Rod Wheeler, a 6-foot-3, 235-pound receiver, picked UVa over Syracuse.

Wheeler’s father is former Virginia Tech basketball player Rod Wheeler.

The younger Wheeler had 35 receptions for 482 yards and five touchdowns this season in a spread offense that featured four wide receivers. He is expected to be a tight end or slot receiver for the Cavaliers.

Virginia football coach Al Groh has not signed a Highland Springs player in seven seasons and Scott Burton has not seen one of his players sign with the Cavaliers in his nine seasons as Highland Springs coach, although he has discounted the notion that Highland Springs is a Virginia Tech pipeline.

"I guess this kind of blows that theory out of the water," Burton said. "None of our kids has ever had issue with Virginia. The kids we’ve had at Tech are mostly defensive players and Tech plays great defense, not that Virginia doesn’t.

"He’s [Wheeler] a tight end and what better place to go than UVa if you’re a tight end? He came on late in the recruiting process [because] he’s a product of our system. We run tight-end sets about 20 percent of the time. It’s hard to evaluate a tight end who never lines up as a tight end."

Wheeler is the second player from Virginia to commit to UVa in a class that now numbers 16.