Virginia Football Welcomes Signing Class Into Program

Virginia
Tony Elliott discussed the signees for Virginia football on Wednesday. ~ Photo by SportsWar

The Virginia football team welcomed 23 new signees Wednesday as the early signing day for college football rolled across the country. The Cavaliers pulled in the 61st ranked class for high school recruits nationally per 247 Sports.

The full list of UVA signees follows (* indicates a incoming college transfer – read more about the prospects by clicking on their names below):

The class breaks down as 19 high school recruits and 4 transfer players. Of those 23 players, 6 will be early enrollees in January including all the transfers plus two high school recruits, Colandrea and Gibson. The Cavaliers plan to slot 13 players on offense and 10 on defense from the signees.

Virginia coach Tony Elliott said the program is excited to add these players because they bring winning experience from their time in high school.

“What I like about this class is we got a bunch of winners,” Elliott said. “When you look at their combined record from a high school standpoint, 188-58 so they’ve got a 76% winning percentage as a class. Five of the young men were a part of state championship teams so really, really excited about that. Then we feel good about the progress we were able to make with some of the older guys in the transfer portal.”

The class appears to address what Elliott identified as the top positional needs at receiver and defensive line. There are five players at each of those positions within the group. At receiver, Coleman, Gibson, Harrison, and Ivy will join the team out of high school, while Washington will spend his final year of eligibility at UVA after starting his career at Northwestern. Danley played multiple positions including receiver in high school so could be an option there as well, but projects initially to defense. Britton (who Elliott noted as a “diamond in the rough”), Buchanan, Greene, Hammond, and Jones represent the incoming players on the D-Line. Elliott said the staff is “really excited about the length, the athleticism that we got, and then also the championship pedigree” of the defensive line, where he prefers to allocate 16 scholarships.

On the other side of the trenches, the offensive line was not viewed as a priority at the start of this recruiting cycle so Surber was the only high school addition. Since the season ended, however, Elliott said the outlook up front has changed. Logan Taylor, John Paul Flores, and Zachary Teter have all entered their names in the portal so they could theoretically return, but seniors Jonathan Leech and Derek Devine have decided to move on from football. Four of those players were regular rotation players in 2022, meaning UVA will essentially be starting over on the OL for the second straight season. The Hoos will do that with a new offensive line coach – Elliott said that he’s not rushing that decision at this time – as Garett Tujague accepted the same position at NC State.

As those pieces shifted, the Cavaliers pushed for Parker as a transfer. He played offensive tackle at Saginaw Valley State University and has one year of eligibility left after helping his team to an 8-3 record this past season. At 6’5″ and 300 pounds, Parker should contend to be an immediate contributor given the numbers situation at tackle. The Hoos will look to add three more linemen in the coming weeks with interest in portal players taking the initial focus.

When it comes to up-stream transfers like Parker, who will be moving up from Division II to Division I with his decision, Elliott said that the criteria are character, academics, and remaining potential.

“Still looking for guys that have not necessarily peaked, because if they’ve peaked then it’s going to be hard for them to compete, but if they’ve still got a little room in their ceiling, that’s what I’m looking for,” he said.

Virginia was also “caught off guard” with cornerback Fentrell Cypress II entering the transfer portal. After earning second-team All-ACC honors this past season, he projected to be a key returning starter but instead will try to land with a contending program such as Ohio State (rumored to be recruiting him) or Florida State (he took an official visit there). That means UVA will be in the transfer market at corner before this NCAA window closes on Jan. 18.

The succession planning for running back and quarterback went much smoother. The Cavaliers recruited two running backs in Hawthorne and Vaughn early in this cycle and Elliott likes the potential of both. Xavier Brown also just turned in a solid starting point as a true freshman this past season. Among the upperclassmen, however, Ronnie Walker Jr. entered the transfer portal so there was room to add one experienced back if the right situation came into play. That happened when Pace put his name in the portal out of Clemson.

Elliott recruited Pace to the Tigers and worked with him as his position coach when he arrived. As a sophomore, he posted 641 yards and 6 touchdowns on 104 carries, but injuries kept him out of action for part of his follow-up campaign this past season.

“Didn’t really have to go out and sign a running back because we had the possibility of Ronnie coming back, the possibility of Perris [Jones] coming back, and then also Mike [Hollins] coming back – obviously Mike’s situation is different now because of the incident. So what I told the staff is if you even want to entertain a running back, it better be a guy or there better be some type of connection,” Elliott said. “The connection with Kobe is Kobe is a guy I recruited and in that class, I didn’t offer many guys. I think it was maybe three guys in that class, him and a couple other high profile guys. When he got to Clemson, we knew OK this guy is going to be special. … When I saw he went in the portal, it wasn’t immediately a situation ‘hey Kobe come to UVA,’ it was like Kobe, we have a relationship, I really care about you, I know what the portal is like, I know how perception is not necessarily reality, what are you thinking? So we had a conversation and he said he’d be interested in taking a look at our situation. … He decided he wanted to reconnect and as he says, we’ve got some unfinished business that we need to take care of.”

The Cavaliers also have an upperclassman hole at quarterback. Record-setting quarterback Brennan Armstrong decided to play his bonus year of eligibility from the pandemic at another school and entered the portal, leaving junior Jared Rayman, a one-time walk-on, as the only upperclassman and sophomore Jay Woolfolk as the only player with any significant playing experience for the most critical spot on offense. Woolfolk, of course, also plays baseball and is expected to have a big role on the Hoos’ pitching staff this spring. Elliott said that he would meet with baseball coach Brian O’Connor to figure out a schedule to share Woolfolk’s services this spring since he’ll need some level of work to be a contender as QB1.

Still, Virginia wanted to add another experienced player into the mix. The Hoos targeted Muskett as a Monmouth transfer as their top priority. As an in-state high school player at West Springfield, he put up 5,687 passing yards with 51 touchdowns and just 16 interceptions over three years in college. He was named Big South Offensive Freshman of the Year and was a two-time first-team All-Big South Conference pick too. He will be in competition here for the vacated starting spot at quarterback.

“We were looking for a guy with experience, a guy that was competitive, a guy that wanted to come in and compete, wasn’t going to be afraid of the competition that he was going to have to go through if he wanted to be the guy,” Elliott said. “He’s from the state of Virginia. Has a chip on his shoulder. I think as a program right now, we have a chip on our shoulder. We have a lot to prove to a lot of people, even prior to how the season ended. So I think it was just a natural fit. Very technically sound. When we watch him, he’s very, very technically sound. He’s had to throw the ball up in an area where it’s very windy and was very successful throwing the football so he’s got that accuracy. Those are the things that attracted us to him. We were looking for a guy with experience, we were looking for somebody that was going to come in and truly compete, and then going to have an appreciation. He’s done what he’s needed to do at that level. He feels like he can compete at this level. We believe he can compete at this level. So we felt like it was a good fit.”

Virginia Signing Day Press Conference

2 Responses You are logged in as Test

  1. Huge losses at WR, another inexperienced OL with a new OL coach, RB iffy, no QB with D-1 experience, overall commits rated 50-something, no 4- stars, only a half dozen from VA ( a priority), only a couple of VA top 30’s, out-recruited instate by VT, Penn State, UNC, opening against Tennessee — hey, what’s not to like

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