Tony Elliott wants Virginia’s former players to stay in the middle of what he’s building.
As the Cavaliers open fall camp in year five of Elliott’s tenure, the message from the head coach was clear: this is bigger than one staff, one roster or one era. Virginia, he said, belongs to everyone who has worn it.
“This is not, as I said from day one, this will never be the Tony Elliott football program,” Elliott said Wednesday. “This is Virginia football and we're all a part of it.”
That idea matters to Elliott because of how far the program has come. Virginia once carried the ACC’s worst offensive line, worst sack production, mediocre quarterback play and a habit of beating itself. With more resources, a stronger talent base and a staff that stayed committed to its approach, Elliott said the Cavaliers have become a legitimate contender in the conference race.
But the progress, in his view, should never cut the alumni out of the picture.
Elliott said former players give the program something the current roster cannot get anywhere else: perspective. Freshmen can walk into the Hardie Football Operations Center and notice the upgrades.
They can play in night games at Scott Stadium and feel what the place can become. But they also need to understand the names and standards that came before them, including players honored on plaques around the building like Jonas Sanker and Malik Washington.
“My message [to program alumni] would be - we need you, right?” Elliott said.
“We can't get to where we're going without you, right? The only way [current players are] going to get to where [we want to go] is you got to know where you came from, right?”
He framed that connection as part of the responsibility that comes with the uniform. Every season, Elliott said, the players in the room are carrying the weight of those who wore the V-Sabre before them.
“I'm not worried about [external expectations], but I want the expectations of the former players. I want these guys to know it, right?
I want the guys that are on this team now to know what it means for all the guys that have worn the V-Sabre before. I embrace those expectations and I want the guys to be fully aware of that because it is a brotherhood.
And this is home.”
Elliott described those alumni as “big brothers,” and he made clear that role extends beyond football. He pointed out that college football still starts with college, and the people who lived that Virginia experience know things he does not.
“They know the experience at the University of Virginia better than I do right?” Elliott said.
“Because I didn't sleep in the dorms on Grounds, I didn't go to the classes on Grounds. They did, right?
They also know what life after football is as a Virginia alum. So all of that, man, we need as we build this program.
Only thing I'm going to ask [alumni] for is time. And time that I want is for you to invest in these young men because they need you.
They need positive voices in their ears as they're navigating this crazy time in college football.”
Virginia already dipped into that idea last season, inviting one program alum to address the team during the week before a game. The players responded well to the tradition and hope it returns in 2026.
For Elliott, that’s the point. The program’s past should keep showing up in the present, and maybe someday the current players will be the ones coming back to Grounds to do the same.
“So this is home, we need you, you're welcome here,” Elliott said.
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