Gaffney was a special teams contributor and played sparingly from scrimmage (nickel back?) this past season.
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That 18 class turned out to be pretty underrated at the time. A lot of teams that overperformed their historical level in 2023 were relying on a lot of 6th years who entered college in 18. Think Michael Pennix.
Our class was ranked 59th on the 247 composite, but we got some good years from some guys.
Bryce Perkins
Brennan Armstrong
Noah Taylor
Perris Jones
Coen King
Grant Misch
Bobby Haskins
Aaron Faumui
Billy Kemp
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I liked Bronco and I think he was a good coach for us. I think that recruiting was ticking upward into the mid 30s and heâd identified some good transfers to fill roster holes. It seemed like local high school coaches were starting to warm up to him a little bit after seeing him around for years. He had a specific defined strategy of recruiting kids from academically tough private schools that could thrive at UVA and some of those kids were under the radar finds due to poor competition or lack of exposure. We wouldâve been a consistent 6 to 8 win team going bowling most every year. Who wouldnât kill for that after seeing the past 2 seasons?
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And as I wrote that message, I saw a notification that New Mexicoâs expected to hire Bronco.
Man, if he thought UVA was a rebuild and wasnât happy with our lack of a dedicated football facility, heâs in for a treat. At least heâs not dealing with the guns, harassment and other stuff at the school across the state.
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As I wrote in another thread New Mexico feels very on brand for Bronco. He can hang out there forever and be as quirky as he wants and no one will care. Thereâs 0 expectations. Stil local enough to tap into the LDS community.
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Thatâs awesome huge
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Robinson also. Surprised they put the teaser out there with no writeup.
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Anthony Colandrea, QB, Virginia****
247Sports Rank: No. 45 QB
It wasnât the best year for true freshmen quarterbacks, but Colandrea provided Virginia some legitimate hope for the future. Colandrea finished the year with 1,958 yards and 13 touchdowns while completing 62.6% of his passes. He ranked 34th nationally in ESPNâs QBR metric. There were some squirrely moments â Colandrea threw nine interceptions and often put the ball in danger â but thatâs also part of charm. Colandrea is a risk taker, and he made far more big plays, especially down the stretch, than he did mistakes.
Kam Robinson, LB, Virginia
247Sports Rank: No. 24 LB
York [sic - Robinson] didnât begin the season as a starter, but he forced his way into the lineup by the start of conference play. That proved to be a boon for the Cavs as Robinson finished the year with 71 tackles, 4 1/2 TFLs, two INTs and one sack. Virginia suffered a big blow when it lost Nick Jackson to the portal last offseason. Robinson proved to be a more than able replacement.
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When they say it wasnât the best year for true Freshman QBs, Colandreaâs competition here was probably Dante Moore at UCLA, Jaden Rashada at Arizona State who were both bad and injured. UmmâŚJaden Raynor at Arkansas State who wasnât even ranked. And Brock Glenn who played poorly for FSU in the ACC Championship game. And Grayson Loftis at Duke who came in after Leonard couldnât play.
I canât really find any other true freshman QBs who played more than just mop up snaps or got stats in enough games to burn their redshirt.
Edit: Found another McCae Hillstead of Utah State.
Edit: Emory Williams played a couple games (poorly) for Miami. Blake Murphy started 2 games for ULM.
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Which, by the way, should be a massive sense of perspective for UVAâs season. All across D-1, effectively every team avoided playing true freshmen QBs, even the 5-stars, because true freshmen QBs have zero business playing in competitive D-1 games, whether at a G5 midmajor or at a blue blood. That UVA had to start a true freshman half the season explains an awful lot about why we struggled to get over the hump in a number of close games.
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Totally agree and the experience hopefully puts us in a good position next season to close out games.
I went through the top 150 QBs by yardage and scanned 151-200 and this was all I found. QB 150 had about 800 yards passing and 200 had about 300 yards.
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Thatâs a rough list. Glad AC was able to stand out and above
Take a look again, both Robinson and Colandrea are in the photo.
Ah, yes. Thanks
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In addition to the Stanford transfer mentioned in the other thread, looks like we got a â25 linemen commit. 247 says he has offers from Eastern Kentucky, FSU, Kentucky, and Missouri:
https://twitter.com/jon_adair06/status/1735685508037038491?s=46&t=wRfIs4CU0QTS8-eiW2YsCg
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Lost an OL piece today tooâŚ
https://x.com/tapuvae1/status/1735737816074592344?s=46&t=BborzeYVjI_-zdz6KbhRWg
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Was always mildly surprised he committed here post-Bronco, and am grateful he stuck it out for 2 years. Wish him luck.
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