UVA Athletics Adapting to Changing Landscape

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — When the transfer portal opened for football in December, the University of Virginia athletics department was ready. UVA officials had spent last summer and fall building a front office model to help the football program navigate the portal and the ever-changing world of Name Image and Likeness (NIL) compensation.

The build-out included multiple meetings with former NFL executive Scott Pioli. In one of his fall visits to UVA, Pioli met with athletics director Carla Williams, deputy AD Tyler Jones and head football coach Tony Elliott, among others. During a career in which he worked for such teams as New England, Kansas City and Atlanta, Pioli was a five-time NFL Executive of the Year, and he was named NFL Executive of the Decade for 2000 to 2010.

“His insights were incredible,” Jones said.

Pioli began working with UVA last spring, Williams said. He participated in a GM summit held by UVA Athletics last summer, along with current general managers from the NBA and WNBA. Representatives of football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball and other UVA sports programs attended the event.

Jones said he also spoke in the fall with “several other assistant general managers and former general managers on the NFL side. It was great for me to do that individually to learn. So we were having those conversations in October and in November in preparation for [the opening of] the portal in December, but also building the infrastructure that’s more sustainable across several sports.”

His colleagues at the McCue Center include deputy athletic director Wally Walker, a former NBA general manager, and “tapping into his expertise and experience was helpful as well,” Jones said.

More than ever, there are parallels between college and professional sports, and for football the Cavaliers implemented a new collegiate structure similar to what’s common in professional sports.

Jones played both football and basketball at Eastern Michigan University, where he set two NCAA records as a wide receiver. Jones serves in a general manager capacity at UVA, with Justin Speros, the program’s director of recruiting, functioning as assistant GM.

Elliott’s endorsement of this structure allows him to focus primarily on coaching his team and recruiting. Still, he’s in constant communication with Jones, who came to UVA from Northwestern University in July 2023.

“We’re aligned,” Jones said. “He and I speak at least three to four times a day, about all aspects of the program. Budgeting, advanced non-conference scheduling, personnel, recruiting, talent evaluation, we’re talking through those day to day.”

Elliott noted that Jones “brings a wealth of experience from all different levels of football. He’s got a great personality, a ton of credibility, and he’s a servant leader. There’s no ego there. We clicked well before we ever got to this point where we were navigating these uncharted waters together.”

In December, the football program received two multi-million dollar gifts from anonymous donors, which provided UVA with significantly more financial resources to access a higher caliber of talent.

The program also leaned heavily on analytics, with some data compiled externally and some internally, to help the staff determine which players to pursue and their valuation. The goal was to make data-driven decisions, Jones said.

The Wahoos’ 2024 season ended in late November. The portal window that opened the next month “was our first opportunity to really layer vision, analytics, scheme and financial resources with recruiting,” Jones said.

The result was a highly regarded transfer class made up of 19 players. The top priority was to add two quarterbacks, and the Hoos did so, signing Chandler Morris (North Texas) and Danny Kaelin (Nebraska). They also wanted to shore up both lines, and they succeeded on that front, too.

“So I think it was a positive portal phase,” Jones said. “We finished top 25 in several different publications. That’s encouraging. We feel really, really good about how we’ve been able to replenish the roster. So our talent composition, we believe, has improved, but we’re not done yet. And there’s definitely some positional groups that we need to address in the spring portal. Defensive back will be a priority for us.”

The system worked well, said Elliott, who’s in his fourth year at Virginia, “because there was a ton of trust amongst everybody, from Carla to myself to Tyler to Speros. It required a lot of trust in everybody’s ability to evaluate, trust in the different pieces of information that people were able to gather to bring in, and collaborate to make sure that everybody was on the same page, and then also the trust to say, ‘I’ve got to take my emotions out of this situation and do what’s best for the program.’

“So I think it really just hinges on the great working relationship that everybody has and the trust that we have. And that alignment was centered around doing what’s best for the University of Virginia and putting together the best roster that fits the culture, that fits the University and then gives us the best opportunity [for success].”

With help from Speros, Jones manages relationships with players’ agents.

That’s one less thing for Elliott to worry about. Of course, he noted with a smile, that can cause some anxiety, too, “because there were going to be certain guys where I was like, ‘I really like this guy.’ But you’ve got to trust the process. You have to trust the information that they’re gathering to say, ‘You know what, Coach? I don’t know if this is the right fit or if we should pass.’ So again, it goes back to the trust that everybody is pulling in the same direction, everybody wants the same thing, and everybody is going to have the professionalism to say, ‘OK, here’s the give and take that we need to have to bring this thing together.’ ”

The process for men’s basketball was delayed due to the coaching staff transition, but a similar structure is in place for UVA’s men’s and women’s basketball programs, Jones said.

In football, a sport in which Virginia has struggled in recent years, “this is an opportunity to take a leap,” Jones said. “When there’s a little bit of uncertainty and there’s transition, that’s when you can probably leapfrog some folks if you’ve established a vision and process, which we have.”

Due to the enormous generosity of donors, Jones said, “we’re infusing some resources into the organization, and you’re able to see some of the dividends early with the talent that we were able to acquire in the winter portal.”

Jones also singled out the contributions of Cav Futures, the official NIL collective of UVA Athletics, and its executive director Lo Davis.

“They have done an incredible job helping to tell our story as well and assisting us in the process from day one,” Jones said. “We are truly grateful for their support of not only the football program but our entire athletic department.”

As a result, Jones said, “there is optimism there, certainly, from football’s perspective. So that part keeps my juices going, because we’re starting to see some of the fruits of our labor—the type of bodies that you see at spring ball are different now. The size of the offensive line and defensive line are much different. We have several 300-pound student-athletes that we haven’t had here in a long, long time. The talent has improved. Now we must bring it together, and that’s what keeps Coach up at night. It’s great to have a collection of parts, but we must create a team. And that’s harder to do when you’re infusing your organization with 30 to 40 new student-athletes, which is our reality.”

If the Cavaliers add another half-dozen transfers or so in the spring, as expected, nearly half of their 105-player roster in the fall will be new. (As of now, there will be 19 true freshmen on scholarship this year.)

“That’s the tough spot that the coaches are in, and I empathize with them,” Jones said. “Before, the head coach was the president, the GM, the chief of staff. They had full autonomy of their program and managed everything. Now we’re asking these coaches to take a step back and adopt a process more closely aligned with a front-office structure.

“Coach is trusting us to vet these young men well before we’re bringing them to him to make that final blessing.”

Elliott wants UVA to be a developmental program, so evaluating high school players remains a priority, Jones said. “With football, you must build your team through the high school ranks. It’s no different than the NFL. You build your team through the draft. You don’t build your team year over year in free agency. So that was very consistent when I spoke to GMs. They said, ‘Tyler, on the collegiate side, we would associate building through the draft as building through high school players, because those are your developmental guys.’

Some true freshmen are ready to make an immediate impact in college, Jones said, “but you’re not necessarily hinging your franchise or your program on freshmen or rookies making a significant impact. So that piece is still critical for us. We’re going to build our roster through high school recruiting. We’ll remain a developmental program. However, we’ll utilize free agency, which for us is the portal, to be able to fill gaps, to be able to address needs year over year, but the intent is to build and develop student-athletes through high school recruitment.”

To better operate in this era of player movement, Jones said, the football program has changed its evaluation process.

“Before the portal era, you were not watching college athletes, you were watching high school players,” Jones said. “So, now with the portal, it’s kind of hard to watch a 15- or 16-year-old prospect competing against other high school prospects and then have to pivot and watch a college player, 23 years old, playing against college athletes.”

Some staffers will focus on high school players, Jones said, and others will concentrate on transfer student-athletes.

Speros, who’s in his fourth year at UVA, oversees the recruiting operation, Jones said, “and then he’s also helping me on the agent relationship front. So, he’s doing a little bit of a dual role. That may change a little bit after we get through this spring portal and we’re able to truly debrief both the winter and the spring and say, ‘What are some things that we need to invest in? What are some things we need to divest in?’ College athletics has changed. So, there’s parts of the organization that may not be as important as they were previously. So that gives us some time to reevaluate that.”

Whether they’re pursuing high school players or college transfers, Jones said, the Cavaliers must make sure they fit well on Grounds.

“We’re not changing Virginia,” Jones said. “Virginia is Virginia. It’s an awesome institution, it’s in one of the best conferences in America, in Central Virginia, with all the things that comes with that.

“The academic element will always be a part of the conversation, because that’s who we are. It’s refreshing because most of the prospects are intrigued. They’re like, ‘That’s cool, I want to learn more, I want to learn more about Virginia.”

Jones cited defensive lineman Hunter Osborne, a transfer from Alabama, as an example.

“Great young man, great family,” Jones said. “He was blown away by what Virginia was able to offer outside of just football. Great facilities, great people, great academics. So the increased resources have provided us an opportunity to have a conversation, to share all the great things that we have to offer at Virginia.”

To receive Jeff White’s articles by email, click the appropriate box in this link to subscribe.