By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE – He graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he was a two-time captain on the football team, and later spent 14 seasons on the coaching staff at his alma mater, the last four as defensive coordinator.

John Rudzinski had deep roots in Colorado Springs, Colo., and he could have remained a Falcon. But when the opportunity came for him join new head coach Tony Elliott’s staff at UVA, he couldn’t pass it up.

The University’s academic reputation appealed to Rudzinski, as did the challenge of competing in the ACC’s Coastal Division. He was also excited about the chance “to work with a great man in Coach Elliott,” Rudzinski told reporters Friday on a Zoom. “And so I thought it really checked the boxes when it came to an opportunity that me and my family would really enjoy.”

John Rudzinski

Rudzinski took over as the Cavaliers’ defensive coordinator last month. Virginia’s new offensive coordinator is Des Kitchings, who coached the Atlanta Falcons’ running backs in 2021. Rudzinski and Kitchings worked together as Air Force assistant coaches in 2011.

Kitchings and Elliott have known each other for more than a decade. When Kitchings left the staff at Furman, his alma mater, after the 2007 season, he couldn’t take his cell-phone number with him. Those digits went to Elliott when he became a Furman assistant coach in 2008.

“So to this day, he still has the same number,” Kitchings said on a Zoom with reporters Tuesday, “and I know his cell phone number by heart, because it used to be my cell phone. And in that transition, there were people calling his cell phone thinking I had the number, and he’d call me back like, ‘Hey Des, such and such is trying to reach out to you.’ So that’s how it all started.”

He and Elliott stayed in touch over the years, Kitchings said, and in their conversations discussed how “if I was to get a job or he was to get a job, depending on how things unfolded in our careers, that we wanted to be able to work together. So when this opportunity came about, there’s very few, if many, people that I would have left the NFL to come back to college to work with, and one of those guys is Tony Elliott.”

Rudzinski was not as familiar with Elliott before interviewing for the position at UVA, but they found some common ground. Before enrolling at Clemson, where he walked on to the football team, Elliott had spent a year at the Air Force Academy Prep School.

“And so that ended up being the bond that ended up getting created after we ended up getting networked together,” Rudzinski said. “But it is such a unique experience having gone through a basic training at the Air Force Academy that it does bond. It doesn’t matter if you went there in 1957 or if you went there in 2007. Guys that have that association with the Air Force Academy end up having a lot of respect for the experiences they ended up working through, and it ended up being something that was a neat connection.”

Elliott retained three assistants from predecessor Bronco Mendenhall’s staff: Marques Hagans, Garett Tujague and Clint Sintim, who will coach the Cavaliers’ wide receivers, offensive linemen and linebackers, respectively. Of the new hires, four came to UVA from service academies: Rudzinski and Curome Cox (secondary) from Air Force, Keith Gaithers (running backs, special teams) from Army, and Kevin Downing (defensive tackles) from Navy.

During his time at Air Force, Rudzinski said, he learned “the importance of time management, being efficient with time, but then just as importantly, making sure that you’re super organized and ready to go … It was a blessing to take a bunch of life lessons from my experience there and I’m excited to be able to impart those lessons here.”

Rudzinski takes over a defense that struggled in 2021, when UVA finished 6-6. In a season in which the Wahoos ranked first among ACC teams in total offense and fourth in scoring offense, they were 13th in total defense and 11th in scoring defense.

For the defense to improve, Rudzinski said, “I think that the biggest thing that we’re going to have to do is we’re going to have to be great tacklers. Everyone talks about it, but for us it’s making sure we continue to focus fundamentally, and when it comes down to it, it comes down to block destruction and the ability to pursue and finish on the football. And when you talk about finishing on the football, it’s being able to tackle.”

Asked which scheme he planned to run at UVA, Rudzinski didn’t volunteer any details. First and foremost, he said, the coaching staff must “do a great job as far as evaluating the current talent in the program … And so we’ve first got to identify, number one, who do we have personnel-wise, which [is] always evolving.”

Then the staff has to employ a scheme that puts “guys in a position to make plays,” Rudzinski said, “and ideally make it as difficult for an offense to have to identify what we are schematically.”

Des Kitchings

Spring practice doesn’t start until late next month, but the coaches have been observing UVA’s players working out under the director of head strength and conditioning coach Adam Smotherman.

“We’re super encouraged by the young men here in the program,” Rudzinski said. “You talk about a bunch of young men that are invested here to the University of Virginia and the football program. You see it by their work in the weight room and just their diligence … There’s great energy and a bunch of young men that are hungry to get better and stack good days on top of each other as we go forward.”

With the record-setting Brennan Armstrong at quarterback, the Hoos relied heavily on their passing game last season. Armstrong is back, along with a slew of gifted wide receivers, but Elliott intends to have a more balanced offense. Virginia ranked last among ACC teams in rushing offense in 2021.

The coaches are “not saying we’re gonna be 50-percent run, 50-percent pass,” Kitchings said. “But we’ll be balanced enough where if the game requires us to win the game running the football, that we’re capable of doing that, and obviously if we have to win the game throwing the ball more, that we’re still capable of doing that as well.”

The emphasis this spring will be to improve “the whole team,” Kitchings said, “so our defense can become better at run-stopping and we become better at running the football.”

Rudzinski said: “What we’ll try to do is be good against our offense first, and I know that Des and [Elliott] … want to run the football. And if we have an offense that’s committed to running the ball in spring and fall camp, we’ll be able to play with our hands, play with great pad level, and, frankly, be able to be great tacklers.”

The coaching staff will install its scheme in the spring, “but the focus has to be on: How technically sound can our players get?” Rudzinski said. “And, frankly, you can get too caught up in the X’s and O’s and forget that if we’re going to play good football, if we’re going to play complementary football as a team, [it’s essential] that we’re fundamentally sound, and it’s no different than any other life skill. If you don’t read very well, you’re not going to be very effective in college. If you don’t take care of algebra, calculus is going to be pretty darn difficult.”

Returning starters on defense include linebacker Nick Jackson, who led the Cavaliers in tackles in 2020 and again last season.

“He’s a worker,” Rudzinski said, “and so that’s what’s impressed me most so far. The young man does have a great talent, but he’s a young man that enjoys the process as far as working, and it’s going to be fun to work with a young man that’s played a lot of football here at Virginia.”

Rudzinski, who graduated from Air Force in 2005, grew up in Green Bay, Wis., where he attended Notre Dame Academy. UVA men’s basketball coach Tony Bennett graduated from Preble High in Green Bay and then starred for his father, Dick Bennett, at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay.

As a boy, Rudzinski said, he was well aware of the Bennetts’ feats in Green Bay, and it’s “been neat to follow Tony’s career and all the great things that he’s accomplished.”

Bennett’s team, which hosts Georgia Tech at John Paul Jones Arena on Saturday, is coming off an upset of Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Sophomore Reece Beekman’s last-second 3-pointer lifted the Hoos to a 69-68 victory.

Rudzinski said he has yet to talk to Bennett in Charlottesville. “He’s been awful busy with that season, but I’ll tell you what, that was a nice 3 the other night.”

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