The Virginia football team hopes there’s a twist on an old saying this season. Entering the second year of the Tony Elliott era, the Hoos hope that familiarity breeds comfort and that it will translate into consistency.

Halfway through Elliott’s second spring, the Cavaliers say there’s a little different atmosphere around practices when compared to this time a year ago. With a number of returning players, Elliott said because of their exposure to the system and program expectations, the focus can shift to more specific details and on enjoying playing football while the process is in progress.

“We can have a lot more fun. We can have a lot more fun just playing football,” Elliott said. “Obviously, still coaching the details but we don’t have to coach the fundamentals of practice about getting on the field, getting off the field, practicing fast – the guys understand the philosophy around the way that we practice with the tempo, the speed, the efficiency so those things I’m not having to chase down like I did last year. In fairness to those guys last year, it was all new, it was a completely different structure.”

For long-time Virginia fans, there are some echoes of Bronco Mendenhall’s arrival in that train of thought. When he first took over the UVA program, the coaches focused on everything from practice habits to stretching expectations to how the team ran on the field each possession. The message was pretty simple – Mendenhall wanted things to be done a certain way and everyone would learn that first.

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