Tony Elliott Duke postgame comments
UVA head coach Tony Elliott comments on Virginia's 38-17 loss at Duke.
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00:00But we got to coach better, I got to do a better job of preparing them, and
00:03the kids got to play better.
00:05But that opening situation or drive, we flip the field,
00:09we punt the ball inside to a 13 yard line, been challenging the defense all week.
00:14And this is an area we got to get better,
00:16is situational football, in particular, backed up.
00:19We've had several backed up drives that we let them out.
00:22It's raining, right, and playing field position.
00:24We let them out, and then we have three penalties,
00:26three huge penalties on that drive to give away points.
00:31And so we gave it to Duke, and of course, they're gonna capitalize on that momentum.
00:35And then we got a big return, and that's potentially one to the house.
00:40And that's when we totally kick off the turn team.
00:41And we're one block away, we're one person away, and
00:44then we funnel the ball on our own.
00:46Now, in credit to Demiki, he's trying to make a play for us.
00:50But man, then we turn the ball over right there.
00:52So we're just, we're not playing smart football.
00:54We're not playing complimentary football.
00:56And we're struggling when the bullets start flying to just come together as a team,
01:02hunker down, battle for each other, and just really disappointed in the penalties.
01:09And again, those are big penalties, those are big ones, and they're not necessary.
01:15And if you saw me on the sideline, I was irate because we're struggling
01:20as a football team to try and win after the snap, win the trash-talking contest,
01:26win the face-to-face and the pushing.
01:28Because we need to focus on, during the play,
01:31doing your job with great fundamentals, great effort, great technique.
01:36And then get your eyes to the sidelines so we can process the next call coming in so
01:40that we can play fast, and just really,
01:42really disappointed in those penalties that we have.
01:46They cost us in some situations, and then that creates momentum for the other team.
01:51And now you're reeling, and it's hard to play complimentary football where defense
01:56finds a way to get a stop, right, don't give up a touchdown.
02:00Offense goes and scores the next drive.
02:02Now you're potentially up seven to nothing, and then there goes the momentum.
02:06And that's where we gotta get better as a football team, and
02:08just understanding the situation of football, and just get away from playing.
02:15And I love KT, and I told KT at the end of the game, we're in a two-minute drill, but
02:19the clock don't stop until you get out of bounds inside of two minutes.
02:23And we're dancing to get extra yards, and now we got a second and one.
02:26We give up clock.
02:27So just a lot of things that I gotta help these guys to grow their knowledge about.
02:33How do you address the penalty?
02:34It was a Tony Elliott penalty.
02:36Yeah, I mean, and like I told the coaches, I told the coaches that, hey,
02:39if I continue to see it, I'm just not gonna play guys.
02:43And it seems like there's the same culprits that are coming out.
02:47And if they don't get it corrected, and they're not gonna have much longer,
02:50then I'm gonna start making decisions, and I'm not gonna play guys.
02:53And what I don't want to happen, man,
02:55there's a bunch of good young men in our locker room.
02:59Now, there's a lot that they have to learn about how to be a team,
03:03how to win as a team, how to play disciplined football.
03:07And I want them to do it, but if we continue to have these problems,
03:10then ultimately, I'm gonna have to make decisions.
03:13Because the one thing I'm not gonna sacrifice is the core values of this
03:17program, and it's embarrassing.
03:19Because you know what, as soon as I got here, I cut out the fighting in practice.
03:23Most programs allow you to fight, I don't let the guys fight in practice.
03:26Cuz I don't need to waste time, you can't do it in the game.
03:28We need to focus on fighting during the six, seven seconds of the play.
03:33And again, you got some bad habits that you got, and
03:36football is a game of emotion, I get that.
03:39But it's controlled aggression.
03:41You gotta be under control, you gotta stay locked in, and
03:44just don't be selfish enough to say, you know what, it's about me in this moment.
03:48And I'm gonna push a guy out to the snap, or I wanna talk a little bit more trash to
03:51where you get some type of penalty that costs you two.
03:56Given the slow start last week at Syracuse,
03:59was there any temptation to go for it on that fourth and
04:02three, I think, inside the 40, that first possession, to kind of jolt the team?
04:07You know, there wasn't, just the conditions, the situation.
04:13I felt like offense was playing better than we were at Syracuse.
04:18Now we gotta do a better job with the batting balls, and we'll correct that.
04:21And again, guys just playing all the way through the whistle, not relaxing.
04:25Once guys understand that, once guys can't get a pass for us,
04:28all they're gonna do is try and jump in the throwing windows.
04:31But no, I was playing, just playing straight up,
04:34trying not to be overly aggressive and put us in a deeper hole.
04:38Is there any remedy for slow starts, is there any trick?
04:42I don't know if you got one, please let me know, cuz I swear,
04:45it's almost like these guys gotta get behind before they get started.
04:49And I challenged the guys when we came in at half,
04:54cuz there were a couple things that I saw at the beginning of the game that just
04:58kinda let me know, all right, I see a little bit of, we've had a little bit
05:03of success even though we didn't win, guys played decent, we made a comeback,
05:07that we weren't gonna start the way that we wanted to start, and
05:11then knowing that Nick Jackson was gonna be out.
05:12But those aren't excuses,
05:13those are things that we gotta own, be honest about, and try to correct.
05:18How much of that- How much of not having Nick Jackson in that first half
05:24impacted you guys?
05:27I don't think it was as significant as you could say after you lose a game.
05:34I think that just the penalties, cuz if we don't have those penalties, right,
05:38then we can create some momentum.
05:40And he was doing a great job of trying to coach the guys up on the sideline.
05:45But to me in the first half, it was more just the penalties and
05:50then offense not finishing drives and helping to flip the momentum.
05:56And then we had the special teams turn over and block punters, and
05:59that's two times.
06:00And one of our, the frustrating thing is one of our keys to victory in our plan to
06:05win is to be special on special teams.
06:07And right now we're hit or miss.
06:09Some games we'll do our job on special teams, and some games we won't.
06:13It goes back to that first question of guys just truly understanding to play
06:17complimentary football, every play matters.
06:20There's no giveaway plays, especially when you're competing at the level we're
06:24competing in, the margin for error is really, really small.
06:27How much do you think maybe one of the teams beating another team so
06:31often, like the 7th straight, the UVA as a group,
06:34maybe did y'all, did you sense any underrating, Duke, maybe?
06:37You know, I didn't bring it up until in the locker room after the game.
06:41We didn't mention it one time.
06:43And my approach is it doesn't matter who you play.
06:47And that's what I gotta get these young men to fully buy into is, and
06:51the same thing with the conditions.
06:53If you're gonna play to conditions, you're gonna play to a location,
06:56you're gonna play to a time of day, you're gonna play to the uniform that you wear.
06:59When you start using all those things to justify your motivation,
07:03then your motivation's gonna be inconsistent.
07:05And I just sensed that the guys, man, I thought they had a great week.
07:11Man, you think about all that they had to go through over the last 24 hours,
07:15with the change of plans, the travel, with the power going out.
07:18I mean, they handled that with a ton of maturity.
07:21And I told them before the game, I was really, really proud of how they handled
07:24that, and I just was anticipating that they were gonna come out.
07:27We had a nice, quiet calmness and confidence about us at our pregame meal.
07:34Those are the things that I look for.
07:36And that's what I'm trying to get these guys to understand, man.
07:39It's little things that I'm looking for
07:41to give me confirmation that the culture is taking root.
07:44I snatched Antonio out of the game because it's a third,
07:49I think it's a third and goal down the three yard line or the two yard line, right?
07:54They're going with tempo.
07:55I got him and I got 26 jogging over there to get lined up.
07:58They're not even ready when the ball snapped.
08:00Man, it's just those little things, right?
08:02And until we correct those, then we really, that means we haven't decided, right?
08:06And that's a big thing that I talk about with this team is,
08:09before you can expect, right, to be victorious and to win, you gotta decide.
08:15And those are the decisions that we aren't making consistently enough, right?
08:20And then we won't make up the next play, which lead to, right,
08:23those plays in the game that tip the game one way or another.
08:27Well, I didn't know, sir, when did the power go out?
08:30It was last night, about 8 o'clock.
08:32But you know what?
08:34We made the most of it.
08:36And we had a great time.
08:37We were gonna watch a movie together.
08:40But everybody rallied together.
08:42And that's what's so frustrating is because you know what's in them.
08:45And you know what's in them.
08:46I just gotta break some bad habits.
08:49I gotta get these guys to fully believe.
08:51And everybody says they believe, man, but it takes a lot to believe.
08:57There's a certain level of commitment, a certain level of sacrifice,
08:59a certain level of trust, discipline, accountability,
09:03all those things before you can even expect to win.
09:06I think the guys know how to expect to win, but
09:10we gotta decide every single day, every single play that we wanna win.
09:14Des said this was Brennan's best week in practice.
09:16Yeah. And that the offense is coming along just not fast enough.
09:20Correct. And I think if you look at Brennan,
09:22man, Brennan was a lot more comfortable in the pocket.
09:24He was staying in the pocket.
09:25He was stepping up in the pocket.
09:26Man, he delivered some strikes.
09:28You know, we had a couple of drops that we should have made.
09:32Anxious to see what the biggest issue was with the batting balls.
09:36But I think it was the offensive line game, a ton of time,
09:39guys quit rushing and you're trying to find.
09:41He looked a little bit,
09:41there were times where he kind of looked like the old Brennan,
09:44just had a bunch of time to find guys open.
09:47So, man, I'm proud of him, and that's what I told him at the end of the game.
09:50I said, man, I apologize to you, man, I gotta do a better job of helping you
09:55by getting all these guys to buy in, cuz I thought he looked as comfortable
10:00as he's looked thus far in the system.
10:04Who were the players that are fully bought in,
10:07trying to help you, I guess, drag the rest of the roster?
10:10Yeah, I'm gonna keep that in house, right, but there's, I mean, there's,
10:15and again, they're all good young men and I like them.
10:19And, but we gotta take it to another level, right?
10:23So I think, again, them fully understanding where I'm coming from,
10:29right, and trusting in what I say.
10:32And I'm not gonna say there's mistrust, but
10:34they haven't quite seen the results and they've been trying.
10:38But there's still consistency within that trying that we gotta get to in order for
10:43the results to come, and then when we have results, right, stay humble, right?
10:48You know, stay humble, man, like I was on Chico's butt today, right?
10:51Chico's butt today, he was playing a game last week, you know?
10:54And then this week, there were some things that I saw, especially this game.
10:58It's like, dude, that was last week, do it all over again.
11:02Like the challenge of, okay, I wanna be the player of the game every week.
11:06Like that's how I wanna play.
11:09And this football team saying, you know what, regardless of what people think or
11:11what people say, we determine, right?
11:13We determine who we are.
11:15And right now, we're letting other people and other influences, right?
11:20We're that outside-in mentality, and we just gotta stay inside-out.
11:24Go back to work, and that's what we're gonna do.
11:25We're gonna take this bus right home, we're gonna own it.
11:27Man, we just lost, right?
11:29That's on us.
11:29We can't blame anybody else.
11:31We typically had to do, but we gotta own what we just put on film.
11:35And then hopefully, the guys will take accountability.
11:38We'll come back to work on Monday, and the guys will be honest, be transparent.
11:44Be willing to work and correct, take that accountability, and
11:47go start trying to be one and all next week.
11:49That's the beauty of it, right?
11:51Every week, it becomes monotonous, but when you learn to enjoy and
11:57love the monotony is when you truly become successful.