Daniel Kaelin was the first QB that signed with Virginia out of the transfer portal in December, and we were told at the time that the former top Nebraska recruit was a seven-figure NIL guy.
But he’s also still a redshirt freshman, who going into UVA’s Week 11 game with Wake Forest had gotten snaps in four games, all but literally one of them in garbage time at the end of blowouts – and that other one, the final play of the OT win at Louisville last month, he was as a decoy on a direct snap to tailback J’Mari Taylor, who took the wildcat snap in from a yard out for the walk-off TD.
ICYMI
There’s no way to get meaningful game action other than to just get it.
And when it comes to getting meaningful game action at the QB position, those opportunities only come up if the starter gets hurt, or is grossly ineffective.
It was the former that got Kaelin on the field last night.
“There’s some nerves there, obviously,” said Kaelin, who had warmed up in the bullpen, so to speak, early in the 22-20 win over Washington State on Oct. 18, when the starting QB, Chandler Morris, reaggravated a left shoulder injury, but was ultimately able to remain in the lineup for the remainder of that one.
We also saw Kaelin warming up on the sidelines after Morris landed awkwardly on his left shoulder after making a tackle on an INT in the third quarter of the 17-16 OT win over UNC on Oct. 25, but Morris was able to remain in that one as well.
The cheap double helmet-to-helmet hit that Morris took on a slide after a 6-yard run on a designed QB keeper in the second quarter of the Wake game did end up putting Morris down for the count.
Morris was on the turf for several minutes after the hit, then walked off, gingerly, under his own power, and was escorted straight to the locker room for further medical evaluation.
He returned to the sidelines in street clothes in the second half, but there was no way a guy taking two helmet shots to the head was going to be allowed to return.
Kaelin made an immediate impact, breaking off a 54-yard run on a keeper – not sure about the wisdom of having your backup run on a keeper on the same drive that you lost your starter to a cheap hit on a keeper, with the third-stringer being a true freshman with even less experience than your redshirt-freshman backup, but they don’t pay me six figures to make those calls.
That drive, though, would fizzle out in the red zone, and end in a field goal, as did a promising drive in the third quarter.
Kaelin also lost two fumbles that led to Wake Forest field goals, and after driving the ‘Hoos to the Wake 5 in the final 30 seconds, he was off-target on a third-down pass that didn’t allow his receiver to gain additional yardage needed for a first down, and the fourth-down play, with the clock ticking inside of 15 seconds to play, ended with what looked to be a throwaway – almost as if Kaelin wasn’t aware that the offense hadn’t, in fact, failed to pick up the first down.
The final statline for the frosh isn’t awful – 18-of-28, 145 yards through the air, 61 sack-adjusted rushing yards on the ground.
The final score was 16-9 Wake; just execute in the red zone on those two possessions, and have somebody from among the 11 guys who had a chance to tackle the guy on the 88-yard punt-return TD just before halftime, and Virginia gets the win behind a freshman in his first significant action.
We don’t know – and won’t know – the status of Morris for next week’s do-or-die game at Duke maybe until gametime.
ICYMI
It’s safe to assume that Kaelin will get more snaps with the first-team offense this week either way; even if Morris is given full medical clearance on Monday, which would surprise me, that full clearance would come that early, I would still expect the coaching staff to want to limit his run until at least the latter stages of the week.
The trial-by-fire that Kaelin just went through should begin to accelerate his development; a week as the QB1 in practice will only help him to that end.
“We’ve got all the confidence in the world in him,” starting center Brady Wilson said after the Wake game. “I’ve seen Danny play in camp, spring ball and everything. He balled out all the time. I mean, every time we see him come in, you know, obviously, you know he inspires us, because, you know, he’s the younger guy and makes us want to even play even better. So, you know, we’ve got all the confidence in the world in him.”
Head coach Tony Elliott echoed Wilson there.
“He gave us a chance to tie the ball game under a minute to go. So, man, super proud of Danny, to come in and give us a shot, right, like, ultimately, he gave us a chance to win,” said Elliott, who stressed, in response to a follow-up question, that offensive coordinator Des Kitchings didn’t have to dumb down the game plan for Kaelin once he was in as the QB.
“I wouldn’t say that the playbook was limited, because Danny takes reps, you know, every, every day in practice, you know, just like the just like the starters, and we alternate groups, you know, from time to time,” Elliott said.
“I think in a ballgame like that, man, you’re just trying to find whatever you feel like works within the playbook,” Elliott, a former play-caller himself, at Clemson, went on. “So, I don’t think you shrink the playbook, you know. I felt like we found some stuff in the quick game that he was getting a little bit of a rhythm with, getting the ball out of his hands, still trying to stay consistent with the run game, and it wasn’t, you know, producing as much as we liked early on. We found some big plays there later in the in the game. But, you know, I think in a game like that, you’re just trying to find, you know, whatever you can to spark the spark the offense.”
Watching the game from the press box, I assumed that it had to feel like it was going a million miles an hour for Kaelin, whose most extensive game action over the past two years at the college level came in the early-season blowout wins over Coastal Carolina and William & Mary, who, no disrespect, aren’t Wake Forest, which now has wins over two of the five teams tied atop the ACC Football standings with one loss in conference play.
The only way it slows down, eventually, is through game reps.
With last night’s experience, Kaelin knows better what he needs to do to step up his game.
“I prepare every single week for those types of moments and situations, so, felt pretty confident,” Kaelin told reporters after the game last night. “Obviously, you know, there’s a lot of things I left out there, that I need to improve on.”
Going forward: “It’s just about, you know, every single person on the offense, especially me in the quarterback room, just, you know, need to learn from this, and just attacking, you know, the next two games, you know, as hard as we can to improve.”
Support AFP
Share
Chris Graham
