UVA Football coach Tony Elliott was as surprised as the rest of us that his starting quarterback, Anthony Colandrea, decided on Sunday to go the transfer portal route.
“Unfortunate situation with AC. The intention was never, with the decision that I made, was never to get him to even entertain and think about the portal. You know, I was planning on, you know, him coming back and being the guy for us going forward,” Elliott told reporters on Wednesday, at a press conference held to discuss the 2025 high school recruiting class.
Oh, well, to that line of thinking.
Elliott benched Colandrea, Colandrea is gone, and now he has a glaring hole on a roster full of holes.
ICYMI
- UVA Football: Anthony Colandrea, no surprise, headed to the transfer portal
- UVA Football: Tony Muskett starting, Anthony Colandrea is backup tonight at Virginia Tech
- UVA Football: Get off Tony Elliott’s back, as if that’s the #1 problem
The 2025 class does include two quarterback prospects, three-star recruits Cole Geer (Deerfield Academy, Griswold, Conn.) and Bjorn Jurgensen (Bishop Moore Catholic, Orlando, Fla.), but things will have gone dramatically wrong if either has to be in the mix to be either the starter or backup next season, with neither expected to be enrolling in January, and thus being on Grounds to be able to take part in spring practice.
This leaves Elliott with one scholarship QB on his roster, for the time being, Gavin Frakes, who transferred in the 2023 offseason after starting five games as a freshman at New Mexico State in 2022.
I’ve been writing for a few weeks now, dating back to before Colandrea surprised us with his decision to hit the portal, that Elliott would need to comb the portal for a transfer QB, just to add depth to his QB room.
Now it would seem that he’s going to need to try to get two guys in off the portal.
“The biggest thing is, is trying to find, you know, two guys that want to come in and battle, you know, may be difficult,” Elliott said. “You’re still trying to figure out who’s all going to be available. So, I think it’s going to be determined by, you know, who’s available, and kind of, what the parameters are around for securing those guys. But we’re definitely going to be aggressive, you know, not just at quarterback, but in other, you know, positions of need this cycle, in the portal.”
I expect that the uncertainty around, everything, was what factored into Colandrea’s decision to bolt.
It would seem neat and clean to assume that Colandrea is headed out the door because he’s butthurt over being benched for the season finale with Virginia Tech, but it’s also reasonable to assume that the kid looked at next year’s roster, with glaring holes all over the place – the whole thing screams rebuild – and decided that it would be better for him, personally, to hit the road.
“This decision was not made lightly, but I believe it is the best step for my academic and athletic future,” Colandrea wrote in a message posted to social media on Monday. “This program has had a tremendous part in shaping me into the player I am today, and I am incredibly grateful for the experiences and opportunities I have had with my current team who have become my family. I especially want to express my gratitude for my coaches, teammates, the staff, and my family for their unwavering support.
“I am forever grateful for the opportunity I was given to play at a collegiate level, and am excited about the possibilities that lie ahead. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, but I am looking forward to finding a new program where I can continue to grow and achieve my goals,” Colandrea wrote in the message.
I’m not blaming Anthony Colandrea for looking out for #1.
I’m thinking of hitting the portal myself, to see if there’s another football program to start writing about, so that I can continue to grow and achieve my goals.
“I wish AC well,” Elliott said, in a kindhearted message for his QB that he would no doubt not feel for me if I were to leave.
Wouldn’t blame him there.
I’m not in the business of making his job easier.
“He’s leaving here in good terms, so there’s no bad blood, from my perspective, but you know, it’s just unfortunate that the intent was not for AC to leave the program,” Elliott said. “I was excited about, you know, getting back to work this offseason and helping to get him to a place of getting his confidence back at the highest level. Also, I knew that I have a responsibility this offseason to go put some more pieces in place around him, but unfortunately, we’ll be doing that with a with another veteran quarterback through the portal process.”
Given the limitations that Elliott faces in terms of being able to recruit the portal, he’s likely looking at one-year guys – specifically, grad transfers, since he’s not able to get juniors through the admissions office.
He’s not going to need developmental QBs, because he has two of those from the 2025 signing class.
“Cole, very, very good athlete, and unfortunately, you know, had the hand injury this season, so it was cut short. But, man, the guy’s out there trying to go play receiver, do whatever he can for his football team with a broken hand. And so, you know, the athleticism, the competitor, that’s what we fell in love with in the beginning. So, excited about him,” Elliott said of Geer, a 6’1”, 205-pounder, who has a four-star rating from ESPN, and a three-star rating from 247Sports, and had offers from Boston College and Virginia Tech, among others.
“Bjorn was a guy that we got on a little bit later in the recruiting process, because we knew we’re going to take two in that class, you know, being the current situation at that time. And then he had a monster season down there in Florida. And really, I think we had to work hard to keep, you know, some of the bigger guys off of him, so to speak. But super excited about him,” Elliott said of Jurgensen, a 6’3”, 195-pound kid who had offers from East Carolina, JMU, Liberty and Florida Atlantic, among others.
This is good in terms of succession planning at QB, which is something that the Elliott regime hadn’t seen a lot of.
For the planning to pay off, Elliott is going to need to find a way to win some games in 2025.
Share
Chris Graham
