Tony Elliott Updates the Virginia Football Quarterback Situation

Matt Newton | 2 Hours Ago

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The question of the week for the Virginia football team is the starting quarterback position. Though the Cavaliers are 5-5 and knocked off a ranked opponent on the road just 10 days ago with Anthony Colandrea as the starter, the sophomore's quarterback play has left much to be desired recently, as he's thrown seven interceptions and just one touchdown pass over the last three games, culminating in a three-interception, zero-touchdown performance while completing just 38.1% of his passes last week at Notre Dame.

Tony Muskett, meanwhile, has performed well in his garbage time opportunities recently, managing the offense well, putting points on the board and playing turnover free in the waning minutes of blowouts. Muskett played the entire second half at Notre Dame on Saturday, leading the Cavaliers to their only scores of the day, a pair of rushing touchdowns for the former Monmouth transfer.

In his weekly press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Tony Elliott was barraged with questions about the quarterback situation and whether he's considering starting Tony Muskett over Anthony Colandrea in these last two games of the season as the Cavaliers hope to reach the six-win threshold required for bowl eligibility.

We've got the full transcript of Elliott's answers about Virginia's quarterback situation. Elliott talked about his evaluation of Muskett's performance against Notre Dame, the relationship between Muskett and Colandrea, Muskett's attitude and approach towards being the backup QB this season, assessing Colandrea's interceptions and Elliott's strategy towards getting him back on track, whether he is considering the future of the program as he ponders whether to make a change at quarterback, and his timeline for when he'll make a decision on who will start this Saturday against SMU.

Read Tony Elliott's full comments on the UVA quarterback situation below:

Q. After the game against Notre Dame you said you were going to evaluate how Tony Muskett did after watching film and see what steps forward. How did you evaluate him and his performance, and what are kind of the steps forward?

TONY ELLIOTT: I thought he did a good job, as he has done all year. He's prepared considering the circumstances. Each week he's owned the game plan and been ready to go. He gave us a spark. He found a way to help us move the ball and score some points. 

Just evaluating it, when you look at it, AC [Anthony Colandrea] had a bad - really three minutes in the second quarter. He had three throws I know he wants back, all trying to make plays. So just after evaluating it, did feel like obviously it opened up opportunity for Tony to have a chance to take a few more first team reps. 

I want to see how AC is going to respond. So far the week has gone well. They both have taken reps with the first team and just been going about owning the game plan. 

If we were to play today, obviously AC would run out there first. The week before he went up and won a road game and made some big plays in a top-25 matchup. He's put us in position to win a lot of football games. 

I think that, yes, he wants three throws back, but I still think that he reserves the right to have an opportunity to show how he is going to respond. So far he's done a really good job of things that we've asked him to do. 

But also, too, I think Tony has warranted more opportunity to prepare himself and to go compete for the job. So we're still looking at everything throughout the course of the week, but up to this point it's been good to see both of them go out and respond and do a good job getting the plan down. 

Q. Those guys [Colandrea and Muskett] have had a good relationship kind of throughout this whole thing over the last two years. How do you think that influences how they've competed, how they've played, and how they support each other when there's only one quarterback spot?

TONY ELLIOTT: It's tough because it's the quarterback position. You try to manage them the same, but a little bit different, right, because their responsibilities are different than anybody else on the team both on and off the field. 

But to see those guys, I think they made each other better, to be honest with you. Their relationship has made each other better. It's helped them to improve in the areas. 

That's what you need. You need somebody to make you better. So I've just been really proud of the relationship that they've been able to establish and how they've been able to maintain it and block out the noise. Hopefully they'll continue to do that. 

Unfortunately they're a lot like coaches in that they get a whole lot of credit when things go well, and they get all the blame, right? So learning how to manage that is difficult. So you've got to have a tight circle, and it's great that when you are able to have a tight circle with somebody else that understands firsthand what you're going through. 

So super proud of those guys, and I think that that's what's allowed them to get to this point, and we're going to need them. As I said from the beginning, we need both these quarterbacks to be able to go win. 

I believe in both of them because both of them have proven the ability to win football games for us. It's a delicate situation because it is the quarterback position, and generally you only have one guy in the game throughout the course of the game. 

It's also such a position about rhythm and timing. So that's part of the reason why we wanted Tony to get more first team reps working with the wideouts and the offensive line because he's got to be ready. If AC doesn't respond the right way, he's got to be ready to roll. 

That's difficult if you're not getting the same I guess speed of practice. Just super proud of them. I've learned a lot just watching those two, how it's supposed to be done, and I've said that from the beginning. I'll continue to say that and just encourage those guys to keep leaning on each other because it's brought out the best in each one of them. 

Q. Not always the case, but Tony Muskett has done a nice job of staying engaged, staying ready, and being positive. How impressed are you with his approach and how ready he is week in, week out?

TONY ELLIOTT: Yeah, it's what you would wish every football player would have, just that approach to not necessarily focus on the circumstance, but focus on what you can control and what you can control is your preparation. 

It's the attitude that you walk in the building with every single day. It's the attention to detail that you have in your meetings. Then it's also the investment away from the field to have yourself ready to play. He's been a great leader for us and even from a difficult position as technically the backup quarterback. 

You might even feel like it's hard to lead from that position, but the way that he's gone about his business, you can't help but notice and watch him. I think it inspires other guys, and that's the key. That's very difficult. 

That was part of the message to the guys today is doing difficult creates natural separation. I got that from a video and shared that video with them. That's why he is able to kind of separate himself because he's willing to do what's difficult, especially in a day and age where there's a lot of pressure to kind of take the easy route. 

Q. With AC's [Anthony Colandrea] interceptions, and I'm thinking about the Maryland one where he's on the sideline, could have run out of bounds and tries to pop it over the top, and then you mentioned this past weekend trying to make plays. Is that the common theme, or are there other things you are seeing, commonality?

TONY ELLIOTT: I think you got to look at each one. I also saw after the Maryland game there were a couple of instances where he didn't decide to throw the ball. As we sit down and look at film and in particular in the Pittsburgh game there was one where he's rolling to his right, and one of the receivers pops open way down field. I asked him, Well, why didn't you throw that ball? He said, Coach, I wanted to, but I was thinking about the situation, so I ran out of bounds. I can't remember if he threw it away or ran out of bounds, but he didn't take that shot. 

I think what happened in the game this past week is we're 7-7. We finally get some good field position, and we're driving. Kobe [Pace] pops a 14-yard run and a fumble. We had an opportunity to go 7-7. Well, then that turns into 14-0. Now you've got a young man out there that says, I want to go make a play for my team. 

The first one I know he probably wants that one back. He tried to force it with the safety sitting on the hash. The other one he's trying to make that throw to X [Xavier Brown]. Really I'm jumping on X too. It's, like, X, don't run back inside. When we coach our scramble drill, we get to the sideline, stay friendly with the quarterback, and don't go back inside to even entice him to throw that ball. That's probably the one there. 

Then the last one, again, we're in two-minute situation. He's trying to force the ball down the field. I think it was more of a situation of you have a young man in a game that he wants to make his impact.  The team is kind of out of sorts a little bit, and he's trying to go make a play. I think you look at each interception individually, but I saw progress from the Maryland game because we talked about that, and there were some instances where I saw the progress where he didn't force the ball and threw it away or made the required play. 

That one with X, I think he was just pressing a little bit because he wanted to go make a play for his teammates. You just have to stay disciplined. It's with every player, right? It's all across the board. 

When you look at the film, there's going to be situations where guys know exactly what they're supposed to do. It's just not quite -- that's football. That's why it's so hard because for 75, 80 plays, seven seconds at a time you just have to focus, and you have to focus completely on your job, your technique, your pad level. That's why you have guys that make a plan, don't make a play, right, because that momentary lapse, and it's happening fast. Sometimes you make a decision that it feels right in the moment, and then once you are out of the moment, you are like, yeah, that's probably not the right decision

Q. You have had a lot of quarterbacks in your career. When you have a quarterback who is having a slump like AC [Anthony Colandrea] is, seven interceptions in the last three games, what do you do as a coach to try to help him?

TONY ELLIOTT: You have to help him stay focused on his fundamentals. Keep encouraging him. Help him to just focus on taking ownership and what he can correct and then he just has to keep playing. 

I go back to 2016. You know, DW [Deshaun Watson] threw 17 interceptions in that season. He just throws a little rough spell, and I think Trevor's [Lawrence] sophomore year kind of there was a little bit of a stretch. You just have to keep playing and keep working. 

The difference I think in this situation is I guess the separation between those guys and the next guy was a lot larger than it is right now. So this is a much closer gap between the two quarterbacks that we've got. 

Also, too, just keep on responding, encouraging him to block out the noise. Don't listen to anybody on the outside. Just go back to work and the basics. Last thing you want to do is just scare him and have him fearful and indecisive, right? I know we have seven. One of those I felt like the ball should have been caught, so that was going to be a couple of situations where it's not necessarily on him, but he has to take ownership of the ones he can control and go back to work and just keep playing ball. 

Like a baseball guy, you just have to swing yourself out of a slump, but don't let yourself go into a further slump by just over-analyzing. Get enough critical analysis and then focus on what you can control, your fundamentals, and go play ball. 

Q. You mentioned that it's kind of a balancing act with that quarterback position. How do you weigh the future of the program, the offseason next year as opposed to what gives you the best chance to win on a specific Saturday. Thinking about AC’s [Anthony Colandrea] mental well-being.

TONY ELLIOTT: To be honest with you the future really hasn't factored into the decisions that I've made this week. I'm really focusing on trying to figure out how to win Saturday for these seniors and find a way to go out to Blacksburg to win next week. 

With the way college football is nowadays and the transfer portal and all of that, you'll fry a bunch of brain cells trying to think about what it's going to look like in the future. I believe if I'm fair and just and which I believe that a decision and how we proceeded this week is fair, you know, based off of kind of the body of work and where we are, that's really been the focus. Then once the season is over, we'll focus more on the future. 

I don't want AC (Anthony Colandrea) to be thinking about next year. I need him to kind of get back going. Again, you can see how it's not far because up at Pittsburgh, man, he made some plays. He made some plays. The one interception, it hits the receiver in the hands, right? So that ball has to be caught. 

The other one, man, it was a great play by that guy, but you know what, now that we look at it, schematically we probably could have probably helped him out. We brought the running back back across the formation, which traveled a guy back across with him, and it brought the linebacker into the throwing lane. 

Again, he's just trying to rip a ball down the middle and Malachi [Fields] was open. He didn't see No. 9 coming from the back side. 

So really it's been focusing on the right now and not necessarily thinking about the future because, heck, I don't know what the future is going to look like next year anyway. It's going to change, but really just trying to do what I believe is fair. 

I did the same thing for Tony [Muskett] in my opinion last year, right, because there was always the, Well, we got AC right there. If he misses a throw, put AC in. I love my backup quarterbacks just like everybody likes my backup quarterback, but I love my starter too. 

I have to be fair and just, and what I believe, okay, you had one quarter of football, but he's also put us in position to win games. We take the lead in the fourth quarter versus Louisville with a chance to win it with AC at quarterback. 

Those are more of the things that I'm factoring when I'm looking at where we are right now, and then obviously the outcome of this game gives me more information to make a decision based off of how we move forward after this game, but right now I'm just operating off of what I got right in front of me. 

Q. Just, again, with the quarterbacks, how late in the week do you feel comfortable making that decision? I guess, when do you kind of see that decision?

TONY ELLIOTT: I feel comfortable going all the way up until game time if need be, if it gets to that point, but like I said, if we played today based off the body of work, I believe that AC [Anthony Colandrea] deserves an opportunity to respond. 

It's tough because we're talking about the quarterback position, but you know, I think about the right guard position between Ty Furnish and Ugonna [Nnanna]. They split reps every single day in practice, and it goes all the way up until game time. 

X [Xavier] Brown and Kobe [Pace] split first team reps in practice, and there are several other guys in several other positions that I could call out. 

For me it's let's finish the workweek. We have tomorrow. We have Thursday. Then Friday is a prep day if we need to go, but right now, like I said, if we were to run out there, right now AC would have an opportunity to go out there and show everybody how he can respond because, again, there haven't been very many top-25 road wins. 

He's coming off of that, really three minutes of bad football right there in the end of the second quarter, which warranted Tony an opportunity to go in there and finish out the second half. But also, too, I look at his body of work. He's put us in position to win a lot of football games. Unfortunately we came up short in a couple, but we also have won a couple because of the position he put us in. 

That's kind of where we are. If that changes, then I'll be ready to make that decision at the end of the week. 

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