New Virginia head football coach Tony Elliott has announced the first five members of his coaching staff, including three assistant and two strength & conditioning coaches.
Marques Hagans and Garett Tujague, each of whom served in all six seasons of Bronco Mendenhall’s tenure, and Clint Sintim, who served each of the past two seasons under Mendenhall, are assistant coaches being retained from the previous staff. Nate Pototschnick, who has been a member of UVA’s strength & conditioning staff since 2017, has received a promotion, becoming the new associate strength & conditioning coach. He’ll serve under new strength & conditioning coach Adam Smotherman, whose hiring was also officially announced Monday (December 27).
Smotherman heads to Charlottesville after serving as a full-time assistant on Clemson’s strength & conditioning staff since 2013. A graduate of Vanderbilt who also has a master’s degree from Clemson, Smotherman was assistant director of strength and conditioning at Furman in 2012 and 2013 before moving on to Clemson.
Hagans has completed nine seasons as an assistant at his alma mater. Elliott will be the third head coach he has worked for at Virginia, as he coached under Mike London and then Mendenhall. Although he has proven himself to be an excellent wide receivers coach – Virginia had three receivers catch over 70 passes in 2019, and this season featured four players with over 600 yards receiving, including Dontayvion Wicks, who broke Herman Moore’s single season receiving yardage record with 1,203 yards – Hagans’ exact role under Elliott is to be determined.
The former Virginia star player is pleased to remain in Charlottesville.
Go Hoos⚔️ pic.twitter.com/2we5yz4ej2
— Marques Hagans (@coachmhagans) December 27, 2021
The duties of Tujague and Sintim are also to be determined. Tujague coached the offensive line at College of the Canyons, a two-year community college, for nine seasons and coached the offensive line under Mendenhall for nine seasons, including three at BYU and six at UVA. A depleted unit when Mendenhall took over, the Virginia offense line developed into one of the ACC’s top units the past two seasons under Tujague’s guidance. It seems highly likely that he will remain UVA’s offensive line coach under Elliott. Meanwhile, Sintim has experience coaching linebackers and the defensive line, so his final position seems less certain.
Click here to read the official announcement of these hirings on VirginiaSports.com.
Would have been great to retain Jason Beck before losing him to Anae and Syracuse. Bummer