Coming off Saturday’s season-opening rout of Richmond over the weekend, Virginia Cavaliers Head Coach Tony Elliott sat down with the media for his weekly press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

Here are the five most notable topics that Elliott touched on ahead of this weekend’s ACC opener at the Wake Forest Demon Deacons.

Finishing games

For the second consecutive season, UVA’s home opener was suspended due to weather midway through the game. Against James Madison in 2023, the ‘Hoos came out of the delay flat and ended up surrendering an 11-point lead in the fourth quarter.

But Elliott’s squad learned its lesson, keeping its foot on the gas pedal after the delay against Richmond on Saturday and finishing strong in the dominant victory.

Elliott really hammered home the importance of a new fourth-quarter mentality on Tuesday.

“Philosophically as a team we want to start fast, win the middle eight, and then finish in the fourth quarter,” said Elliott. “There is a big emphasis in the last few periods of practice to emphasize the fourth quarter. It’s not just we put our four fingers up in the air and we play a video — it’s a mindset, it’s a mentality, and an understanding that this is where we have to have our best focus, our best attention to detail.”

Finishing strong will only grow in importance as the competition gets steeper this season. We watched too many times last year as the ‘Hoos let winnable games slip away down the stretch, and Elliott doesn’t want to see that happen again in 2024.

“[When] you’ve been playing for probably two hours and 45 minutes, you’re 60 plays into the game, your body is starting to hurt, and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, you have to create [energy for] yourself,” said Elliott. “The most unimportant thing in football is the score at halftime. What matters is the score when you get it into the fourth quarter.”

The importance of the ACC opener

Virginia has not won an ACC opener since 2020, but Elliott is hoping to put an end to that streak on Saturday.

“In terms of our team goals, our second goal is to win the ACC opener,” said Elliott. “So, it’s extremely important to us to win the first game in conference. Our focus is to go out and treat every game like it’s the most important game, but also, we understand the importance of winning the ACC opener, and it would be awesome for us to be able to play our best game on the road against a very good football team.”

Looking ahead to Wake Forest

While Wake was only projected to finish 15^th in the ACC preseason poll, making Saturday one of UVA’s most winnable conference matchups on paper, it’s never easy to earn a victory in a conference foe’s house.

Elliott certainly isn’t letting the ‘Hoos overlook anybody, and he had nothing but respect for Head Coach Dave Clawson and his Wake Forest Demon Deacons squad ahead of Saturday’s matchup.

“Since I stepped into this role, Dave Clawson has been awesome,” said Elliott. “I think it’s a program type of game [for us] because we get to evaluate where we are — [Wake Forest] plays extremely hard. They’re very, very well coached.”

Elliott also dove deeper into the X’s and O’s of Saturday’s game and the difficulty of prepping for a unique Wake Forest offense that relies heavily on the triple option.

“They’ve done a really good job over the years of being able to create their own niche, and it’s built off of a lot of option principles,” said Elliott. “You’ve got to be able to stop the dive and then have a quarterback player on the zone read concepts… You’ve got to be able to stop the ‘A gap,’ so to speak, or the dive when they hand the ball off. And then you’ve got to be prepared for the quarterback pulling it — so they pose problems overall.”

No cause for concern with Chris Tyree

Virginia’s most notable offseason acquisition, Notre Dame transfer wide receiver Chris Tyree, had a less than ideal ‘Hoos debut. Tyree didn’t record a reception on Saturday, instead dropping all three of his targets. Elliott, however, isn’t concerned about the slow start.

“[With] Chris, I’m just going to chalk it up to being back home in Virginia, wanting to do so well [that he was] pressing a little bit,” said Elliott. If you look at the balls that he didn’t come down with, he takes his eyes off it because he’s ready to run — he wants to go make a big play.”

Malachi Fields stepped up and carried the load against the Spiders with 5 receptions for 100 yards. But it also doesn’t seem like there’s any cause for concern or reason to temper expectations regarding Tyree’s production this fall.

“He knows what he has to do to correct it, and it doesn’t change anything in terms of how he fits in our offense. I anticipate that you’ll see Chris bounce back.”

Daniel Sparks’ progress as the kick-off specialist

With last season’s kick-off specialist Matt Ganyard gone, punter Daniel Sparks was asked to take over the role during the offseason. While Sparks had no issues booting the football against Richmond, Elliott revealed on Tuesday that it wasn’t the smoothest transition for the Cavaliers’ All-ACC punter.

“To be transparent, I was scared to death based off of what was happening during camp,” said Elliott. “There’s no question about sparks leg… [but] in our scrimmages we had four kicks out of six total that went out of bounds, and we’re like, oh Lord, what are we going to do.”

Luckily, Elliott and his special teams’ staff had Sparks shorten his approach, and that seems to have done the trick.

“It’s kind of like your golf swing,” said Elliott. “He was pulling it way, way back there. Once we shortened it up, he was able to consistently put them deep. So, really proud of him, because he’s pulling double duty.”