Friday, August 21, 2009
Hokies recruits include 5 preseason All-Americans
Conner Davis is top-rated UVa recruit
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's College Notebook Plus is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Fridays.
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The morning mail brought SuperPrep’s preseason rating of the nation’s top football prospects. Call me old-fashioned, but I still like the magazine format.
You can also call me prejudiced because I’ve been a contributor to SuperPrep for more than 20 years, but there’s still a lot in the magazine that’s news to me.
In fact, there are sometimes surprises in the list of Virginia prospects that I have rated because publisher Allen Wallace and his staff have different sources than I have.
There’s still some distinction to being called a SuperPrep All-American, even if there are 300 SuperPrep All-Americans this year. I’m not sure if it’s the first time Wallace has had 300, but there were 288 in the last issue I could find (from 2007).
My copies of the magazine go back to 1991, when there were 217 All-Americans.
I always check to see which of the players who have committed to Virginia Tech and Virginia are on the All-America list.
For the Hokies, that would include three in-state players: defensive end Zach McCray from Brookville High School in Lynchburg, offensive tackle Mark Shuman from Fork Union Military Academy and defensive lineman Nick Acree from Fork Union.
McCray, Shuman and Acree are rated No. 3, 5 and 7 among the eight in-state prospects who made preseason SuperPrep All-American.
The highest-rated University of Virginia recruit from the state is offensive lineman Conner Davis from Deep Run High School in Chesterfield County. He’s rated 11th. UVa’s other in-state commitments have come from 20th-ranked Henry Coley and No. 29 Rijo Walker (the “j” is silent, by the way).
Other Tech in-state commitments have come from Loudoun County linebacker Chase Williams, who is 16th; Derrick Hopkins (No. 17), Brian Laiti (No. 18), Matt Arkema (No. 19), Tahrick Peak (No. 21), Dominique Patterson (No. 23), E.L. Smiling (No. 33) and Caleb Farris (No. 34).
It was interesting to see Christchurch School defensive lineman Josh Lovell at No. 25 on the SuperPrep list because I hadn’t submitted his name. According to SuperPrep’s sources, Lovell has offers from West Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina and East Carolina.
SOME OTHER THINGS I noticed:
Two of the out-of-state players who have committed to Virginia Tech are on SuperPrep’s preseason All-America team, tight end Jerome Lewis from Rochester, N.Y., and defensive lineman Justin Taylor from Norwood, N.C.
Lewis is rated the No. 4 prospect in New York and the No. 3 “jumbo” athlete in the country. Taylor is the No. 8 prospect in North Carolina and the No. 41 defensive lineman (out of 60 All-Americans) in the country.
Of the 17 players who have made oral commitments to Tech, 11 are from Virginia. Quarterback Ricardo Young is from Woodson High School in Washington, D.C., and is rated 14th on a list of prospects that includes Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and D.C.
Only one Washington, D.C., player is ranked ahead of Young: Dunbar linebacker Javarie Johnson, who has committed to Miami. I couldn’t find Tech’s other quarterback recruit, Mark Leal, on SuperPrep’s list of the top 112 prospects in Florida, but I wouldn’t put too much stock in that.
Tech also has commitments from Baltimore defensive back Kyle Fuller (19th among Maryland prospects) and Luella, Ga., wide receiver Detrick Bonner (No. 70 in Georgia)
PHILLIP SIMS from Group AAA Division 6 state champion Oscar Smith of Chesapeake is rated the No. 3 quarterback in the country. Sims, who has committed to Alabama, ranks behind Sammamish, Wash., QB Jake Heaps, who has committed to BYU, and Wichita, Kan., QB Blake Bell, who has committed to Oklahoma.
Tyler Brosius, the quarterback from Waynesville, N.C., who has committed to Virginia is rated No. 24 by SuperPrep among prospects in that state. UVa-bound running back Kevin Parks, the MVP for West Rowan in its 3-A state championship victory, was 35th on that list.
E.J. Scott, the Good Counsel wide receiver who has committed to UVa, is 22nd among Maryland players on the SuperPrep list and defensive back Kyrrel Latimer from DeMatha is 25th.
Other Virginia recruits include defensive end Christopher Brathwaite, the No. 13 prospect in New York; linebacker Ryan Cobb, the No. 28 prospect in New Jersey, and wide receiver Pablo Alvarez (unranked in Florida).
UVa’s best chance at a preseason SuperPrep All-American may be with cornerback Louis Young, Scott’s teammate at Good Counsel. Young, who earlier had committed to Stanford but reopened his recruiting and will be in Charlottesville this weekend.
WITH PRESEASON FOOTBALL copy to complete, that’s it till next week.
