Correcting Colandrea’s mistakes a point of emphasis; UVA injury report

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Tony Elliott has coached some pretty good quarterbacks during his time at Clemson, and he’s sharing some of that knowledge in attempting to groom Virginia sophomore Anthony Colandrea into that winning mold.

Elliott helped guide Deshaun Watson, Trevor Lawrence, Tahj Boyd, Kelly Bryant and others to success for the Tigers. Watson smashed Clemson records and went on to the NFL. Lawrence was the NFL No. 1 draft pick in 2021. Bryant was 16-2 as a starter and Boyd made it to the pros.

What the UVA coach is hoping for is that Colandrea will absorb lessons learned from each game during the natural maturation of a quarterback. The sophomore leads the ACC in interceptions thrown and had two passes picked off in a loss to Maryland last Saturday night, plus fumbled away the ball down near the goal line.

Some of those mistakes are correctable, and Elliott wants to help his quarterback, who has played in only 11 college games, to learn from those miscues, keeping in mind that what makes Colandrea good can also backfire if mismanaged.

“You’ve got to help him balance it,” Elliott said Tuesday at his weekly press conference. “He and I just sat down and talked and really it was, ‘OK, what did you learn from the game?’ What he’s learning is that there’s some plays, man, you’ve just got to let them die, and some plays you want to keep them alive.”

Those decisions come via experience, something Colandrea doesn’t have a lot of at the moment. It takes time to figure those things out.

“If we tell him, ‘Well, don’t keep plays alive,’ then that takes away a lot of what makes him special,” Elliott said.

For instance, when Colandrea was intercepted on the second possession of the third quarter, just after Maryland had taken a 14-13 lead, he had thrown to the sideline, trying to get the ball to running back Kobe Pace. Yes, it was a mistake and one that the QB would like to have back.

However, as Elliott pointed out, a few plays before that, Colandrea was scrambling to keep the play alive and noticed wide receiver Malachi Fields had popped wide open.

“You want him to throw it [there],” Elliott said. “You’ve just got to coach him through it and as long as he takes ownership, which he will, there’s nobody that wanted to win that game more than AC, and there’s nobody that was more disappointed that we didn’t win the game than AC.

“We’ll use every opportunity to learn and present it to him and hopefully he receives it, responds the right way, which I believe he will, and you’ll see him improve.”

During the talk with Colandrea, Elliott told him a story about Watson as Clemson’s QB in 2016. That season, Watson threw 17 interceptions and still won the national championship for the Tigers.

“Hopefully as [Colandrea] continues to get experience, he’ll be able to self-reflect and say, ‘OK, this is where I did not maybe do the best job in preparation, so that’s an area that I want to go attack … and this was a decision that I shouldn’t make, so then what was I thinking, how do I correct it?’”

Elliott, offensive coordinator Des Kitchings and quarterbacks coach Taylor Lamb are constantly working with Colandrea to make him better, and the QB has already gone back to work to correct his mistakes.

“It’s a little bit different now when you’re the starter,” Elliott pointed out. “When you’re the backup, people give you a little bit more grace. Now, every mistake is going to be scrutinized and that’s why I shared experiences that I’ve had with other quarterbacks, because we expect perfection, but it can’t be achieved.

“There’s always going to be mistakes at every position throughout the course of a game. It’s just, do you have that desire to self-reflect, to figure out how you can get better so you can work on eliminating that mistake so you don’t make the same mistake twice?”

Elliott said Colandrea has responded in the manner he expected, with the right demeanor and body language, taking full ownership and maturing along the way, learning when to keep a play alive, when he needs to press and how to manage the starting job.

Injury Report

Elliott said that linebacker Kam Robinson, who missed the Maryland game, could be back this week for UVA’s game at Coastal Carolina (2 p.m. ESPN+). Robinson suffered a knee sprain in the second half of the Cavaliers’ win at Wake Forest the week before.

Starting right guard Ty Furnish was injured against Maryland and will not play against Coastal, which means Ugonna Nnanna will likely start. Elliott said that Furnish’s injury “was a little more serious that what I was initially thinking” after Saturday night’s game.

UVA will also be without offensive lineman Charlie Patterson, who will miss the game due to an ankle sprain. Another offensive lineman, Ethan Sipe, is still out with a broken bone in his foot.

Dre Walker, backup corner to Jam Jackson, is probable for Saturday’s game, suffering from an ankle/leg injury.

Reserve wide receiver Suderian Harrison will likely miss Saturday’s game due to a hamstring issue.