedy and difficult circumstances to learn that greatness and excellence is for everybody because greatness and excellence is a decision."
Elliott talked often about developing his players as people and not just football players. As he says, I'm extremely passionate about developing young men through the transferable life skills that football provides. I'm passionate about winning and winning the right way."
Elliott has a reputation for being a great recruiter. He makes it sound like he can make that work at places other than Clemson, "Recruiting starts in your own locker room. That's where we're going to start and we're going to build a culture that recruits itself. We're going to have an inside out mentality, meaning we're recruiting the person first and the player second."