Tony Elliott focused on the game, not a reunion in Clemson

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Tony Elliott wants to block out the noise, and he wants his team to do the same.

Elliott returns to Clemson this Saturday when his Virginia Cavaliers travel to take on the Tigers (noon, ACC Network). Elliott knows much—if not most—of the talk will center on his relationship with Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney and his years in a Clemson uniform and as a Clemson coach.

People have reached out, but Elliott isn’t answering.

“I need to apologize to some family members, some folks that have reached out,” Elliott said during his weekly press conference Tuesday. “They’ve called me, I have not answered, I have not called back. I eventually will get back to you. [There have] been some requests and people wanting to talk, but I have a responsibility to this football team, this football program, to be laser-focused. And that’s one of the things that I learned where I came from, just how to block out the noise. So this is one of those weeks where some people are mad at me right now, but I promise you, I love you. I just need to focus.”

Elliott played wide receiver at Clemson (Swinney was his position coach) and spent 11 years on Swinney’s staff. Now, he gets to experience what it’s like to coach against someone he is close to.

“In terms of the relationship,” Elliott said, “he’s gone from being a father figure when he was coaching me as a player to being a mentor as a young coach in the business and then a colleague. So it’s kind of had all three phases tied in.”

Elliott said once the whistle blows, he won’t have time to think about Swinney or the relationship.

“Once they blow the whistle and kick the ball off, it’s like any other game. To be honest with you, you really don’t pay attention much to what’s on the other sideline,” he said. “There’s so much that goes into preparing for a game. That’s really all I’ve been focused on. And then I’ve also been mindful, too, that I did not want this game to be about me. And I told the players, ‘This ain’t about me. This is about you guys going down there and playing your best game. And my job is to help prepare you.’ ”

Elliott said the game will show how far his program has progressed in three seasons.

“It’s gonna be fun to compete, and it’s a great test for our program to see where we are,” Elliott said. “That program there has been the standard in the league for a very long time, and they’re back playing at a very, very high level, and it looks like you got to go through them to win the league with the way that they’re playing.”

Elliott knows his players will have to block out the noise of a raucous Death Valley crowd.

“I think that that’s one of the things that I value the most that I learned while I was there under Coach Swinney: It’s never about anybody else, it’s about yourself, because at the end of the day, if you take care of yourself, then you give yourself an opportunity to be successful,” he said. “So we’ve got to focus on us, and then obviously, we have some noise out at practice just to kind of get ready to communicate. But you can’t walk in losing to the environment. Two things that I challenge the program: Don’t lose to the [opponent’s] logo and don’t lose to the environment.”

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