Virginia coach Tony Elliott goes in-depth on his relationship with Dabo Swinney

Virginia coach Tony Elliott spoke at length about his relationship with Clemson coach Dabo Swinney on Thursday afternoon.

Elliott arrived at Virginia this offseason after spending the previous decade as an assistant on Swinney’s staff. He worked his way up from running backs coach in 2011 all the way to being Clemson’s sole offensive coordinator from 2020-21.

Elliott also briefly played for Swinney in 2003 when he was Clemson’s wide receivers coach. Elliott told reporters at ACC Kickoff on Thursday that their relationship began as a father-son relationship but morphed into something different in recent years.

“Coach Swinney’s relationship has kind of changed over the years, but it kind of started as father-son type of relationship, being that he was my position coach for my senior year … There was a lot of uncertainty because I was a walk-on. I didn’t know what was going to happen, and here comes Coach Swinney. We had similarities in our background. Our values that we had already aligned.

“Then over the years when I became one of his coaches, that father relationship — father-son relationship was still there, but it kind of now transitioned into more of a mentor/colleague. I aligned with a lot that he was doing at Clemson. I also valued his opinion on a lot of things. I would seek advice to him. A couple of things he told me is he wanted me to be an old head coach, not just a head coach, which means that you go somewhere where it’s the right fit.”

Finding “the right fit” is apparently something that Swinney and Elliott talked about a lot. On Wednesday, Swinney told reporters that he encouraged Elliott to take the UVA job

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Elliott will debut as a head coach on Sept. 3 as the Cavaliers face Richmond.