Expectations are already climbing for Anthony Colandrea, and he hasn’t even taken a regular-season snap for Nebraska yet.
Pro Football Focus placed the former UNLV and Virginia quarterback at No. 3 among Big Ten quarterbacks heading into the 2026 season, putting him behind only Ohio State’s Julian Sayin and Oregon’s Dante Moore. For a player who is about to make his first start for the Huskers, that’s a strong vote of confidence.
Colandrea arrives in Lincoln after a huge 2025 season at UNLV, where he was named Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year. The 6-foot, 205-pound Florida native helped lead the Rebels to a 10-4 record and put together the best numbers of his college career.
He completed 275 of 417 passes for 3,459 yards and 23 touchdowns, while also running for 649 yards and 10 scores. He averaged nearly 250 passing yards per game and more than five yards per carry on the ground.
That kind of production is a big reason Nebraska is banking on him to lift the offense in 2026. The last Husker quarterback to throw for more yards in a season was Joe Ganz, who passed for 3,568 yards in 2008. That Nebraska team went 9-4 and finished with a Gator Bowl win over Clemson, while Ganz set several single-season program records that still stand.
PFF’s grading backs up the buzz around Colandrea. He finished 2025 with an 89.9 overall grade through 13 games. That put him well ahead of former Nebraska starter Dylan Raiola, who finished the season with a 63.2 grade.
The two quarterbacks ranked ahead of Colandrea are no slouches. Sayin enters the fall after guiding Ohio State to a Big Ten Championship Game appearance and a College Football Playoff berth.
He threw for 3,610 yards, posted a 4-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio, finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting, and earned a 92.9 overall grade from PFF. Moore, meanwhile, turned in a breakout year at Oregon with 3,565 passing yards and 30 touchdowns, helped the Ducks reach the College Football Playoff, and finished with a 90.2 grade.
For Colandrea, the ranking reflects a career that has steadily moved upward. As a true freshman at Virginia in 2023, he produced 2,183 yards of offense and 13 touchdowns while the Cavaliers went 3-9.
In 2024, he improved to 2,402 total yards and 15 touchdowns, though turnovers remained an issue and Virginia finished 5-7. He then transferred to UNLV and delivered his best season yet.
Now Nebraska is asking him to do it again, only against a much tougher schedule in the Big Ten. If he gets anywhere close to last year’s production, he could quickly climb into rare company in Husker history. The upside is obvious, but so is the risk.
Colandrea enters his fourth college season with 31 career starts, and Nebraska is hoping that experience shows up in the biggest ways: better decisions, steadier leadership, and fewer mistakes. He also appears to have the best supporting cast of his career, at least on paper, since neither Virginia nor UNLV recruited at Nebraska’s level during his time there.
Husker fans got a brief look at him during the 2026 Red-White Scrimmage, where he went 12 of 19 for 80 yards with two touchdowns and one interception across four offensive drives. It was only a practice setting, but it still offered a glimpse of what he might bring to Dana Holgorsen’s offense.
The rankings only tell part of the story, but PFF’s evaluation lines up with what Nebraska believed when it brought him in through the portal. The Huskers think they have one of the Big Ten’s most capable quarterbacks. Colandrea now gets the chance to prove it.
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