The relationship between Des Kitchings and Tony Elliott began over a shared cell phone number.

It was back in 2007, when coaches had work phones that were property of the school they coached for. When Kitchings left his role on the Furman staff, Elliott was eventually hired to fill the open spot. Elliott was issued Kitchings’ old phone number.

“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,’” recalled Kitchings. “So that’s how it all started.”

The two young coaches stayed in touch as they climbed the ranks, eventually ending up at rival ACC Atlantic Division programs, Kitchings at NC State and Elliott at Clemson. They’d had conversations about the possibility of one day working together. When Elliott was hired as Virginia’s new head coach in December, the opportunity presented itself.

“There’s very few, if many people that I would have left the NFL to come back to college to work with,” admitted Kitchings, who spent last season as running backs coach with the Atlanta Falcons, “and one of those guys is Tony Elliott.”

Kitchings was the first outside addition to Elliott’s fledgling coaching staff, named the Cavaliers’ offensive coordinator in early January. He departed Atlanta prior to the end of the NFL season to get started right away in Charlottesville. After spending the first few weeks of his tenure on a barnstorming recruiting tour, Kitchings and the rest of the new staff is now in the process of scheming up the Hoos’ new offense.

That offensive group includes two holdovers from the previous staff, wide receivers coach Marques Hagans and offensive line coach Garett Tujague, plus quarterbacks coach Taylor Lamb and running backs coach Keith Gaither. They’ve spent time studying last year’s UVa offense, plus what Kitchings and the Falcons ran and what Elliott ran in his time as offensive coordinator at Clemson, where he was part of a pair of national title teams.

Meeting with local media on Wednesday for the first time since arriving at UVa, Kitchings described the process as an open dialogue.

“I tell them all the time, I don’t have all the answers and five brains are better than one,” Kitchings said. “So it’s a collective group, and then Coach Elliott’s involved in that as well in putting together the best product we can to help us win games next year.”

Kitchings was just days into the job when CavsCorner took its first look at the Wahoos’ offensive roster entering the 2022 season. Since that initial breakdown, several players who were still in roster limbo in early January have since made decisions on their future, and a mad dash in the lead-up to last week’s February Signing Day brought reinforcements to the Hoos’ depleted offensive line. An updated look at what the new staff is working with as spring ball approaches: