MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Twenty-seven years ago, Tony Elliott worked his way on to the Clemson roster as a walk-on wide receiver.
The Tigers’ offensive coordinator at that time?
None other than West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez.
On Saturday, Elliott and Rodriguez will match wits when Elliott’s 25th-ranked Virginia team faces the Mountaineers in the Duke’s Mayo Classic at 7:30 p.m. from Bank of America Stadium.
It’s a full circle moment for the 46-year-old Elliott, who has helped lead a resurgence in the Cavaliers’ program that includes 13 wins over the team’s last 16 games with an appearance in the 2025 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship.
“It’s pretty cool. It’s humbling, too,” said Elliott, now in his fifth season as Virginia head coach. “It’s also an indication of how old I’m getting, but it’s pretty cool. What I remember about coach Rich Rod is very intense, very demanding, fast pace. He coached you hard, loved you just as hard. So I’m excited about the opportunity.”
In 1999 and 2000, Elliott was a member of a Clemson team whose offense was guided by Rodriguez, before he left for his first head coaching stint at WVU in 2001.
Elliott remained with the Tigers and was a captain his senior year, while finishing with 34 receptions for 455 yards and two touchdowns for his college career.
When Elliott’s playing days came to an end, he spent two years working for Michelin North America before beginning his coaching journey — first as receivers coach at South Carolina State and next with that same title at Furman.
Following five years altogether at both stops, Elliott returned to his alma mater as running backs coach in 2011, a position he held through 2020 while also being promoted to co-offensive coordinator in 2015 and offensive coordinator in 2020.
Elliott was an integral part of the Tigers’ 2016 and 2018 National Championship teams, and in between, he was the recipient of the 2017 Broyles Award, annually presented to the top assistant coach in college football.
The 2021 season would be Elliott’s last as a Clemson assistant before he moved on to another Atlantic Coast Conference program for his first head coaching job.
The Cavaliers struggled across Elliott’s first few seasons, posting an 11-23 record, including 6-17 within ACC play, from 2022-24.
Much has changed since, and with a win against the Mountaineers, Elliott would improve his career record to within one game of .500. The Cavaliers were 11-3 last season for their most wins in a season in program history and their first year with double digit victories since 1989.
“I can remember he was a good player. Tough guy, really smart,” Rodriguez said. “I can remember saying this guy is going to be a good coach if he wants to be a coach someday. He just kind of had that and I’m really proud of him. He’s done a great job at UVA.”
To get to this point, Elliott overcame a lot. In September 2015, ESPN detailed Elliott’s path in a story titled “The incredible underdog story of Clemson’s Tony Elliott.”
The piece references several instances of heartache Elliott dealt with as a child, including a brush with death at 4 when he was hit by a truck as he stepped into the street outside of a California salon where his mother worked. The incident left Elliott in need of life-saving surgery and he had to learn to walk again.
When Elliott was 9, he was in the car with his mother when she was killed in an accident. Later, he and his sister, Brandi, became separated after their father was jailed.
Elliott’s character and maturity allowed him to persevere long ago, and he had to fall back on it again after enduring more tragedy during his first season with the Cavaliers.
On November 13, 2022, Virginia football players Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr. and D’Sean Perry were shot and killed by Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. on a charter bus that returned to campus after a class field trip to Washington, D.C.
To this day, Elliott’s character continues to shine through, and WVU defensive coordinator Zac Alley picked up on that during his time as a student assistant at Clemson from 2011-14 and a Tigers’ graduate assistant each of the next four years.
“Tony’s the same guy every day. He comes to work. He’s an amazing dad, coach and leader,” Alley said. “All those things are very true about his character and who he is. He was always the same guy. He was always the same person every day he showed up work. He’s very smart and knows what he’s doing. He has influence on probably the entire team, but leans more to the offense.”
The ACC Coach of the Year in 2025, Elliott has long been regarded as a recruiting wiz.
Yet he’s proven to be much more than that with the Cavaliers, and on Saturday, hopes to help lead his team to a 3-0 start as the Cavaliers have started the 2026 campaign with lopsided victories over North Carolina State and Norfolk State.
Perhaps as much as matching wits with Rodriguez, he will do so as well with Alley.
“Zac is a lot like BV [former Clemson defensive coordinator and Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables],” Elliott said. “I’m thinking about my hairline now, all the hair I lost on the practice field going against Brent and he was right there as an assistant helping Brent, so he’s going to be very multiple. He’s going to show you some things that maybe you haven’t seen before to really stress your preparation and ability to adjust in-game. They’re going to go from being a 3-4 type of defense to being a five-man front playing man coverage, and then they’re going to show pressure, drop out, play out of coverages on the back end.
“So you have to do a really good job. The challenge for us this week is we have five days. The last two games, we’ve had at least two weeks to prepare for that game. Now we have to transition to the normal rhythm of getting ready for a game. We have to do a great job as a staff of helping the guys with that new aspect of preparation.”