1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Will Anthony Colandrea Start from Day 1?: May 8th, 11:25am

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

Will Anthony Colandrea Start from Day 1?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Back to one-on-one with D.P. Sponsored by the Downtown Lincoln Foundation on 93-7 the ticket. On one-on-one with D-P on 93-7, the ticket. Once again, a reminder, Derek Pearson, D.P. is out covering the Nebraska softball tournament. I keep calling it Nebraska softball tournament because it might as well be the Big Ten softball tournament. But in our eyes, we're just obviously focused on Nebraska again, who doubled up, Michigan yesterday, four to two. They will play Indiana in the semifinals today at four o'clock in the end of the four seed.

If you were following along a little bit or maybe you haven't been, notable that Wisconsin beat Oregon the other day. So Oregon, the two seed is out. Wisconsin, the seventh seed will play UCLA. The winner of that game will play the winner of Nebraska in Indiana in tomorrow's championship game at 3 p.m. tomorrow on BTN. Also notable because UCLA, the only team that's beat. Nebraska in Big Ten play. So if they make it there, that certainly could be a little bit more interesting than we want it to be. But I mean, that's the storylines. That would make the best

for storyline purposes of Wisconsin wins. That would also be interesting storylines for the Big Ten. But yeah, I'd have more faith. Nebraska would beat them. But either way, obviously, it will be exciting and we'll get reports from DP out there. We've been talking about Nebraska football. kind of started off with recruiting because there's been a lot of recruiting news. But I didn't want to go to something that I talked about with DP the other day, which is the level of faith that you have that Anthony Calander is going to come in here at Nebraska and start. Now, I don't think that you hand him the job. Don't get me wrong.

As far as a coach, I'm not saying just, you know, don't let no competition, just give him the job, all that sort of stuff. But he probably is going to start off with the number one. starter snaps because of what they brought in with him. Now, D.P. was very, very much big gone. I think he kept saying he's what you know versus what you think, you know, right? And he's seen T.J. Lateef play against Big Ten competition. You haven't seen that against Anthony Calandra.

And I get that too, but there's got to be some level of projection. Again, when you're doing this, you don't bring Calander in. And, you know, he doesn't win the Mountain West player of the year to go be the backup at Nebraska and I'm sure he's getting paid a decent penny to come over here. Now that's not all that's going to decide again. If all that's considered, you go out there and T.J. Latif is by far better. Throw Daniel Kalan in there better than Kalandria running the offense, you know, and before you get to game one, then you start them.

But in my mind, Calandra is not only the right option for all those reasons that I pointed out, but I think the program needs it, right? I was big, and when they're going after Kenny Minto, it was like, oh, you know, and he might end up being a better quarterback than Calandria. I could be, I don't know. But in year four, where Nebraska's program is, I don't feel like you need a guy taking fresh snaps or a true sophomore quarterback that didn't fare well against the Big Ten and maybe a little bit hobbled,

whatever you want to put it. I thought they needed to go out there and get a veteran signal caller. They did. and they brought him in. So I'm going into this, not only thinking that Calandria is the starter, but thinking his skill set, to your point earlier,

is going to be heavily relied on to get the offense going at times. What is your thoughts about the quarterback competition coming in, Austin? Yeah, it's 95% plus Anthony Calandria. And that is, of course, injury, you know, related is really the only way I would foresee Anthony Calandria not being the starter. maybe there's been a big jump in in t j latif i don't think that anthony calandry would lose the starting

job just because the guy doesn't know how to play football you know i don't think nebraska would have mis-evaluated so wildly that oh gosh maybe he wasn't as good as what we already had in here and well have fun to be in a veteran presence anthony calandria um new kendle blue dropped i don't think that's you know yeah i don't think that's where where this is headed if anthony calandra is not the starter tj latif made some huge strides during spring that didn't really show during the spring that didn't really show during the spring game. It was really taken over as a leader in the summer and then, you know, puts the pedal to the medal in the fall. Don't foresee that happening. And necessarily, I was on the other side of the coin from you, though, Bach, because I thought with the extension

and the stability, relatively speaking, that it brought to Nebraska football, if there was ever going to be a time to have a true quarterback competition and to reset the roster, what you know, if you think you know about the roster, it would have been this year, which is why I was more excited for the idea of a Kenny Minci edition than the Anthony Calandria edition, big picture for the program. In a vacuum for this year, Calandra is probably the best option. But I think it would have been healthy for Nebraska to go through a true quarterback competition. The guy they have that they've seen a little bit in Lateef, that the Dana Holgerson, you know, didn't help recruit, but took a liking to some degree versus Kenny Minchie,

the guy he did. You know, the guy that's been a backup, Ben, you know, at a high profile school and been behind some pretty big names. What has he learned? Is he actually ready for his shot? I think that senior quarterback grow with the rest of your roster could have been good for Nebraska. Hey, let's see what the young offensive line has, how these guys work together.

Let's give Quinn Clark some run and not go recruit over him again in the transfer portal, unless these guys aren't as good as we're being led to believe they were at a high school. They haven't developed it the rate they need to, or it's a Band-Aid fix. And so I think Anthony Calandria is the starter when all said and done. I think it's going to be deserved. I just don't know if it's the direction that I would have gone, but it's on him. It's on Nebraska to prove me wrong, that it was the right thing, that they can maybe, you know, jump some steps in line and move up further than than I anticipate.

that they would because, yeah, it seems like T.J. Lath is the backup right now. He and Daniel Kalin battling for it and whatever role that is. I just think Nebraska could have prioritized a different approach at that position. Well, and again, they did consider that for a minute. And of course, got turned on by Kenny Minci there. But, yeah, it is interesting.

And, of course, everybody's going to have their difference of opinions. And I want to make it clear. Again, I think you have the competition, right? if you don't just let the highest paid guy get it, if that is indeed the case. But I, you know, and then the other thing I want to be clear, too, is I'm not writing T.J. Latif off.

I mean, certainly, I think whoever starts is probably going to get, with their reliance on the run game from the quarterback position a little bit, is probably going to have to take a few snaps off, if not possessions, you know, series, games, so on and so forth. And I think if that happens, which has happened most of the last few years for Nebraska, it's not going to feel like it did in rules first year. You know, it's going to feel more like it did last year where,

oh, Dylan Royal is out. Okay, we're going to the true backup. Not a, hey, these guys are neck and neck and we have to find time to rotate them in. Yeah, yeah. And I think, too, we always talk about it too, freshman to sophomore year, especially when you've got that experience under your belt like Latif did,

you can make that big jump. So I just don't want to sound like I'm any way anti-Latif because I think there is, potentially a place form, potentially, you know, using this season to make that jump, maybe potentially as the backup in the spot play that he gets. And then takeover as the start. I mean, I think that was part of the plan as well in Callander is that that could be the case down the line. And so, you know, I want to see that.

But just to just to be, again, quite clear, unless he did take a big jump, what we saw from Calander, or excuse me from Lateef last year, year, which was good in non-con, right? And then good in plays here and there when he, when he became the starter, but not good enough overall. I just don't think you're headed in, in a direction where what I was saying earlier, you're going to average more than 20, 25 points of game. 23.4 right now. 23.4 points per game. So, you know, that's kind of where I see it. I, I'm just interested in kind of how everybody else thought, because DP just kind of had a difference of opinion on that. Eric says, why does

Bach hate T.J. Lateef, thanks. That's exactly what I was trying to avoid, but you can tell that I was going in on that. 156-2 says 100% he starts the season. 10% he starts the last game, not because of injury. The turnovers are going to be catastrophic. We only took him because we couldn't attract a good quarterback.

He's a good quarterback. Yeah. The question is, can he move from a good quarterback to anything more? Because when we last saw Anthony Calendry at the Power 5 level, it was a bunch of interceptions. It was a bunch of turnovers. and I don't think Nebraska will be able to afford a bunch of turnovers. I think catastrophic is probably the right word for this offense.

But I do wonder, and this is not something we can necessarily quantify, is Anthony Calandria a better, quote, unquote, fit with Dana Holgerson in terms of personality, in terms of pushing the envelope. And when you look at, well, let's just take the quarterbacks by tenure, right, and by year. Jeff Sims, you know, the turnovers weren't necessarily because he was reckless, you know, Heinrich Harbord, the turnovers or sometimes lack thereof, was because of a lack of taking chances, still kind of new to the position and, you know, growing into it at the college level. Chappapurdy was the third trade for a reason, you know, again, where the turnovers because

they were too aggressive and going outside of what Matt Rule and Marcus Satterfield wanted to do, or it was just because they couldn't take care of the ball. I think it was that one. Dylan Ryola, the previous two seasons, were his turnovers because of being too aggressive? I don't think so. You know, I think Dana Holgerson would have preferred Dylan Iola, trust the arm, put the ball at risk a little bit more than he did, which is a little bit of a roller coaster ride. But I do think that there's some level of this intangible fit that Anthony Calandria seems to be willing to take the type of risk that Dana Holgerson has wanted to throughout the course of his career. And when you have a head coach that says, hey, we got to take care of

the ball, protect it like every team wants to do. Dana Hogerson saying, yeah, we want to avoid it, but it naturally comes with the style of play that I want to do. Now you have a course. quarterback that I think finally airs on the side of Dana Holgerson. And it's, I don't say two against one and pit him against each other. But you have more, more horses pulling in that direction than in Matt Rule's direction, where he had a previous group of quarterbacks that was maybe caught in the middle or more towards Rule's end of things. But again, it's Holgerson with the scheme.

It's Holgerson with the play calling, not Matt Rule. And I'm curious to see if that kind of intangible mental framework deal works in Calandria's favor and Holgerson's favor and ultimately in Nebraska. favor. Let's go ahead and take a break there. We've got more to talk about as we closed out the show one-on-one with DP coming next year, 93-7 the ticket. Watch live on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch. You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 93-7 the ticket and the ticket FM.com.