You were no doubt wondering, as I was in the heat of the moment, why Virginia coach Tony Elliott sent third-string QB Grady Brosterhous into the game on Saturday, when Elliott’s starter, Tony Muskett, left early in the fourth quarter, clutching his left shoulder, the one that he injured back in Week 1, causing him to miss the next three games.
It was because the backup, Anthony Colandrea, a true freshman, has already played in four games, the limit for a player to still be able to use the year as a redshirt year.
Also factoring in: how much Elliott knows his QB1 wants it.
“He reached for it, felt something in the shoulder, came out for a play, and obviously we’re trying to figure out the severity of it, right, because we got, you know, we got a young quarterback there that’s kind of played his four games, and what you don’t want to do is, you don’t want to, you know, burn a year from one play, right, so, you don’t want to put a guy in for one play,” Elliott told reporters after Virginia’s 27-13 win over William & Mary, the first W of the season for the Cavaliers.
Full coverage
- Virginia rallies from early 13-3 deficit, gets first W of 2023, 27-13 over William & Mary
- Five observations from Virginia’s 27-13 win over William & Mary on Saturday
- Muskett gets back up off the deck, throws game-clinching TD after shoulder injury
- Virginia O line, finally, clears way for ‘Hoos to establish a ground game
At the moment, it didn’t look good at all.
Muskett, trying to extend the drive on a fourth-and-three in plus territory, with Virginia clinging to a 20-13 lead, scrambled for the sticks, diving and stretching the ball past the line to gain.
He picked up the first down, but as Muskett got back up from the ground, he winced and clutched at his left shoulder, in the area of the clavicle, then went to one knee.
The UVA sideline and the fan base assumed, for a hot moment, the worst, as play stopped for an injury timeout.
Muskett went into the medical tent, and Colandrea started warming up, throwing short passes and taking shotgun snaps in front of the Virginia bench to get loose.
Then Elliott pulled the old switcheroo, sending Brosterhous in.
“If they’re telling us from the tent that is going to be an extensive amount of time, then Colandrea was good, and we’re going with it, so it was it was managed, I thought, the right way. They told us in time it was one play, that’s why you saw Grady in there, and then Muskett was back out there,” Elliott said.
Muskett, after a first-down run by Kobe Pace that gained five yards, re-entered the game, and on the next play, he connected with Malik Washington on a 27-yard TD pass play.
That score helped put the game away, in a two-touchdown win that was much closer than the final score indicated.
For the game, Muskett, in his third career FBS start, was 17-of-26 passing for 232 yards, two TDs and one INT, and gained 42 sack-adjusted rushing yards, while enduring four sacks from the Tribe defense.
“He’s a leader of the football team, a guy that’s playing, you know, playing injured, you know, probably going to have to have surgery on that shoulder at the end of the season, right,” Elliott said. “Could easily have done, you know, the easy thing and said, You know what, Coach, I need to go ahead and fix my shoulder now and get a head start, right. But here’s a guy that said, No, coach, I’m playing, alright.
“And so he’s practicing every single day with a hurt shoulder, he’s playing with a hurt shoulder, and to be honest with you, it’s probably gonna hurt him the rest of the season, right,” Elliott said. “It’s not one of those deals where it’s going to, it’s not going to fix itself, right. So, just his toughness, his passion, man, his love for his teammates, he’s a competitor, and what he shows you is, he’s a guy that’s not just wanting to win, he’s a guy that needs to win, and that’s why he does what he does.”
Muskett shrugged off the talk about toughness.
“It’s just a little shoulder injury,” he said, forgetting that we could see the pained expression on his face as he made his way, gingerly, to the sideline.
“I could be out there and put it on the line for my brothers and for all the people that came through for alumni weekend, all the people that built this program, I’m gonna do this for them, because I truly want us to succeed. I’m going to continue to do that as long as I can or until someone says I can’t,” Muskett said.
The thing about Elliott saying Muskett doesn’t just want to win, he needs to win, is right on.
“Winning is everything,” Muskett said. “We felt like the past five weeks, we were 0-5, we wanted to win, but this week, (Elliott) told us that we need to win. I think there’s different levels of commitment and passion. We truly need to win because, for a lot of guys in the locker room like myself, that need to win just makes you take that one extra step, because that extra step makes the difference.
“I think you saw that today,” Muskett said. “We just trained a little harder, and we pushed a little harder than the past five weeks. If we continue to do that next six weeks, we can have a good season and come out with a great year.”
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Chris Graham
