Early Signing Day: Tony Elliott and Bronco Mendenhall Address UVA Football’s Early Signees
Ten players signed with the Virginia football program on the first day of the national early signing period on Wednesday. Both Bronco Mendenhall and Tony Elliott made some comments on the signing recruits, who honored the commitments they made to play for Virginia despite the coaching change.
“It just shows that these young men are full of character,” Elliott said on Monday. “They understand why they made the decision. They are committed to the University of Virginia. They didn’t necessarily commit to a coach. I know they had tremendous relationships with Bronco Mendenhall and his staff, but it just shows that they came to Virginia because they fell in love with the University of Virginia and being a part of the football program is just a piece of that.”
“These young men and their families are exemplary. I’m so thankful for their commitment,” Mendenhall said. “I love their ability. They are aligned with the University of Virginia in terms of the values, but also the ability to help the program move forward. In a very unique transition time, they’ve provided a really nice sense of stability amongst really unique circumstances.”
Mendenhall and Elliott spent some time discussing the committed recruiting class of 2022 as well as a number of other topics related to UVA football as Mendenhall passes the program on to Elliott.
“It’s just been invaluable and I can’t thank him enough and it just speaks to his character,” Elliott said of Mendenhall and his advice. “Obviously, he cares deeply about the Virginia football program. He cares deeply about this University and he wants to see the program be successful and he’s willing to invest his time when he doesn’t have to - to help me continue to learn and grow so that I can be prepared to take it to the next level.”
“I’m spending an hour or so per day with Tony every morning, just talking about everything in our program, which is pretty unique in college football,” said Mendenhall. “I want this program to succeed, to continue to become, to thrive, and from our current roster to all of our staff, to every part of the support group, including the recruits… When asked, I gave my assessment for every single player and that gave a point of reference then to establish wherever Tony chose to go with it.”
The work is certainly far from finished, as this recruiting class will still need to be supplemented with additional recruits as well as through the transfer portal, depending on if players currently on Virginia’s roster decide to transfer or exercise additional years of eligibility.
“Tomorrow is gonna be a different day because we’ll have to step back and see the numbers, positionalIy,” said Elliott. “I know there’s some guys that are making decisions on whether they are gonna stay or transfer out. Definitely gotta make sure that we protect the program by having the right number of scholarship players at each position to have the appropriate depth to be able to go out and prepare for the season.”
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