AMELIA ISLAND, FL. — After spending so many fall Saturday’s roaming the home sidelines at Death Valley, Tony Elliott will finally get the chance to see what it is like standing on the opposing side of the field.
The Clemson Insider talked with Elliott at the ACC Spring Meetings on Tuesday.
Entering his third season as head coach at Virginia, the former Clemson offensive coordinator gets a homecoming of the sorts, as he will bring his Cavaliers to Memorial Stadium on October 19 to face off with the Tigers and his former mentor Dabo Swinney.
“It’s going to be different,” Elliott told The Clemson Insider Tuesday at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island. “I have never been on the other sideline that I can remember. But I am looking forward to it.”
During his first two seasons in Charlottesville, Elliott has gone just 6-16 and the upcoming season will be a big one. While the first half of the Cavaliers schedule looks manageable, the back half is loaded, with road games at Clemson, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech, as well as home matchups with North Carolina and Louisville.
It’s schedule that he says his players are excited about, and with Elliott’s ties to Clemson, that one could have a little more juice involved.
“I know the guys are excited about our schedule overall,” Elliott said. “Death Valley is one of the best places in the country to take in a game. Obviously, when we show up, we are going to show up to compete, but it will be a little surreal, a little different.”
Elliott was a wide receiver at Clemson from 2000-03, originally joining the Tigers as a walk-on. He then began his coaching career in 2006, spending two seasons as the receivers coach at SC State before moving on to Furman, where he also spent two years in the same role.
In 2011, Swinney hired Elliott as Clemson’s running backs coach and he would remain with the program for the next decade, playing an integral part in those six consecutive runs to the College Football Playoff, as well as the two national titles.
In 2015, Elliott was promoted to co-offensive coordinator with Jeff Scott, although he was the primary play caller. He would take over the offense entirely after Scott left to be head coach at South Florida following the 2019 season. Elliott also spent his final year at Clemson as an associate head coach, while coaching the tight ends.
And now, after a few years away, he will get a chance to come back home and coach against the program that basically raised him. Something Elliott is very much looking forward to.
“Especially when you are going to be coaching against guys that you know, that you got relationships with,” Elliott said. “And with Coach Swinney and our relationship, him being a mentor. But I am excited to see our guys prepare for every game this season, but I am pretty sure they will be excited about that one.”
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