CHARLOTTESVILLE – Since arriving at Virginia, Tony Elliott has made it clear what he wants his football team’s offensive identity to be, and that starts with a game-controlling running game.
Saturday, during a spring game where a lack of available offensive linemen made running the ball against a deep and veteran defensive front challenging, redshirt freshman Noah Vaughn – all 5-foot-8 and 188 pounds of him – offered a good glimpse of what Elliott is after.
“The kid’s really tough,” offensive coordinator Des Kitchings said. “You look at his stature. There’s got to be something that separates him from everybody else and that’s what it is – his competitive nature and his toughness.”
Vaughn carried a game-high 11 times Saturday, picking up 50 yards. He also caught three short passes. Perhaps most encouragingly, when Vaughn was met by a defender – usually one who had a size advantage – he pushed forward, fighting for extra yards.
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“That’s the mindset of our running back room,” Vaughn said. “The first guy’s not going to take us down. We’re going to always get some more yards out of it.”
Elliott and Kitchings are wrapping up their third spring working to instill that tough, run-first offensive identity. It’s still very much a work in progress.
Using a zone-blocking scheme that requires the linemen and backs to move in well-timed unison, UVa has struggled to run the football in Elliott’s first two seasons.
In 2022, Virginia ranked 11th in the ACC, running for 123.2 yards per game. It was ninth in yards per carry at 3.7 and 10th in rushing touchdowns with 10.
Last season, the production was even worse. The Cavaliers ranked next-to-last in the league in rushing yards per game last season at 117.9 yards per game, last at 3.1 yards per carry and next to last in rushing touchdowns with 12.
For Elliott, a former offensive coordinator at Clemson, to see marked improvement in Year 3 of his tenure, one that has produced a 6-16 record to date, those numbers have to get better.
“I think the guys are starting to understand what we’re trying to get accomplished,” Elliott said.
By his own admission, Saturday wasn’t the best evidence of the progress Elliott and Kitchings believe is being made toward establishing that offensive identity. Four of the team’s top five offensive lineman missed the game due to injuries and Virginia has also worked this spring without two of its returning running backs in Xavier Brown and Jack Griese.
The makeshift offensive lines UVa cobbled together for the Blue and White teams – only junior tackle Blake Steen is a likely starter among those who suited up Saturday – were overmatched by the Cavaliers’ defensive line, a veteran group that returns established stars in ends Chico Bennett and Kam Butler and tackle Jahmeer Carter.
Vaughn and redshirt freshman Donte Hawthorne were bright spots Saturday, but, in the fall, Virginia will need Kobe Pace – who transferred from Clemson before the 2023 season – to be, in Kitchings’s words, “the bell cow.”
The 5-foot-10, 215-pound Georgia native, who had a 15-yard run Saturday, has added muscle to his frame and a more physical approach to his game. A year after coach’s emphasized his big-play ability, calling him a “rocket,” the talk about Pace on Saturday was decidedly different.
“I saw Kobe take a step as an efficient runner, those dirty yards,” Kitchings said. “Getting behind his pads. There might be contact at three and gets two or three more yards.”
Those are the yards that make the difference between moving the chains and spending games behind them.
And becoming a team that gets those yards is the identity Elliott has been pushing for.