Elliott defensive, and rightly so, over sticking with QB

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Well, here we go again. How many times has it all boiled down to crusty ancient rivals Virginia and Virginia Tech playing in the last game of the season to become bowl eligible?

Seems like everytime football fans in the Commonwealth have watched this scenario, Virginia Tech comes out on top. Heck, since Hall of Famer George Welsh graced UVA football, seems like Tech always comes out on top, because it has, especially when bowl eligibility is at stake.

So will be the case next Saturday night in frosty Blacksburg with an 8 p.m. kickoff compliments of the ACC Network.

While Virginia coach Tony Elliott spent the majority of his postgame presser talking about his quarterback situation (more on that momentarily), he didn’t leave the room until next week crept into the conversation.

Elliott was asked what the UVA-Tech rivalry meant to him. This will only be his second time against the Hokies (his first chance in 2022 was canceled because of the shooting tragedy) and last year’s humiliating home defeat to Tech left every Wahoo with a bitter taste over the past 12 months.

“What it means to me is, it’s not about me, it’s bigger than me,” Elliott said of the rivalry, which really hasn’t been much of a rivalry for the past quarter century. “It’s about everybody else it touches, and so rivalry week, it’s not about how you feel. It ain’t about anything other than I got a responsibility to do my best, because there are a lot of people that are counting on me … that this game means a whole heck of a lot and we’re very capable.”

Elliott’s Cavaliers dropped to 5-6 on Saturday with a 33-7 loss to No. 13 SMU, which locked up a spot in next month’s ACC Championship game against either Miami or Clemson. It was the third straight game against a nationally ranked opponent for UVA.

The Hokies fell to 5-6 late Saturday night with a 31-28 loss at Duke. Tech played most of the game with third-team quarterback William “Pops” Watson after Collin Schlee was injured in the first half. Schlee was filling in for injured starter Kyron Drones.

Thus, another slugout for the Commonwealth Cup in a game that will leave one fan base on a year-long downer.

In between, Elliott has got to find a way to protect quarterback Anthony Colandrea, who was sacked 9 times by a fierce SMU pass rush. Coming into the game, Virginia was ranked No. 122 out of 131 FBS programs in sacks allowed with 33. Saturday’s toll puts the Cavaliers at 42, near rock bottom.

Part of the problem has been an offensive line which struggled to protect its QBs last season. Part of it is running backs not picking up pass rushers, which was a problem against SMU when both of UVA’s backs — Kobe Pace and Xavier Brown — left the game with injuries, leaving inexperienced Noah Vaughn with a load of responsibility.

Part of the problem is Colandrea, because he still hasn’t learned when to throw the ball away, because he believes he can make something happen no matter how much pressure he’s under.

Sometimes it works — as in extending a play with his ability to scramble for a 12-yard gain and first down to tight end Tyler Neville in the second quarter; and late in the game when on fourth-and-goal, he scrambled forever, dodging SMU’s blitz, to miraculously find Malachi Fields in the back of the end zone for Virginia’s only touchdown — and sometimes it doesn’t.

The sacks drew some boos from certain fans. The sacks drew some heat, directed at Elliott, in the postgame press conference. Elliott stuck to his guns, essentially telling critics that they’re not there every day in practice and that he was trying to protect backup Tony Muskett, who isn’t as mobile as Colandrea.

True dat. Muskett would have been a sitting duck for SMU’s premiere pass rush. You think 9 sacks were bad?

Yes, Muskett does have a quicker release, but that doesn’t mean a thing if the pass rush arrives when you’re just planting your feet in your dropback.

“You know, everybody’s got an opinion, they’ve got an answer,” Elliott said in a defensive manner. “Don’t necessarily have all of the details in front of them.

“Everyone’s going to talk about the quarterback situation, but again, when you’ve got nine sacks, you’re not protecting the quarterback. He’s getting to the top of his drop, it wasn’t just the offensive line, the running backs, we’ve got some young running backs in there that turned some guys loose, and it was tough.”

Elliott said he and his staff have to figure out who gives the offense the best shot, but whoever it is, Colandrea or Muskett, the QB needs help.

The last two weekends, Virginia hasn’t been able to block the pass rush, hasn’t been able to establish a running game, which makes the offense one-dimensional, which allows the pass rush to pin its ears back and come after the QB. Not only does this take away the play-action part of the offense, but doesn’t give receivers time to properly run their routes.

Speaking of which, the more man-to-man coverage UVA’s receivers get from quality defenses, the less separation they’re getting from their defenders. That means Colandrea or Muskett are forced to throw the ball into a tighter window.

With deep threat Trell Harris missing most of the season and with speedster Chris Tyree not making the impact that most expected, opposing secondaries have been able to focus their coverages on Fields, who can’t do it alone, and tight end Tyler Neville, who is a good possession receiver but doesn’t have breakaway speed.

This is quite the conundrum for Elliott and his offensive staff. What else can they do?

“It’s a tough, tough situation,” Elliott confessed. “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.”

That’s a change that Elliott wasn’t willing to risk.

“You know, it’s my decision at the end of the day,” the coach said. “I’ve got to 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 as much as we can.”

Yes, Elliott has been giving both QBs reps in practice, but he and his staff evaluate the two every day. They also scout the other team to see what’s coming. What was coming from Notre Dame and SMU were two of the nation’s best defenses, both having a goal of making it a long day for whoever was Virginia’s QB.

“The plan was internal and I mean, flow of the game, I throw Tony out there, we can’t protect Tony,” Elliott reiterated.

Until the staff can figure out a better way to protect Colandrea, nothing is going to change. They can design more moving pockets, rollouts, or they can max protect and send out fewer receivers, especially if Harris returns to action this week as expected.

Until then, get off Elliott’s back. He works with these guys every day, knows their limitations, knows what the defense will bring. I’m not sure that even Nick Saban would have a better answer in this limited situation.