UVA Football: Elliott made the right call going with Colandrea at QB

UVA football has a starting quarterback Tony Elliott on Saturday uh through a press release announcing that Anthony kandria will be the starter uh in the uh game on Saturday night the season opener with Richmond and uh that's a surprise let's just say um we the indication we'd been given going into training camp a few weeks ago was that Tony musket last year's week one starter uh was the uh heavy favorite and this is from I just say talk from around the coast coaching staff that musket had done a lot of hard work uh in the spring and in the summer uh and and had emerged as as the go-to guy to a point where even the fact that when you know UVA football went down to the ACC football kickoff last month in Charlotte Tony Elliott brought along Tony musket to help represent the program as one of the three student athletes representing the program so interesting that that's the case um the two the two guys had identical almost identical numbers last year candry a 62.4% completion rate an 87.5 NFL passer rating uh and um now he he threw for 12 touchdowns nine interceptions he had more snaps because even though both guys started six games uh musket only played two Series in the Georgia Tech game before going down to an angle injury that's the one that ended his season in I believe that was in early November um and so uh kandria ended up with 193 yards 12 touchdowns n ints kandria if you're thinking that they're equal I mean I I guess I can see this point Scott German for Augusta prepress making this observation in a column today uh and actually he and I discussing things the last few days on the phone uh made the similar observation that if the guys were close maybe that would tilt things in the direction of Kanger who's a sophomore with three years of Eligibility including this year left whereas musket a fifth year senior this is his last year as a college player I have been leaning on the side of hey musket as a fifth year uh if if it's close or if he's deemed you know slightly better whatever the case may be start him uh candria then gets you know if if musket plays well and doesn't get injured candria then gets to develop even more from a practice standpoint without using this year of Eligibility then you got him for three years after this year kind of to me that was the best of both worlds but I can see the point that if they're close you know go with the young guy because he's your future and actually the future is a lot now for for Tony Elliott he's six and 16 in two seasons that two three- win Seasons he may he may be thinking too with this decision I'm the future for me Isn't guaranteed I need to win some games this year to have a future at Virginia and that's very much a possibility kandria came in last year and if you remember I got I got myself in some trouble by suggesting again from word that had gotten to us from members of the coaching staff last spring that um there were questions about musk's uh you know ability to fit into the offense whether or not he was the guy they really wanted to have in place um kandrea was just a true freshman but I remember seeing him in a spring game last year and saying man that kid looked like he ran the offense better than the guy who's been in college for four years I don't know that I wouldn't think about starting that kid I got got a phone call uh some emails from h s and UVA athletics uh telling me to bug her off basically um and then kandrea went in and played pretty well uh in fact his first career start week two because the first time that uh musket got injured was late in the week one loss down in Nashville to Tennessee got injured on on a sack in the fourth quarter in a blowout game um and had to miss the next three weeks so in kandra's first start the home opener against JMU uh The Freshman was 20 of 26 377 two TDS and a 3635 loss that should not have been a loss Virginia had that game uh in hand uh late there was a weather delay there was the famous issue with um Tony Elliot saying afterwards that weather delay was about an hour um there were thunderstorms in in the Charlottesville area that delayed the game Virginia was up by I want to say it was a 10-point lead and uh just just Jam you came in the locker room scored two touchdowns took the game over it was an 11-point lead was 3524 Jamie went for two after each of their touchdowns didn't get um but uh you know Virginia at Virginia came out flat and after the game Tony Elliott made the comment that the hard part of for for him and the coaching staff in the locker room was keeping his kids off the phones I wrote a I wrote that in a column uh you know use that as a critical point and then I got listed by uh the guy who's now color commentator on the UVA radio broadcast who got his army of minions uh whipped up in a frenzy on social media at me one guy even threatening to come to my house and then then that guy got pushed into the color commentator role so that's how things roll at UVA um kry had one other 300 yard passing game uh and that was in the loss to Louisville uh in November uh a game that Virginia LED going into the fourth quarter uh and he had 314 yards in a TV in that game a week later than kandria LED Virginia to an upset of Duke and he threw for 278 and three TDS no ints in that game kid looked pretty good down to stretch not so good in the Virginia Tech game nobody on the Virginia side looked good in that game uh again musket had come into training camp as the favorite in six starts in 2023 the mon withth transfer had a 62.7% completion rate 82.5 NFL passer rating again very comparable to calandria's numbers uh as far as the the the rates go so um so you know what I one thing I reported on around this as well when this came out on Saturday we reported on the internal frustration that had gotten back to us over Elliot dottling on his QB and the concern from the coaching staff that got to us was that uh if it was this close and you were going to make a decision because you have to make a decision um eventually um why not make it sooner just so that the guy who would be the qb1 would get more snaps you know when it was really a 5050 thing each getting each guy getting 50% of the snaps for the first team offense up until um as as of the end of last week uh you know maybe retarding the development perhaps of whoever candry in this case would be the number one guy uh just in terms of you know not only working with the first team offense but also working against primarily the first team defense that was the a big concern that was related to us and um so you know there were there you know there was there was some you know ill feelings internally about not making a call Sooner maybe a couple weeks out uh from the end of training camp just to again to give that the guy who would get the job uh more ability to build rapport with with the uh the first team offense and and I pointed out in the column that this is an issue that really has been an issue for UVA football dating back to the end of the AL grow era I remember I was sitting in the Press Box when Kevin mccab who was a highly touted recruit coming out of high school uh had a he threw an inter reception ear in an early season game it was like akan or something like that and and Mike roow at this time I was still I'm actually going to still I'm sure I haven't moved up it was in 2006 I guess it was um yeah it would have been 2006 season uh I was sitting I was getting ready to say I was sitting right there next to the coach's box in the Press Box and I'm still sitting there you know the cool people get to sit in the middle Scott and I they threw us down on the side at least we're in the Box I shouldn't complain because they they could they could not decide not to do that and give us credentials but anyway Mike Ro was the offensive coordinator for his father Alro and you know you see look down on the sidelines you can see Kevin McCay pick up the phone after the interception we could hear Mike Row uh very loudly and they have since now put the in year since put them you know we're on the end of the media uh open air press box and then there's box to our right and then there's a box to its right um it used to be that the radio people were on the far right and the coaches were right beside us Common Sense prevails now and the the the coaches are on the far right and and the media the radio people are right besid us so but back then we could hear Mike Row uh say to Kevin mccave you're done and he didn't play the rest of that season he went to a division 2 School uh put up record numbers there got drafted you know played pro football for a while most he he was uh in Camp a couple years with NFL teams uh put up some numbers in the arena league but we got stuck with J Su nothing against J Soul the UVA gr I shouldn't say got stuck with but you know aside from that one year with the five one or two or three point wins in the year that Virginia won nine games the soul era was not one of the eras that we brag about uh in UVA football Mark Vera got some time during that era the Mike London era was uh six years of indecisiveness London won eight games of Michael Rocco in 2011 then he put Rocco in a competition with Philip Sims in 2012 uh he won eight games with Rocco he won four games in 2012 with the two guys going back and forth and then there were three more losing seasons in 2013 2014 and 2015 with guys like David Watford Grayson Lambert and Matt Johns at QB the one guy who got it right for the most part was Bronco minhal he went with CT binker for two years Bryce Perkins for 2 years the Bryce Perkins era then allowed for Brennan Armstrong a recruit to come in hold the clipboard for a couple of years get better through study and practice and development and then Armstrong was quarterback for two years in fact he ended up being quarterback for three years one year after Mena left um and so bronos is the one coach in the last 20 some years to get it right uh and unfortunately it feels like looks like uh Tony Elliott uh is is dooming himself by not being able to decide just like Al gr just like Mike London um to a point where today in his press conference his weekly press conference on Tuesday um he went full bore we need both guys to be able to win games both guys being cander and musket hopefully that doesn't signal that he's going to do a rotation of any sort you know just have candry be technically be the starter and and then go from there uh with you know shuttling back and forth and seeing who has the hot hand all that crap you know they all saying about two if you have two quarterbacks you don't really have one could apply there so we'll hope that changes we'll have more from um Tony Elliott's press conference from today uh previewing the UVA Richmond game coming up on Saturday night uh Scott German has a column up already this evening and then I'll be writing some more tomorrow and Thursday getting everybody ready for UVA Richmond o'clock Eastern time kickoff I believe that game's probably on it's either on acc Nation X it there might be I don't want to say for sure but somebody might pick it up on your mainstream cable otherwise you're reduced to watching it on the internet uh unless you know there's plenty of tickets still available I'm sure I don't know if I expect 40,000 for Eva Richmond in year three of an arrow with a coaching staff that's won three games each of the last two seasons so uh if you want to buy tickets are probably going to be pretty cheap unfortunately but in any case uh if you have any questions for me any comments any observations anything you want me to look into story ideas that kind of thing please email me at Chris austa freepress.com