Friday, December 05, 2008
Prep coaches salute latest VT, UVa commits
More on the way from Varina
Doug Doughty
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One of the biggest mistakes in the ranking recruits is the temptation to judge a prospect based on the degree to which he has been recruited.
Virginia Tech will sign a player this year, defensive lineman David Wang, who committed to the Hokies in September of his junior year at Stone Bridge High School.
The earliest that a college can extend a written offer is Sept. 1 of a prospect’s junior year in high school, which means that Wang probably didn’t have many offers at the time of his commitment.
Moreover, Wang’s older brother, Ed, already was on the team at Tech, which no doubt discouraged any coaches who wanted to test the firmness of his commitment.
As a result, Wang has been out of sight and out of mind. If a late bloomer came on the horizon, Wang was a guy who could be moved down the list.
On the flip side, you have a couple of players who made oral commitments this week, Varina High School lineman DeAntre Rhodes with Virginia Tech, and Lafayette High School lineman Will Hill with Virginia.
Rhodes was rated No. 13 on the preseason Roanoke Times list that was posted on roanoke.com and Hill was 28th. It has occurred to me that both should be rated higher on the final list that will be published Dec. 25, although I need to be careful about that.
Rhodes had close to a dozen offers before informing Tech on Sunday that he would be signing with the Hokies, ultimately picking Tech over Tennessee and Georgia.
Hill announced his decision Friday in an 8 a.m. news conference at his school. His other finalists were Penn State and Maryland, although some accounts also had Tennessee in that group.
It’s hard to say what direction Tennessee will take in its Virginia recruiting with the introduction of Lane Kiffin as the Volunteers’ new head coach. Kiffin already has told Phoebus quarterback Tajh Boyd that he does not fit the pro-style model that the Volunteers will have for their quarterbacks.
As a result, Boyd is looking for a home again after decommitting first to West Virginia and now to UT.
“HONESTLY, I THINK that Tennessee was involved – and this is not a fact – until the coaching change,” said Stu Brown, Rhodes’ head coach at Varina. “I know he enjoyed his visit to Georgia, [but] he never really let anybody in on his decision. He can be very articulate but he’s a listener.
“He’s going to listen to what you say and weigh the facts. He’s as mature as anybody that I’ve coached. Virginia Tech isn’t getting a student-athlete. He’s a man. This is not your average 18-year-old. Life hasn’t been easy for him. He’s had to be the man of his family.”
Brown, originally from Appomattox, is in his first season as Varina head coach after serving as an assistant at Varina and Deep Run. He is familiar with the Lewis brothers, Kevin and Jonathan, who are Varina graduates who played with distinction on the defensive line at Virginia Tech.
The Lewis brothers were listed at 6 foot 1 throughout their Tech careers. Brown is closer to 6-3, Brown said, and weighs 290.
“When you first see DeAntre, he doesn’t look 290,” Brown said. “DeAntre worked hard on his core. DeAntre, in uniform, looks like he has the waist of a model. If he had a cut-off jersey, he’d look like a big linebacker standing out there.”
Brown says he is aware of other linemen in the Richmond area who have been ranked above Rhodes but are not at the same level. Meadowbrook High School’s 6-7, 336-pound Morgan Moses has been rated the No. 1 offensive tackle in the country by at least one publication, but Rhodes proved a formidable foe in Varinia’s 17-14 victory when the teams met recently in the playoffs.
“If you don’t know anything about football and you look coach [Bud] Foster’s defense at Tech, you notice the effort and the energy and the tenacity,” Brown said. “They play hard and fast and they’ve got one walking into the program that naturally plays like that.
“You can’t teach that motor. Jonathan Lewis turned out to be a great one, but, when Jonathan got there, there was a learning process. I can tell you, DeAntre’s going to walk in there for the first day of pads and you won’t find anybody on Tech’s roster that’s going to intimidate him.
“If anything, those seniors need to gear up because he’s coming. Virginia Tech won a heckuva recruiting battle.”
AT LAFAYETTE, COACH Paul Wheeler is no less glowing about Hill, who had 14 sacks this season. Virginia thought so much of Hill as a student-athlete (3.6 GPA; 1,100 SAT) that he will enroll at mid-year after graduating from Lafayette later this month.
There are only a handful of school systems in Virginia that allow December graduation and I can’t remember another state recruit who has gone directly to Virginia or Virginia Tech, even though Tech has had some out-of-state players, Tripp Carroll for one, who left high school after 3-1/2 years.
“I think it was important for him,” said Wheeler of Hill’s pioneering move. “There aren’t many who has his work ethic in the classroom or in the weight room. In 29 years, I can count on one hand the kids who have that type of drive in all phases. I think he’s special.”
Wheeler says that Hill is best suited for one of the defensive-end spots in Virginia’s 3-4 scheme. He would have to be a tackle in a 4-3.
“He’s not going to be the most-gifted kid they have,” Wheeler said. “He’s not going to be that 310-pounder who can really run. He’ll do all the little things, though. This is an exciting time for him. I told him, ‘Soak it up and go day by day.’ “
Hill was recruited for Virginia by defensive coordinator Bob Pruett, who was no stranger to Wheeler. Pruett and Wheeler are both from Beckley, W.Va., “but he’s a little older than I am,” said Wheeler, who said he may have mentioned the connection once to Wheeler but tried not to involve himself in the decision-making.
“I know [Pruett] is a great recruiter and a great coach,” Wheeler said. “I know the coaches and the kids all feel comfortable with him, but let me say this, Tom Brattan from Maryland and the other coaches were all classy. I can see where it would be a tough decision.”
Hill will be the first Division I signee for Wheeler in his 29 years of coaching, but Lafayette has had some distinguished football alumni, headed by Lawrence Taylor, and also has sent players to UVa, including scholarship tight end Chris Luzar and his brother, Kase, who earned a scholarship as a walk-on.
Another Lafayette product, Connor Hughes, joined the UVa program as a walk-on place-kicker and became the leading scorer in school history.
VARINA’S BROWN said he could see 6-4, 284-pound junior offensive tackle Marquis Wallace having as many as 15 Division I-A offers going into the spring evaluation period.
Varina has been seen as a Virginia Tech pipeline but that does not mean the Cavaliers should feel unwelcome.
“I personally hope it changes,” Brown said. “One, I’m a Virginia fan. Not only that, the thing that made me most happy about DeAntre is that he’s staying in state. I think that’s big.
“On the outside looking in, I think people think it’s unstable with coach [Al] Groh at Virginia, but I think it’s very stable. I think he does a heckuva job. And, of course, coach [Frank] Beamer has the most stable program in the nation.
“We’ve got kids right now at other places. We’ve got two at Michigan, we’ve got one at Syracuse and we’ve got one at Clemson. They’re on the outside looking in, from the simple fact that they’ve got new people coming in and they might not fit their bill.
“I’m big on ‘let’s make these two state institutions the best.’ “
