In a thrilling development, Virginia football received an anonymous multi-million dollar donation Thursday. That is cause for celebration, as the Cavaliers now have everything they need to compete in the arms race of acquiring talent through the transfer portal. That process is crucial, as it is expected that the Cavaliers will have to fill north of 50 open spots on their roster ahead of the 2025 season. But notably, there is one big problem — the head coach absolutely must make the most of these gifts in order for the program to succeed, and Coach Tony Elliott has proven that he is not the man for the job.
Over the course of Elliott’s tenure, there have been many new resources such as a new training facility and extensive NIL donations. Elliott, however, has seemed incapable of marshalling these resources to support a winning team. In this way, investing more money into the program will not yield a fruitful future with Elliott in charge. If someone were to give a pastry chef the best wrench in the world, it cannot be assumed that they would be able to fix a car. Even with the donation, Elliott’s program is still light-years behind where it should be.
In fact, Elliott’s winning percentage of 32.4 percent is the worst across all Power Five teams over the past three years. In that same timeframe, Virginia is the only ACC team that has not finished with a winning record in any season. The reason, in short, is that Elliott has made severely detrimental decisions throughout his tenure.
For one, Elliott is overly loyal to his coaching staff, even when they struggle mightily. The top culprit for Virginia failing to make a bowl game is offensive coordinator Des Kitchings — who actually just received a contract extension despite leading an aggressively lethargic offense. In 2024, the Cavaliers ranked 106th in points per game.
Kitchings has clearly done irreparable damage to Virginia’s offense in his three seasons. As the coach responsible for the Cavalier offense, he has never had his offense rank higher than third-worst in the ACC. In 2023, the Cavaliers ranked 95th nationally in points per game, and in 2022, they ranked 126th. Under Kitchings, Virginia routinely has one of the worst offenses in the country.
It is obvious that Kitchings is one of the worst coordinators in all of football, but Elliott is keeping him on the staff. When asked about coaching staff changes Wednesday, Elliott gave a painfully pathetic answer.
“I don’t anticipate any [coaching changes] right now,” Elliott said.
Accepting mediocrity is the biggest indictment on Elliott. He owes nothing to Kitchings, but he chooses to keep him despite routine disappointment. The poor showing on offense is Kitchings’ fault, but Elliott is the person who gave Kitchings the keys to the offense. Since Kitchings has not been relieved of duties, the only other option is to hit a hard reset button on Elliott and his entire staff. In the real world, when someone underperforms, they get fired. This coaching staff should not be given another chance.
Not only has Elliott mismanaged his coaching staff, but his management of players also raises concerns. Consider the quarterback situation over the course of the year and specifically in the Virginia Tech game.
When a quarterback controversy arose over the past few weeks due to sophomore quarterback Anthony Colandrea struggling as the starter, Elliott assured the Virginia faithful that he was going to diligently address it. After losing to Southern Methodist, Elliott commented on the situation.
“Now, if it was clean pockets and missed throws, bad decisions, then I think you make a change,” Elliott said. “But I also know that you make a change, then that’s your permanent change.”
Nevertheless, when the time came for the Commonwealth Clash, Elliott benched Colandrea in favor of graduate quarterback Tony Muskett. Colandrea subsequently decided to enter the transfer portal.
Elliott admitted before this game that if he were to bench Colandrea, that would be a lasting decision. However, not even two weeks after that comment, Elliott said he did not anticipate Colandrea responding by entering the transfer portal after being benched — even though Elliott previously called the change a permanent one.
“I was planning on [Colandrea] coming back and being the guy for us going forward,” Elliott said Wednesday.
This lack of forethought is deeply concerning from a personnel standpoint — after yet another emasculating loss to the Hokies Nov. 30, the Cavaliers are set to enter a tough offseason. With Colandrea gone and Muskett’s football career over, the Cavaliers currently have zero quarterbacks that have started a game in a Virginia uniform. Frustratingly, Elliott is the reason why this team is missing a starting quarterback.
Elliott’s alarming comments Wednesday are just the latest addition to a lengthy list of gripes that Cavalier fans have against him. He has already lost support from most of the fanbase, and there is a likely chance that he has lost the respect of his team.
Even if the Cavaliers somehow became a perennial six-win team, that is not a satisfactory yield for how much money has gone into this program — especially while more successful programs like women’s swimming and diving or men’s lacrosse are not receiving random multi-million dollar donations.
University students should be able to take pride in their sports teams. Here in Charlottesville, there are a lot of teams that exemplify what it means to be a Virginia Cavalier. Football is not one of those teams. Scott Stadium has thousands of empty seats every weekend because Virginia football is not worth the price of admission or time investment on a weekend. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech had over 65,000 fans attend the Commonwealth Clash in the 31-degree cold on Thanksgiving weekend. When the Cavaliers hosted the rivalry game in 2023, they only drew 42,976 fans. These numbers say everything.
Elliott most likely will get another year anyway, because his hefty contract mandates that the University pay $14 million should he be fired now, several years before the deal expires in 2027. But after losing five of the final six games this year, keeping Kitchings, causing a mess at the quarterback position and doing so much damage, the University should pay that buyout.
Even if Elliott somehow turned things around and started bringing a bunch of five-star players to this program, his poor decision making will forever define — and hinder — his tenure. No matter how much is invested into Cavalier football, Elliott will always be weighing it down. There is only one solution — fire Elliott now.
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