Anthony Colandrea landed at UNLV after deciding to leave the UVA Football program following two seasons as the starter.
You wouldn’t normally see a guy give up a starting job at a Power 4 program for a QB battle in the Group of 5, but that’s what Colandrea did.
That’s because the new UNLV coach, Dan Mullen, just signed another QB off the portal, former Michigan QB Alex Orji, and Mullen seems to think a lot of his new new guy.
“He was a guy that was head-scratching to me last year,” Mullen said in an interview with former ESPN blowhard Dan Dakich. “Sometimes I’m watching him and, you know, I don’t know, I’m not in the game meetings, don’t know what like everything going on at Michigan, but I’m saying, I don’t know that they’re highlighting his strengths, right? I mean, you know, in football, the job of coaches is to put a guy in position to do what he does. Well, that’s what coaching is all about.”
Orji didn’t get a lot of run at Michigan. He was projected to be the QB1 going into the 2024 season, but ended up losing the starting job to a former walk-on, Davis Warren, who put up underwhelming numbers – 1,199 yards, seven TDs, nine INTs.
But Mullen sees something there, and you can’t think Orji transferred out of Michigan to hold a clipboard in Vegas.
ICYMI
The coach’s comment on Colandrea: “I got to watch Anthony live. His ability to extend plays, scramble around, throw the ball, tremendous arm talent. Really excited about what he brings to the table.”
UNLV also signed a prep recruit in the 2025 class, three-star recruit Sebastian Circo, who isn’t expected to figure into the QB rotation for the Rebels in the 2025 season.
But then, when Colandrea signed with Virginia as a three-star recruit in 2023, he wasn’t expected to figure into the QB rotation that fall, and then a bunch of things happened, and he ended up starting six games, and was named the starter going into his sophomore season.
So, you never know.
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Chris Graham
