is Tony Elliott still hedging on what he's going to do at quarterback Chris gr here austa Free Press if it was close and it sounds like it was UVA football coach Tony Elliott probably should go with Anthony kandre as a starting quarterback kandre is a sophomore with three years to grow into the role and to you know become the quarterback of the present and future at UVA the guy that kandria beat out for the job Tony musk's a fifth year senior and musket and kandre had very similar numbers last year and you know again imagine just based on the descriptions from Tony Elliott uh and T and Dez kitchings the offensive coordinator from training camp this year it was a close battle not going to understand why again they put up such similar numbers last year uh and in both starting six games last year they both have a lot of experience running this system um but uh you know fair or not musk whose college career is over in a couple of months would need to be Head and Shoulders better than candria to get the starting job I think that's a fair assessment so here's what Elliot had to say in his two Tuesday press conference about the Battle these guys battled every single day it was extremely close and uh it came down to okay now we're going to look back at fall camp and every day every rep not just the live reps just the Reps away from the defense everything was evaluated and it was very very close so there you go I mean that's what that's what Elliott had to say now this is a decision that Elliott desperately needs to get right he's entering year three as a head coach and the old rule of thumb of the college football coach was you don't make a call in his tenure until he's had five years but with the money that uh is you know in college football being what it is now and Elliott not only coming off back-to-back three- win Seasons but UVA athletics telling us through a public records request that I did actually a couple public records requests that I did back in the spring and summer season ticket sales are a 30-year plus low there is no margin for error this year for Tony La and I've even brought up how the success that is anticipated for Brent pry down at Virginia Tech a Darkhorse candidate to be an ACC title game participant this year that might even put more pressure on Elliott I think it does now there was already a sense floating around with staff that Elliot should have made a call on his quarterback sooner to give whoever was going to be named the qb1 the chance to build more rapport with the first team offense in training camp to that point it's still sounds like Elliot's hedging and this is something that we picked up uh in the uh Tuesday presser and that's frustrating when you hear him say things like he did on Tuesday that quote everybody in that locker room and in our program understands we're going to need both of them we're going to need both those guys to go out and win football games that kind of makes it sound like kander is either on a short leash or that Elliott's thinking about building a game plan run shuttling kandria and musket into the lineup at different times in the game against Richmond tomorrow night and if you're thinking the latter is the case you wouldn't be disabused of that notion when you consider that Elliot seemed to further hedge in the presser saying where we're at right now is AC will be the first one to run out there against Richmond now he's saying first one to run out there against Richmond what's he saying there there please don't let that be the case that he's actually planning to run both of them out there in the next breath Elliot went on to say that the expectation is they continue to compete every single day because that's what's going to bring out the best version of each one individually and then collectively they're going to help each other put their best foot forward daily because they know their value I hope what Elliott's saying there is kandre is my guy but if he gets hurt hey we're lucky to have a guy like musket who has one games here as our backup and not what I'm afraid he's saying which is if kandra has a bad series a bad practice who knows maybe I go with musket best case scenario candria has a solid game in the opener Virginia wins comfortably musket gets a few fourth quarter snaps and mop up duty to execute a few handoffs and we start thinking about wig Forest worst case let's not even go there hey if you have anything for me please email me at Chris austa freepress.com