A two-time, first-team All-ACC selection has joined the competition for Virginia’s place-kicking job.

As impressive as those credentials might sound, it is worth noting that Yannick Reyering has never made All-ACC in football, or at least the American brand.

Reyering has led the UVa men’s soccer team in scoring in each of the past three seasons but his eligibility expired at the end of the 2007 season.

It was the NCAA that limited Reyering to three seasons, originally ruling him ineligible in 2005 because of his involvement with a German semi-pro team.

Virginia subsequently succeeded in an appeal to make Reyering eligible as a freshman but not as a senior in 2008.

Reyering, who turned 24 earlier this month, was taken by FC Dallas in the second round of the Major League Soccer draft in January, but he was still rehabbing from knee surgery and did not sign.

He tore his ACL on the eve of the 2007 ACC men’s soccer tournament and missed the remainder of the season.

“I was cleared to play at the beginning of May,” Reyering said Tuesday, “but I still had some patellar tendinitis and didn’t feel like my knee would hold up for the two weeks of practice that it would take to get ready to play in an MLS game.”

UVa men’s soccer coach George Gelnovatch had suggested in April that Reyering give football a chance.

“I remember when I got here, I went to the very first football game, but I left at halftime because it didn’t make any sense to me,” Reyering said.

“Once I got somebody to explain the rules to me, I really got into it. If I’m not going to football games, I watch on TV.”

Reyering uses his reconstructed left knee to plant, but so far any pain has been tolerable and he has enjoyed the challenge.

“I’d say, if I hadn’t been hurt, that I’d probably be playing soccer now,” Reyering said, “but there was always a small possibility that I might stay around.

Football was part of it, but there was also that element of finishing school that appealed to me.”

Reyering was one of six players not previously on the Cavaliers’ football roster who joined the team for the start of preseason practice Monday. Included in that group was Brady Stovall, a 6-foot-2, 235-pound linebacker from Cave Spring in Roanoke.

The Cavaliers also welcomed Robert Randolph, a place-kicker whose Naples, Fla., team went undefeated and won the state championship in its classification; John Maghamez, a 6-3, 285-pound center from Briar Woods High School in Loudoun County, and quarterback Kyle McCartin (6-4, 200) from
Fauquier County High School in Warrenton.

McCartin, injured early in his senior season, has a younger brother, Connor, who plays linebacker for Fauquier County and has accepted a scholarship offer from UVa for 2009.

The Cavaliers also welcomed Johnny Pickett, who had 75 receptions for 1,334 yards last season, when he was the leading receiver for N.C. State-bound quarterback Mike Glennon on the Westfield High School team that won the Group AAA Division 6 championship.

Pickett had 10 receptions for 193 yards in Westfield’s 24-21 victory over Oscar Smith in the state semifinals.