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Chris Beatty’s return to Tidewater should not be taken lightly by his fellow football recruiters.

Beatty, hired by new West Virginia football coach Bill Stewart, was the point man for the Mountaineers’ successful recruitment of Phoebus quarterback Tahj Boyd and Great Bridge wide receiver Logan Heastie.

Boyd and Heastie were the Nos. 1 and 3 juniors on The Roanoke Times’ list of the top prospects in Virginia, and West Virginia might not be stopping there.

Phoebus coach Bill Dee said he could see WVU becoming a player with Phoebus defensive lineman Dominik Davenport, rated the No. 4 prospect on the juniors’ list.

“They’re getting ready to offer him,” Dee said. “They’re going to be in the mix for him.”

Virginia Tech hasn’t offered Davenport yet. Virginia has.

As to whom Beatty could hurt more, “I’d have to say right now, he’s probably hurting Tech more because Tech has been getting a lot of kids in this area,” Dee said. “Virginia hasn’t been a huge factor in this area.”

New Virginia defensive coordinator Bob Pruett has been assigned the Hampton-Newport News area.

“Pruett’s contacted me a couple of times,” Dee said. “I probably met Bobby once or twice way back, but I know of him. There’s no question, they need to do something to get back in this area.”

West Virginia’s growing influence is more than just Beatty.

“I’ve known Bill Stewart since ’79 and I think a lot of Bill Stewart,” Dee said. “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know how hard [the Mountaineers] were pushing for a commitment.”

Boyd and Heastie had been at West Virginia over the weekend of March 14-16 and Boyd called Dee from Morgantown to say he was committing.

“I didn’t get a chance to sit down and talk to him when he got back Monday but he told me over the phone, ‘It’s just where I want to go,’ “ Dee said.

“So, hey, I just told him, ‘The recruiting’s over right now. You gave them your word.’ And, I’m not going to have a lot of schools in here trying to contact him. That’s the end of the recruitment.’

Boyd was a freshman at Landstown High School in Virginia Beach in Beatty’s last season as the Landstown coach.

“He knew him but I don’t think that had a whole lot to do with it,” Dee said. “West Virginia made it real clear that he was their top prospect that they had on the board, period. He was getting hand-written letters from each [WVU] coach twice a week.

“Beatty definitely knows the area. I think he’s going to make a huge push in this area. Yes, I do. He’s familiar with a lot of the coaches. He’s familiar with a lot of the kids. He’s young and ambitious.”

West Virginia’s spread offense is popular with quarterbacks with the combination passing and running skills that Boyd possesses.

“We’ve used a lot more of it,” Dee said. “We ran some one-back [shot] gun and did some things to utilize his one-back abilities and he can definitely run. My understanding from talking to their offensive coordinator and talking to Bill is that they’re going to try to move toward throwing the ball more, rather than running the quarterback. Tahj is an athletic quarterback, but he can throw.”

Two years ahead of Boyd, another Peninsula District quarterback, Tyrod Taylor of Hampton, was considered the No. 1 prospect in the state. Comparisons have been inevitable.

“They’re a little different,” Dee said. “Without ruffling a whole lot of feathers but trying to be honest with you, Tyrod can run better and I think Tahj is a more pure passer, not to take away from either one.”

The No. 2 rated junior on the Roanoke Times list was Kevin Newsome, a 6-foot-3, 210-pound quarterback from Western Branch High School in Chesapeake

“Tahj has worked hard on his speed,” Dee said. “I think he went down to a combine and everybody was talking about the Newsome kid’s speed, but Tahj ran a faster 40.”

Dee said Boyd was timed in 4.56. Newsome had been in contact with West Virginia, but the Mountaineers had to inform him that they could no longer recruit him as a quarterback, although part of Newsome’s attraction is that he is seen as a prospect at multiple positions.

While Stewart couldn’t address the Boyd and Heastie commitments, he did note in a phone conversation earlier this week that West Virginia had gotten in the door with 4-5 Virginia seniors at the end of the recruiting process this year.

“Chris Beatty will get us involved in Tidewater like I couldn’t do and nobody could do,” Stewart said.

ON ANOTHER FRONT, the Mountaineers also have gotten involved with D.J. Thomas, a one-time Virginia Tech football recruit whom the Hokies eventually stopped pursuing for academic reasons.

Thomas signed a letter-of intent with Tech in the winter of 2007, when he was a senior at Patrick Henry in Ashland, but did not meet NCAA eligibility guidelines. It was Thomas’ intention to spend the fall of 2007 at Hargrave Military Academy and enroll at Tech in January, but that was not the Hokies’ plan.

According to Tech’s interpretation of new recruiting legislation last year, the Hokies felt that Thomas would need to attend junior college. Thomas felt that he could get the credits he needed in one year at Hargrave Military Academy.

So, Thomas, a running back, enrolled at Hargrave, but he never played at Hargrave as a result of a knee injury suffered in the Virginia High School All-Star Game. He subsequently underwent surgery and remains enrolled at Hargrave, where WVU has been monitoring his progress.

JAMIE OAKES, WHO covers UVa football recruiting for rivals.com, reported this week that the Cavaliers have made an offer to left-handed quarterback Ross Metheny (6-3, 190) from Sherando High School outside Winchester.

Virginia earlier had made an offer to Tom Savage, a 6-3, 230-pound quarterback from Cardinal O’Hare in Philadelphia. However, the offer to Metheny is not seen as a reflection on the Savage recruiting because the Cavaliers are not opposed to taking two quarterbacks in this class.

Savage already has offers from Penn State, Florida State, Miami, LSU and Georgia, so he’s going to be hard to get. Metheny, rated the No. 21 junior in Virginia by The Roanoke Times, already had received an offer from Connecticut and was preparing for a tour of spring-practice workouts. His recruiting has been heating up.

The Metheny recruiting was complicated when he broke his left ankle (fibula) early in Sherando’s 56-10 loss to Amherst in the Group AA Division 4 championship game (Sherando led 10-7 at the time). At the time of an operation Dec. 9, it was felt that rehabilitation would take 8-12 weeks.