When it comes to evaluating a 3-9 season, there obviously are plenty of areas to look for improvement. That’s no different for the Virginia football team as it tries to get on track with Tony Elliott at the helm. Special teams remain an area with a lot of moving parts that the program must address, though.

The Hoos know it too. Elliott bluntly assessed his team’s performance in that phase as spring practices roll on at UVA.

“We weren’t very good on special teams,” Elliott said. “Obviously our job as coaches is to self scout and analyze every aspect of our performance and special teams we were last in the league, and rightfully so, because we put some bad stuff on tape. I think with the addition of some of the transfers, I think we have some more experienced, veteran guys that gives us some more depth. I think that depth hurt us last year. Guys were having to play a tremendous amount of snaps and that wore on us. I think schematically there’s a couple of things that we’ve got to change and tweak and that’s what we’re focusing on.”

The data backs up the ‘bad stuff on tape’ too. Simply put, the special teams stunk. Per BCF Toys’ FEI ratings for special teams, UVA tied for 110th out of 133 teams in its special teams ratings (SFEI), which are ‘opponent-adjusted data representing the scoring advantage per special teams event a team would be expected to have on a neutral field against an average opponent, calculated from the results of non-garbage, regulation possessions in FBS vs. FBS games.’

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