Elliott after pulling Colandrea: ‘I’m not turning this into a QB controversy’

By Jerry Ratcliffe

The last thing Tony Elliott needed this late in the football season was a quarterback controversy, and if it’s up to him — which it is — there won’t be one.

Virginia’s fan base, or at least a segment of them, will be calling for a change this week after starter Anthony Colandrea had arguably his worst game of his young college career in a 35-14 loss to No. 8 Notre Dame on Saturday.

The sophomore completed only 8 passes and was picked off three times by a ball-hawking Irish defense — all three interceptions coming within a 2 ½-minute span just before halftime — and two of the three leading to Notre Dame touchdowns, as UVA trailed 28-0 at the break.

Elliott pulled Colandrea at the half and inserted 5th-year backup Tony Muskett, the Cavaliers’ starter in 2023, in hopes of igniting something offensively, or at least to stop the bleeding. Muskett didn’t turn the ball over and scored Virginia’s only two touchdowns on runs of 18 and 2 yards.

Still, with his team needing one more win in its last two games (SMU, Virginia Tech) to become bowl-eligible, Elliott would prefer to avoid a controversy concerning the most important starting position on the roster. Does he stick with Colandrea or make a switch to the backup to satisfy cries from disgruntled fans?

“I’m not turning this into a quarterback controversy,” Elliott said after watching his team slip to 5-5. “It’s unfortunate. It was a game where, man, we needed a spark, and we felt like the right thing to do was to give Muskett [a chance].”

Certainly Colandrea was rattled by the Irish defense, ranked No. 7 nationally in total defense and the No. 1 unit in the country against the pass. Defensive coordinator Al Golden — once UVA’s d-coordinator under Al Groh — gave Colandrea fits the entire first half.

The Cavaliers’ offensive line couldn’t block the Irish pass rushers, putting the mobile sophomore under duress, while Virginia receivers either didn’t have the necessary time to get open in their patterns or simply couldn’t gain separation from Notre Dame defenders.

This turned a close game — UVA trailed 14-0 with 6:34 to play in the first half — into a potential blowout. Colandrea was picked in his own territory with 2:23 to go, Notre Dame returning the interception to the Cavaliers 2-yard line, followed with a TD only three seconds later, 21-0.

The Irish intercepted Colandrea again two plays later with 1:23 left in the half at the UVA 32 and scored in three plays, 28-0. Pouring salt on the wound, Golden’s defensive star, Xavier Watts, added a third interception with only 17 seconds to play in the half.

Colandrea was done, and so was Virginia. As Elliott said, suddenly his team was chasing four scores.

“We’re going to look at whatever gives us the best opportunity,” Elliott said about what lies ahead at the quarterback position. “I told AC (Colandrea) that it wasn’t anything that was final. It was just we’re struggling on offense and we need to see if we could find a spark.

“I think it was, at that time, the right thing to do. We’ll go back, we’ll look at the tape, we’ll evaluate it, we’ll discuss it as a staff before we make any decisions going forward. We were trying to see if Tony could give us [a spark].”

While Colandrea was clearly rattled and made some poor decisions, he has to own the performance. His 8-for-21 for 69 yards was abysmal, not to mention the three picks. Colandrea has thrown the second-most interceptions — 11 — of any ACC starting quarterback, and entered the weekend ranked 14th out of 17 QBs in the conference in efficiency.

Still, he has the ability to extend plays, as he did in Virginia’s upset of No. 18 Pitt a week ago when he was an integral part of the rushing game, picking up 40 yards on 14 rushes. Yeah, he was sacked six times, but Elliott said, not really, only one of those was the QB’s fault. Plus, Colandrea made some key passing plays against the Panthers.

Hey, it’s what you get with a swashbuckling playmaker. He can be brilliant or he can be a nightmare. It’s a roll of the dice.

We think Elliott will continue to take that risk.

At least one of Saturday’s picks was a lousy decision by Colandrea, but there’s that one quality that makes it difficult to bench him. As North Carolina coach Mack Brown identified a few weeks ago, “We knew Colandrea was what makes Virginia go. Stop Colandrea and you stop Virginia. He’s the head of the snake.”

“He’s been much improved and that’s what we’re going to focus on — the positive strides that he’s made — and evaluate the things that kind of went wrong in this game and make a decision going forward,” Elliott said. “I’m still a huge fan of AC and I hate it because it’s one of those situations where here we are, trying to find a spark on offense.

“I know he’s a competitor and he’ll take ownership, just as everybody in that locker room, because it wasn’t just AC. We had other turnovers and other plays in the game where all of us are going to want back.”