The Anthony Colandrea that we saw in Saturday’s 45-17 loss to Georgia Tech wasn’t anything resembling the same guy that we saw back in September.
That Colandrea averaged 303.7 yards passing in his three starts, leading Virginia to a pair of near-misses in losses to JMU and NC State, with the big issue with his play being turnovers – six INTs and a lost fumble.
The true freshman, pressed back into action on Saturday when Virginia’s starting QB, Tony Muskett, went down with a high ankle sprain on the first series of the game, threw a TD pass on his first series to give the ‘Hoos an early 7-0 lead, then played like a true freshman most of the rest of the way.
Colandrea would go on to finish the day with decent counting numbers – 21-of-37, 200 yards, two TDs, one INT, one lost fumble – but the numbers were a mirage.
The young QB was 10-of-13 for 95 yards and an otherwise meaningless TD in the final 10:57 of the game, after Georgia Tech had opened up a 38-10 lead and began substituting rather liberally on defense.
The Virginia offense, after the score on Colandrea’s first series, had just a field goal and a missed field goal to show for their next eight possessions ahead of garbage time, which included four three-and-outs and the fumble on a third-down run near midfield.
From the press box, it looked a little that maybe Colandrea wasn’t 100 percent prepared, which would be understandable, given that head coach Tony Elliott had been making clear to reporters in recent weeks that he hoped he would be able to redshirt Colandrea, meaning Colandrea wouldn’t see the field for even one more snap this year, because he had already played in the upper limit of four games.
The other thing I noticed: that Colandrea’s confidence, and offensive coordinator Des Kichings’ confidence in Colandrea, seemed to take a big step back after an ugly-looking play on the QB’s second offensive series.
On a third-and-12 from the UVA 29, Colandrea seemed to zero in on wideout Malik Washington, who was running a buttonhook, but was grabbed and clutched by the Georgia Tech defender in coverage.
No flag was thrown, but the play was blown up, and Colandrea scrambled in the backfield toward the UVA sideline to try to buy some time, before he flung maybe the most ill-advised pass into the air in program history.
LaMiles Brooks picked off the wounded-duck throw, but a facemask penalty on Georgia Tech negated the INT.
That drive would end with a long missed field goal, and after, the play-calling went vanilla, and Colandrea seemed to be a little gun-shy.
Elliott, talking after the game with reporters, went out of his way to stand up for his guy, who might need to be his guy going forward, pending what the medical and training staff have to tell him about Muskett’s status in the next couple of days.
“What happened is, right out the gate, tried to do a little bit too much, you know, trying to force some things, and again, he hadn’t played in four weeks, and you know, he’s preparing and preparing and preparing, and he’s a competitor, and he wants to go and find a way to help his team win. Just, you know, made some mistakes that he’ll learn from, get better from, and move forward. So, not going to say that it’s on Colandrea, because it’s a collective effort all the way, starting with me all the way through everybody, we got to do a better job of preparing to the standard, so that we can play to the standard,” Elliott said.
Good work there managing the media from Elliott, who has a short week this week with Virginia’s next game coming up on Thursday at nationally-ranked Louisville.
Muskett was on the sidelines in a walking boot after his injury on Saturday, and it might be a stretch to get him through treatment for what is at the least a high ankle sprain and also have him go through game prep for Louisville.
“We’ll discuss that as a staff,” Elliott said after the loss on Saturday. “I don’t know what the severity is with Muskett, you know, they’re preliminary saying high ankle sprain, and so I don’t know, the timetable on that. I know that he got taped up and tried to go, and that’s why you saw us go with Grady (Brosterhous, the third-string QB), because they said, Hey, he might be five minutes, and so hey, let’s play Grady until we knew for sure. And then once he got taped up and put his shoe back on and tried to put pressure on, he wasn’t able to go, and so that’s been the plan all along. And we articulated that to Colandrea, and he was good with it, and he understood. So going forward, we’ll see what the health of Tony is, and then make that determination.”
The loss on Saturday, the seventh in the 2023 season for Virginia, took a major team goal – qualifying for a bowl – off the table.
There’s still a lot to play for – building some positive momentum heading into the offseason that could help with recruiting, getting some work in for young guys like Colandrea who will be expected to compete for spots as starters and on the two-deep, trying to play spoiler in the upcoming games with Louisville, Duke and Virginia Tech.
Specific to Colandrea, the burning of his redshirt ratchets up the pressure on the staff to get him in position in the spring to compete for the QB1 spot, since he’ll have just the three years left to be the guy to build around that he seemed to be earlier this season.
Elliott, in his previous stop as the offensive coordinator at Clemson, was able to mentor some pretty good young quarterbacks, guys like DeShaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence.
Asked by a reporter what he saw from Colandrea on Saturday, he answered: “I saw a little bit of progress.”
“We’ll just keep coaching him through it,” Elliott said. “I’ve been in a situation with a quarterback through a bunch of interceptions, and you kind of want to, you know, teeter on, you know, if you coach him down too much, you take away what makes him special. So, we got to get him to understand the appropriate balance.”
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Chris Graham
