UVA Football coach Tony Elliott has clearly had enough of you idjits who didn’t call the plays for Deshaun Watson or Trevor Lawrence as Clemson was winning natties trying to tell him who to play at quarterback.
“You know, everybody’s, you know, got an opinion, you know, they got, they got, they got an answer. Don’t necessarily have all of the details in front of them. And you know, same thing, you know, quarterback-wise, you know, everybody wants to yell for the backup quarterback, but I got to be fair, right?” a clearly defensive Elliott told reporters after his team’s 33-7 loss to #12 SMU on Saturday.
A week after benching starting quarterback Anthony Colandrea, after Colandrea threw three INTs in the final 2:57 of the first half of the 35-14 loss at Notre Dame, Elliott went back to Colandrea as his QB1 for SMU, and stayed with the sophomore as the UVA offense sputtered its way to 173 total yards, and Colandrea ate nine – count ‘em, nine – sacks.
A lot of that, to be direct about it, was on Colandrea, who clearly went overboard on the coaching having him conscious of being careful with the ball afte the three INTs last week, and decided to err on the side of extreme caution.
The O line deserves its share of the criticism, but let’s be fair here – if the quarterback doesn’t trust his receivers to run their routes and himself to be able to get them the ball downfield, and instead checks down or takes off running before a play can develop, none of it is going to work.
That’s me, a member of the unwashed masses, coming at you with that assessment.
I mean, I don’t even play Madden.
Elliott threw everybody else under the bus after the latest offensive debacle, but he defended Colandrea like flesh and blood.
“You know, everyone’s going to talk about the quarterback situation, but again, when you got nine sacks, you’re not protecting the quarterback,” Elliott said. “He’s getting to the top of his drop, you know, it wasn’t just the offensive line, the running backs, we got some young running backs in there that turned some guys loose, and it was, it was tough. And, you know, got to figure out who gives us the best shot, you know, but at the end of the day, whoever is your quarterback, he’s got to have help from his supporting cast, you know, all the way around, from guys on the perimeter making plays, to guys protecting, and then we got to establish a running game to make us not one-dimensional.”
The punter, Daniel Sparks, had a good day, I’m non-sequituring here – three punts of 50+, averaged 47.6 yards per.
Elliott didn’t throw Daniel Sparks under the bus, is what I’m trying to say, and he’s probably the only guy, other than Colandrea, to escape the coach’s wrath.
You don’t go out of the way to brag on your punter.
Me, guy who doesn’t play Madden, so take this for what it’s worth, but I think what Sparks put on tape today with those seven punts might just get him a job on Sundays.
I don’t know about Anthony Colandrea in that respect, and before you @me to tell me to lay off on criticizing the kids, they’re getting paid now.
Love his moxie, he gets up after every sack that he eats and is ready for the next snap, but, man, if he hasn’t regressed from where he was this time last year, at the end of his freshman season, he’s at least not showing any signs of progress.
In the three games coming into Saturday, Colandrea was 40-of-73 through the air for 368 yards, one TD and seven INTs, and he hadn’t completed 60 percent or more of his passes since the Week 4 win at Coastal Carolina, which feels like forever ago now.
That last stat is no longer valid – Colandrea was 18-of-27 through the air on Saturday, which comes to a 66.7 percent completion rate.
Problem being, the passes gained a total of 108 yards – so, 6.0 yards per completion, 4.0 yards per attempt.
No INTs, and no passes that were really close to being intercepted.
But with no risk comes little chance of reward.
Tony Muskett, the backup, last year’s Week 1 starter, who was in and out of the lineup with shoulder and ankle injuries, didn’t get on the field in this one.
On Tuesday, in his weekly presser, Elliott acknowledged that he was splitting the first-team reps between Colandrea and Muskett, with the idea being to evaluate the two with an eye toward who could get the team in position to get a win.
The decision was made on Friday, Elliott told reporters after the game today, and it didn’t sound like he gave a thought to making a switch.
“The plan was internal, and I mean, flow of the game, I throw Tony out there, we can’t protect Tony,” Elliott said, and here I need to acknowledge, I’ve had several people email and text about this quote, and what Elliott meant here.
The consensus from the cheap seats is that Elliott was protecting Muskett, and by extension throwing Colandrea to the wolves, but I don’t see that.
What I see isn’t much better – Elliott has said repeatedly as this season has progressed that he favors Colandrea over Muskett because he thinks Colandrea is more mobile, and thus a better fit given the issues with the offensive line, which one could interpret, and I do interpret, as him saying, Muskett is a statue back there.
Either way, not good.
Another issue here is, and this one’s obvious: Colandrea is a sophomore, and Muskett is a grad senior.
Implied here: if we sit Colandrea, and he puts his name in the portal in the offseason, we already know that Muskett is gone next year, and we go from having two QBs to having none.
Elliott talked around this part of the decision in his postgame.
“You know, it’s in fairness to either quarterback, I think it’s a tough, tough situation. Now, if it was clean pockets and missed throws, bad decisions, then I think you make a change, but I also know that you make a change, then that’s your permanent change,” Elliott said.
And Tony Elliott isn’t about to make a permanent change.
“You know, it’s my decision at the end of the day,” Elliott said. “I gotta make all the factors, and the last thing I want to do is create more disruption. Because we don’t make public announcements when we change out our right guard, when they’re splitting reps, or when we change out our tailback, they’re splitting reps. We try to keep the main thing the main thing, as much as we can.”
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve had about all I can stand of this.
Share
Chris Graham
