Anthony Colandrea, who started 11 games for the UVA Football program this season, is headed to the transfer portal, after losing the QB1 job following a late-season swoon.
Colandrea, a sophomore, will have two years of eligibility remaining wherever he lands, and no offense to the kid, but it’s not going to be anywhere in Power 4.
Size (Colandrea is generously listed at 6’0”, 183 pounds) and lack of arm strength are his limitations in terms of his worth to a Power 4 program.
His biggest plus is mobility, which came in handy the past two years at UVA because of his tendency to rush through his progressions, give up on being able to throw the ball and just take off.
Colandrea gained 286 yards on 34 scrambles, and he was also used a good bit on designed runs – going for 228 yards on 60 rushing attempts.
He was also sacked an absurd amount of times – 39 times on 151 QB pressures on his 392 pass dropbacks, with Colandrea’s pressure-to-sack rate, 25.2 percent, ranking ninth among the 72 FBS quarterbacks who faced at least 100 pressures in 2024, per numbers from Pro Football Focus.
I can’t blame the kid for deciding that a change of scenery may be for the best.
His offensive coordinator at UVA, Des Kitchings, had trouble scheming around what opponents started doing in the second half of the season, once the book on how to defend Colandrea and the throwback UVA offense got out there – basically, tight man in pass coverage, sneak DBs close to the line of scrimmage to take away the run, dare Colandrea and his receivers to beat you with hot reads and the deep ball, and live with Colandrea breaking off a decent gainer on a scramble every now and then.
Without adjustments from Kitchings, Colandrea was not going to be able to beat defenses on quick slants, because he has a hard time seeing over interior pressure, and wasn’t able to get much going deep, ranking 71st among the 185 D1 QBs with at least 10 attempts that traveled at least 20 yards in the air, with 15 completions on those passes.
You saw it with your own eyes the past few weeks – the UVA offense got too much of its productivity, such as there was productivity, from scramble plays, both from Colandrea and the guy who started at QB in the Virginia Tech game, Tony Muskett.
The departure of Colandrea, on top of Muskett, who is a fifth-year senior, leaves Kitchings and head coach Tony Elliott with basically nothing at QB going forward.
For the time being, at least, Gavin Frakes, a transfer from New Mexico State who started five games there in 2022, would be the only guy on the roster with any significant college experience at QB, and we’re talking five starts and 100 pass attempts two years ago.
Outside of Frakes, it’s junior Grady Brosterhous, used the past two years as a wildcat and short-yardage QB, freshman walk-ons Alexander Brady and Boone Lourd, and a pair of incoming prep recruits, three-stars Bjorn Jurgensen and Cole Greer.
Elliott and Kitchings are going to need to get two guys off the portal to compete with Frakes for the starting job, assuming Frakes is still around.
(For that matter, assuming Elliott and Kitchings are still around.)
For Anthony Colandrea, I can see him succeeding a level down from Power 4 in a spread offense that emphasizes quick one-progression reads and has him acting almost as a point guard in the run game.
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Chris Graham
