UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 14, 2023

Tony Elliott

Press Conference

TONY ELLIOTT: I want to give everybody an update on Perris. First, part of the protocol with the surgery that he had is he has to stay in the ICU under watch for the first week, and then after that week, we're hoping that he's going to be transferred to the Frazier Center, which is a rehabilitation center that focuses on spinal cord injuries.

Had a chance to see him via Zoom yesterday. He was in a position to talk to us. It was good to see his face. Man, he was smiling. He was happy, focused on his team, telling the guys to keep fighting.

That's where he is, but I anticipate that he's going to end up being in Louisville for several weeks once he's transferred hopefully this Friday to the Frazier Rehabilitation Clinic.

Q. You wanted to mention the staffs that attended to him?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah, definitely want to -- I texted Jeff Brohm and told him to please tell his staff how much we appreciate the care, and internally, I've just got to recognize Kelli Pugh and her staff, and as a coach, you never want to be in a position where you're standing over them watching them work, but just how delicate they were but also to see them operate with the attention to detail, the precision, their training, with the compassion to keep Perris in a calm state while they worked.

Then Louisville staff has been to the hospital a couple times just to see Perris and the family and take donuts.

Really want to thank all the medical folks in Louisville and all the folks on Louisville's staff for just the tremendous support and care and service that they provided, and then our staff internally, all of our doctors and Kelli and her staff that were present and helped to stabilize him and get him to the stretcher and then off to the hospital, and then Ashley Murray, she's hoping to come back today, so she stayed in Louisville. She's one of our individuals that works in sports med, and she's been with Perris the entire time.

His family has been able to make it and spend time, and then once he's able to transition, he'll be allowed to have one family member stay with him at the Frazier Clinic.

Just thank yous to everybody involved. We're optimistic and hopeful, but it's a long road ahead for Perris.

Q. (Indiscernible).

TONY ELLIOTT: No, they were not at the game, so they had to -- one to see it from a distance and then have to travel. But his family has been awesome, just the communication with them and obviously respecting their space but just any of the communication that I received from his dad and his stepmom and his mom has been very positive, very encouraging. You can tell it's a family of faith, and their faith is being tested, but man, they're passing the test because they're standing strong and encouraging me just how strong they've been during this time.

Q. Perris's injury would be a lot for his teammates and coaches to deal with to begin with, but obviously on top of that yesterday was the anniversary of the shooting. Your program has had a lot thrown at it over the past 12 months. What was your message to the team yesterday going into the day and throughout this whole thing?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah. The first thing that I have to say, God is good all the time. That's the only way that we've been able to get through what adversity has been placed in front of us is just a foundation of faith and togetherness and leaning on each other to find support.

Yesterday the message was guys, this is just part of our -- it's part of our normal now. It's part of what we've been called to do. It's going to be a tough day, and can't tell anybody how to make it through this day, but we're going to do it together, and really gave guys space just to grieve the way that they wanted to grieve, and each individual is in a different place.

You saw different reactions from different individuals. Some guys it's still very, very, very real, like it was yesterday, and you see some guys that have kind of been able to move forward a little bit.

But it was awesome celebration, and I think the message -- and Happy Perry helped me with this. She said, it's not an anniversary, it's a day of remembrance.

Looking at it from that perspective helped me yesterday, and I thought the administration and everybody involved did an unbelievable job of coordinating all of the different events that took place.

I thought it was a beautiful day all the way around.

Q. Paul Akere had kind of reminded them that practice is so important and that they're grateful to do it. Did you see that on the practice field today when they were able to get back to football?

TONY ELLIOTT: I did, and a lot of energy. Again, that was something that I talked about was the appreciation for the opportunity to do it, and that's really what your internal motivation should be, is man, I don't have to do this, I get to do this. I saw that today.

It wasn't something that had to be pushed or prodded. It was authentic. It was genuine, and it was fun to watch them practice today.

Q. He also mentioned that last year's Duke game serves as a little bit of motivation going into this week because of how lopsided the game was. Kind of out of character for how you guys want to play.

TONY ELLIOTT: Correct.

Q. What's been the message regarding that game and how to take whatever you guys learned last year against them and take into this --

TONY ELLIOTT: The first message is we've got to defend our stadium, our home turf. We have not done a good job with that. First and foremost, that's where it starts. We need to defend Scott Stadium.

I think we have kind of figured out the road thing, like how to get yourself ready to play on the road, which is different than playing at home. We've got to figure out how to defend our turf.

Last year they brought it to us, and it started with how we came out for warmups. We didn't have the right mindset.

What we did is we allowed circumstances to dictate how we played. We had to change our travel up last year and travel early because of the weather, so we left early. Our schedule was different. We get to Durham and then the power is out. So we had all kind of things that distracted us.

I'm not going to say that's the reason why, but circumstantially we just let that affect us where we can't.

Then Duke, they defended their turf, and they wanted to win that game more than we did. So it was a great learning lesson.

I don't like to look back a ton, but we look back and we had to own that we did not play well in this game last year, and we have to do a better job versus a really good football team.

Q. Perris has been one of your most productive players on offense. From a football standpoint how do you divide up the reps that would go to him?

TONY ELLIOTT: Man, next man up. The mindset I'm trying to establish is it's not a personal standard, it's a position standard. Whoever is in there, doesn't matter the body or the person that's in there, the production is expected per the position.

Kobe got to carry a little bit more; Mike has got to carry a little bit more; Foston is going to have to carry a little bit more; Griese has got to be ready to go. Perris has kind of set the standard for what it looks like at the position, and everybody else has to be ready when their number is called to fulfill their production, and then obviously I know Coach Kitchings will do a great job of having a good plan for the ball to be distributed to other guys.

They've got to step up when their number is called and produce.

Q. Coen King with his elbow, is he going to be available at all this week?

TONY ELLIOTT: He won't be available, and unfortunately I don't know if he'll be available next week, either. It's an unfortunate situation. I know he's had that elbow dislocated before, and that's typically a three- to four-week time table.

But he was out there today. Man, he was holding up cards on scout team, encouraging his teammates. I really hate it for him because he's a guy that's fully invested, and he's been very productive for us as a player, and he's committed. I know he wants it.

But he'll do everything he can to help prepare the guys the next two weeks.

Q. Antonio Clary I think announced he's going to be returning for next season?

TONY ELLIOTT: That's the plan. He does have the ability to use his redshirt year, so I think he's decided that he wants to give it another shot here before trying to pursue an opportunity at the next level.

Excited for him. He was a guy that coming into the season has played a lot of football that we were counting on, and he wasn't able to play this season, so I'm grateful and appreciative that he wants to continue to be a part of the program going forward.

Q. Jeff asked you about the running backs and kind of sharing that workload. That group seemed very tight as far as relationship. How have they kind of handled what happened, and have you spent any extra time there?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah. As I said after the game, that's the thing that you probably fear the most as a football player is to have that type of injury. To see one of your teammates that you're really close to endure, and it's tough now because the communication is not necessarily what you want it to be. We've got to give Perris the space to recover before he's able to just fully communicate the way that they want to.

Definitely I know it's weighing on their hearts and on their minds, but I also know what Perris will tell them. Just like he told us -- because the staff was able to Zoom with him because Ashley is there and so we were able to Zoom with him really quickly. His message was just keep fighting.

Those guys will be ready to go, but it is tough because that is the closest guys to him on the team is his position mates. But he would tell them to keep on fighting.

I didn't notice anything per se, but I do know that it's weighing on him. But I believe that because of the closeness and the bonds that they have, they're going to go lay it on the line for him.

Q. Your next two games are against coaching staffs that were hired at the same time as you guys. I know that's kind of a big-picture thing, but do you think at all about the progress they're making versus the progress you're making, how people will view that, and maybe more importantly how the fan base might view that?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah. Comparison is the thief of joy, right? But I laid it out for our football team today because I want them to know who they are. Yes, I know what our record is. We're 2-8. We've come up short. We own that.

But you look at the teams that we've played, teams that are bowl eligible, teams that are in the top 25, and we've been right there in the fourth quarter with opportunities to win those games.

Yeah, we came up short. We didn't make the plays. We've got to make more progress. But that's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at the quality of how we played, the adversity that we've had to overcome, the injuries that we've had to overcome, and these guys are continuing to fight.

If there needs to be a message to our fan base, it's man, we're putting in the work, and the progress is coming. It may not appear on the stat sheet and the wins and losses like some of the other programs, but there is a lot of progress, and I'm very excited about the future. I'm very grateful for the players and the staff that have persevered through the adversity, so I know people are going to compare us on paper to other teams. I'm looking at where we are in the fourth quarter fighting against some of the competition that we've had to go up against, considering some of the obstacles that we've had to overcome.

That would be my message is stay encouraged, stay the course. The progress is being made. I believe the future is bright for the Cavaliers.

Q. Tony is out of the boot, but do we have more of an update on him?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah, he's still day-to-day. He's out of the boot. He's walking around. I don't anticipate that he'll be ready to go this week. More hopeful for trying to get him ready to go next week.

Q. Going back to the question earlier, how do you balance allowing guys to grieve and everything that happened with Perris this weekend with also getting ready for your next opponent this weekend?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah. Ecclesiastes. There's a time for everything. We talked about it this morning. There's a time for everything. There's a time for grieve. There's a time to mourn. There's a time to heal. There's a time to work. So we have to compartmentalize.

When we're in certain spaces at certain times, we have to focus on what needs to be done in those spaces because the one thing we really haven't mentioned is what these guys got to go through academically here at the University of Virginia and the challenges that they have there, as well. They've got to compartmentalize, so they have to focus.

From 7:30 to 11:00 pretty much every morning, that's football. That's when you need to focus on football.

At 11:05, now you need to transition into being a scholar athlete.

Up until probably 9:00 at night, you're a scholar athlete, focusing on your academics, and then you get a little bit of time to yourself.

Trying to just teach them how to compartmentalize and understand there's a time and a place for everything and be a good steward of your time, be respectful, and then if you are in a situation where you're overwhelmed, then get help.

It was awesome to be able to go to the panel discussion that was put on by the Batten School yesterday, and it was talking about healing from the effects of gun violence, and to hear a mother who is two years into grieving the loss of her son, and for her to say that, the best thing that helped her was to get counseling and get help. Providing those guys space, encouraging those guys, being vulnerable myself, and letting them know that hey, there's times when Coach E is not all right, but I have to compartmentalize and then I have to manage all of that.

It's day-to-day. I watch a lot for body language. I listen for words that let me know kind of the space that these guys are in.

It's a tough position to be in because as a football player, you're told to be tough. It's about toughness. Don't show any sign of weakness. But that's relative to the time in football.

Outside of football, you're a regular person like everybody else. You have those stressors of life. You can't just be a football player and be tough through everything. It's just not feasible.

Just trying to create a space where it's okay to be not okay and then providing the resources and letting them know that at the end of the day the most important thing is your mental health, your education, and then football.

But when it's time to do football, we do football. When it's time to do academics, that's why I said scholar athlete, because I want these guys to see themselves as scholar athletes, not just a student-athlete. Take it one step above: Be a scholar athlete. That's kind of how we create the space, by being very, very sensitive and empathetic and listening for and looking for all the clues that can tell us that you know what, they're not okay. I think that's our job, to help them when they're not.

Q. When we asked you about the blocked punt after the game, you had not had a chance to look at the film. Having done so now, does Sparks need to get that off quicker, or were there breakdowns in the blocking?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah, that was something that after we evaluated, we can do a better job as a coaching staff just to remind him of the field zone and the situation and speed it up, and we have the ability to make the call to tell him to one-step it. We did not make that call, assuming that in that situation he would understand. So that's on us as a staff.

Then there were just a couple of technical issues that we saw, hat placement. You've got to get your hat on the other side to cut off, which had been done the previous punts, but just that one play, man, we didn't have precise execution, and it cost us.

Then we overlapped a little bit on our shield. Our footwork wasn't as precise as we needed it to be. It was a combination of we created a shortage and we didn't have our hat on the right side of the defender, and it resulted in a block.

We learn from it and grow and own it and try to work every single day so we don't make that same mistake again.

Q. I know you guys have had some issues on special teams throughout the season. Is that something you have to kind of reassess and look at hard during the off-season, or is it more of an execution thing? How do you look at that?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah, so we'll self-scout and we'll study it, but the punt scheme and formation that we're using, everybody is using pretty much the same thing. We've got to execute a little bit better, which means that we've got to coach better. We've got to continue to find ways to put them in stressful positions so that they have the muscle memory to recall when it's time to go in the game.

We'll assess at the end of the season just the schematic things, and we'll also assess where we need to get better as coaches to help them from a fundamental standpoint, and then we also got to create accountability all the way across the board and find guys that consistently can execute the way we need to execute.

It's a holistic thing that we're going to have to -- and the same thing on offense, same thing on defense. All the way around, we've got to look at scheme, we've got to look at coaching, we've got to look at execution. But the punt there, we could have done a better job from a coaching staff standpoint of reassuring, confirming, not assuming, and then as a team, when it's that time, we've got to be at our best from an execution standpoint.

Q. With Colandrea, where have you seen him improve the most from the start of the season after four starts?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah, well, he took care of the ball a lot better during this past week. He didn't see as many balls put into compromising situations. Even on the interception, he put it there, we've got to come down with that. Of course you could say, well, he could throw it a little bit closer to the body, but still, we get two hands on the ball, we've got to catch that. That's got to be our football.

But I also thought he was a lot more decisive in pulling the ball down and using his legs. He slid and got down a little bit better this game, so those are things from a maturity standpoint, and just command of the offense. You didn't see as many issues of him just looking like he was -- he handled the motions. He handled all those things. You're on a silent count, so to speak, we're clapping, so I thought he did a good job from that standpoint.

I did see a lot of progress in this past game and still opportunities to grow, which he will.

Q. Has the game slowed down for him do you think at this point, and what kind of things can you do with him to just take advantage of his talent?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah, so it looks like the game has slowed down. He looks more decisive in where he's going with the football, and he can get to multiple progressions, which tells you that it's slowed down. You even saw some instances throughout the course of the week in practice and a couple in the game where he's changing his protection, so he's standing to understand how to protect himself from a schematic standpoint.

That's when you know it really starts to slow down for a Q when he can start making audibles and changing slides and things like that from a scheme standpoint.

Where you can take advantage of is I think he showed you his ability to run, so I think you can take advantage of some more of the run game, quarterback run game schemes that you see, give us a little bit of a problem at times.

Not there yet, just because that's something that we've got to build to. Easily can get to, but we haven't invested as much time in it because you're trying to get the fundamentals of operating the offense, all of the motions, the procedural stuff, the pass concepts, the reads, some of your run game checks.

But you can get to a point where I think he can use his legs.

Now, we have to help him in terms of helping him build his body so that he can be protected, so he needs another year in the off-season in the weight room to really build his body so he can sustain some of that, but I think you can see more true dual threat opportunities but have a traditional drop-back quarterback in the pocket, as well.

I think you can do a lot of things, but it's just going to be a matter of what he can absorb, how fast he can absorb it, and then week to week schematically where does it give you the advantage.

Q. A lot of people were talking about Duke's offense, but what impresses you about their defensive?

TONY ELLIOTT: Their D-line, they're deep. They're rolling a lot of guys, six interior guys, at least six guys on the edge, and you don't see much of a dropoff. They've got some veterans up front that have played a lot of football. Their linebackers are really, really good in the box, and then they've got some skill guys out on the edge that can play you in man coverage.

You see a lot of -- and first, I've just got to acknowledge Coach Elko. I've got a tremendous amount of respect for Coach Elko. Competed against him for many years, him being a D-coordinator and me being an offensive coordinator, so I see some of his fingerprint on the defense, but then also with the experience and the depth, they can change up on you real quick, so they're able to jump in and out of structured four-down Okie, play multiple coverages on the back end, so they're very well coordinated. Everybody is on the same page.

Then on their D-line, they've got depth. That changes up on you, too, because they've got some big stout guys that can play kind of a two-gap scheme, and then they can bring in some speed guys on the interior that can penetrate. It challenges you.

Our guys are going to have to be ready for the variations of the defensive configurations up front and the change in the length and the speed that they have.

Q. Pace and Hollins are obviously the obvious names to have a bigger workload, but you mentioned Foston, a guy who had the injury. Where has he been and what do you like about what he's doing?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah, so you had Perris, you had Kobe, you had Mike, so you felt good about those three, and then Foston was coming off the injury, so he had been working some scout team stuff, just trying to get him back into football condition both physically and mentally.

Then Griese was another guy that coming out of fall camp was considered ahead of Ahmed. Then you had Xavier Brown, who was a guy that had a really good freshman year. So coming into it, you had a lot of depth, and he was coming off of a significant injury, so he's kind of worked his way slowly back. Then changes in the depth chart obviously governs that, so with PJ being down. And Mike has been banged up a little bit so that he's kind of the next man up, so you're rolling with -- you'd like to have four ready to go, and so he's in that rotation as the fourth guy. Xavier still with the elbow is not quite 100 percent, and you worry about ball security, and you'd have to carry the ball in that hand. He has played a little bit on special teams.

So right now, Foston is a guy -- what you like about him, he's big, he's physical, he's got some deceptive speed for his size. We've got to get his pad level down. Again, that's going to come with repetition in the game and in practice.

That's what I like about him. He's big, fast, runs with power, and now he's kind of got -- he's got to accelerate the learning curve. He's got to get himself up to speed. But I've got confidence in Gaither and Kitch to have him ready to go.

Q. You mentioned the progress he made. You guys have been in so many close games now. The mistakes you guys have made, you'd almost label them catastrophic, like red zone turnovers, big busts for -- is there something in play calling and game planning where you can put yourself in a position -- not that you want to prepare for mistakes, but where you put yourself in a position for a mistake to not turn out that way?

TONY ELLIOTT: Ooh, man, trust me, if I knew the answer to that one, I'd be able to write a book and be pretty well off.

Yeah, it's something that you're conscious of and you want to try and put guys in position.

What I'm trying to get guys to think about is just situational awareness in football. So let's go through the catastrophic play that happened on the big touchdown, okay. But the play before to me was a bigger play. That's one of the five to seven plays in the game.

The reason I say that is because it was a 1st and 10 on the 27. Drop-back pass, he dumps it to the running back. We've got two guys vice tackling, No. 23, for a six or seven-yard gain. Now it's 2nd and 3 on the 33. Totally different play call, but we missed that tackle, we missed two more tackles, he gains 14 more yards, now the ball is on the minus 49. What's coming on the minus 49? We all know it. Shot play, trick play, gadget play.

Well, I've got a young player in there that's just trying to figure out how to get lined up, so he's probably not situationally there yet, and rightfully so because he's a freshman. He's a true, true freshman out there playing. He's just trying to get lined up, everything is happening fast, and then, you know what, he's trying to find where his eyes need to be. They're there for a split second too long, and the guy is behind him.

To me, yeah, we've got to clean that play up. I'm pretty sure that his eyes will be where they need to be the next time.

But we've got to eliminate those plays before because 2nd and 3 is a different play call. Now you have a chance. If you hold there, now it's 3rd and 3 in minus territory. Totally different ballgame.

There's just a lot of growth that has to take place, and I know I kind of went off track on that, but just kind of giving insight of where we've got to get better.

Then the play that happened on the big run, it's a function of guys in the heat of battle, when things are moving fast, just staying disciplined because we've got two guys there. One has got to cross face and spill it to the other. The guy that's coming down from the third level, he's expecting it to be spilled. We make contact with our hat on the wrong side, we've got two guys in the gap, boom, by the time we're able to recover, it's tough.

Coaching and making calls to prevent those plays, like those are base plays, base calls. When you say catastrophic, it's catastrophic because we're very close and it's just, man, like six inches. If we get a hat placement on that counter, six inches to the right, it's going to spill it to an unblocked guy. But the unblocked guy doesn't know that it's not going to get spilled to him. The next thing you know, it hits so fast, and now it's a footrace because you're still defending other aspects of the offense because they've got a screen going on over here so you've got guys dedicated to that, and then you've got to fit it precisely.

Those are things where late in the game, you're constantly talking about the competitive stamina that we need. Man, it's details. They've got to be even more precise later in the game because that's when they count the most is in the fourth quarter.

We're coaching our guys as hard as we can, trying to get the young ones as much experience as possible. Unfortunately we're taking some lumps right now that hurt. I believe it's going to pay off in the long run. Great moments to teach. But also it's where -- I don't know if I can coach through it.

Red zone, man, we've just got to protect the ball better. We've got to make better decisions. A couple of those we've been forcing throws where we need to use our legs. Ball is on the ground, man, we -- that's kind of been my wheelhouse. I'm a running back coach for 10 years. My job as a running back is protect the ball, so you hate to see balls on the ground, but it's a mindset.

I think times are changing a little bit in the game, where I think the mindset is, oh, well, a couple turnovers ain't that bad. No, like we've got to take care of the football. That's how you win. Turnovers. That's one of the most important stats. If you go look at it, there's not been many teams that have won at a high level that are negative in the turnover margin.

I think the 80 something Miami team and the 16 Clemson team were the only teams to win a National Championship with a negative turnover margin. It just don't happen.

But getting guys to understand that, and then putting them through the fundamentals so we can't just go out there and say, hey, protect the ball. We've got to put you through drill work and then we have to correct it on film.

It's a process. But to answer your question, I don't know what the answer is. If we can call the game in a way to prevent catastrophe because you've got to call the game to win the game. You're in the fourth quarter we've got to call it to win it. But where we've got to get better is our guys just got to -- when you start to get tired, man, you've got to talk to yourself and say, hey, man, I've got to be locked in here, I've got to really focus, I can't get distracted, or I've got to do my job and just do my job.

Then also not trying to make the heroic play so now we're pressing.

It's a delicate balance, but I'm glad you brought up the turnovers in the red zone. We've got 18 with nine of them in the red zone. You can't win games like -- the last component to our plan to win, No. 7 on the list is win 3rd down, win the red zone. You win 3rd down, offensively you stay on the field, defensively you get off the field, which in that sense eliminates a drive. It's kind of like a turnover. Then when you're in the red zone, you've got to score touchdowns. You can't turn the ball over. You've got to reserve the right to kick.

That's philosophically one thing we say, that every drive ends in a kick. So every drive ends in a kick. You're either going to punt the ball or you're kicking for a field goal or extra point. Then we hand the ball to the ref.

I've got to do better. As the head coach, I've got to keep pressing and figure out the right way to communicate it to where it's a mentality, it's a mindset, it's in our DNA that we hand the ball to the ref and we end every drive with a kick.

Q. You talked about ball security, a good segue into Malik Washington. How have you seen him evolve since coming in last spring?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah, so he reminded me -- where were we? I can't remember where we were, but he reminded me, like Coach, remember when you sat on my couch, I said I wanted to do 80 catches and 1,000 yards. I'm like, hey, man, that's great, we're going to make that happen, not really knowing how it was going to come to fruition. Like I like your ambition, and I can see it, so let's go make it has been, and you don't know what it's going to look like.

But after he showed up and you saw how serious of a young man he is, just how meticulous he is, starting with his apartment. It was immaculate. There wasn't anything out of place. Like literally when I sat in his apartment, it was like, man, I'm inspired because it's really clean.

Now that carries over to the way he practices. His leadership has been awesome. He's been vocal within his position group. He's led both from the front, the back and the middle, which has been fun to see.

Man, he just keeps showing up every week, but it starts in the way he practices. If you come out and watch him practice, for a guy that's played a lot of snaps, has a lot of production, man, he practices the right way, and it translates to the game.

Q. (Indiscernible).

TONY ELLIOTT: I try, but I'm telling you, it's like a model home. Maybe he cleaned it up because he knew me and Coach Kitch were coming, but after watching him, he's a very meticulous guy, and it carries over academically, too. Man, he's been doing outstanding in the classroom since coming to UVA.

Just all the way around, man, he's got his life in order, and I'm just happy that the dream that he had sitting on that couch is coming to fruition.

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