Virginia Cavaliers to hire NFL assistant as offensive coordinator

The Atlanta Falcons will be losing one of their top positional coaches, head coach Arthur Smith announced on Monday. He said running backs coach Des Kitchings will be leaving “immediately” to accept the offensive coordinator role with the Virginia Cavaliers.

Smith said everyone in the Falcons organization “is happy” for Kitchings. Atlanta has one game remaining in their regular season, facing off against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.

Kitchings will now be joining a staff led by first-year head coach Tony Elliot, who was hired away from the Clemson Tigers. Virginia’s new offensive coordinator will be returning to the college game, with the 2021 season being his first in the NFL.

Co-offensive coordinator is the highest position Kitchings has held at a college program, both at Vanderbilt and North Carolina State. He has been the running backs coach at both schools, along with Air Force and South Carolina.

ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg was the first to report Virginia was targeting Kitchings as their offensive coordinator. Now, the move is official and he will be in Charlottesville as soon as possible.

Virginia Cavaliers season ends with no bowl game

Due to COVID-19 related issues, the Wasabi Fenway Bowl between Virginia and SMU has been called off, per the Action Network’s Brett McMurphy. The game was scheduled to kickoff at 11 a.m. ET on Wednesday at Fenway Park in Boston with ESPN carrying the national broadcast.

According to the Virginia athletic department, the Cavaliers were scheduled to leave Charlottesville on Saturday to head to Boston ahead of Wednesday’s Fenway Bowl. Instead, the team wasn’t able to depart as it had to wait for COVID-19 testing results.

Virginia had pushed back its departure to Sunday due to the late testing results, but it will now be forced to remain in Charlottesville and not play in the Fenway Bowl at all due to its number of positive COVID-19 tests within the program.

Virginia was 6-6 coming into the bowl game, while SMU presented an overall record of 8-4. The Cavaliers were 2.5-point favorites, and the over/under was set at 71.5 points.

The bowl game was set to be Virginia head coach Bronco Mendenhall’s final game with the Cavaliers, as he announced that he would step down after the 2021 season. Mendenhall, 55, amassed a 36-38 overall record with four bowl appearances in six seasons in Charlottesville.