The Virginia football team added to its 2024 recruiting class on Monday when it secured a commitment from Florida prospect Tyler Simmons. He pushed the Hoos up to 12 commits in this cycle and continued an out-of-state string as the last 9 recruits have followed that trend.
Like some of the players that chose the Hoos last month Simmons visited UVA in early June, but he became the program’s first commit in July.
Simmons announced his decision on social media.
COMMITTED!! 🔶🔷⚔️
University of Virginia @UVAFootball @WPLakerFootball @CoachBsimms @Coach_TElliott @coachdowning1 @Rivals pic.twitter.com/4BuDl2EawY— Tyler Simmons (@tfootball_05) July 17, 2023
The 2024 dozen is made up of three recruits from Virginia (Ethan Minter/Thomas Dale, John Rogers/Episcopal, and Benjamin York/Yorktown), four from Georgia Chase Morrison/Roswell, Jaylin Lackey/South Gwinnett, Kevon Gray/Creekside, and Cedric Franklin/Kell), and five from other states (Christian Zachary/Calhoun County, South Carolina, KeShawn Adams/Avan Old Farms, Connecticut, Triston Ward/Deerfield Academy, Massachusetts, Grant Ellinger/Naperville Central, Illinois, and Simmons/Windermere Prep, Florida). For Simmons, he chose Virginia over offers from Miami, NC State, South Carolina, Northwestern, Kansas, Indiana, Appalachian State, and others.
The 6’4″, 260-pound rising senior became the first defensive line recruit for the Cavaliers this year. He played both defensive end and tight end for Windermere, but projects as a defensive tackle in defensive coordinator John Rudzinski’s scheme. Per MaxPreps.com, Simmons has recorded 45 tackles in his career to date for Windermere. While UVA does have some young prospects in the defensive line pipeline, this was an important positional pick-up for this class as Jahmeer Carter, Aaron Faumui, Olasunkonmi Agunloye, and some of the more familiar names at tackle are upper classsmen.
Simmons represents a strong athlete as a recruit. In addition to football, he competes in track and field for his high school with a 11.73 time in the 100-meter event and a 47-2.25 throw in the shot put. His father Brian Simmons played at North Carolina from 1994-1997 and was an All-American as a senior. He then went on to play in the NFL for 10 seasons after being a first-round draft pick by the Cincinnati Bengals. Tyler Simmons’ Hudl highlights for his junior season can be found here
