There are two of many ways to look at the first year of UVA football recruiting under new coach Bronco Mendenhall.
The first: it’s going great. UVA has 15 commitments for its Class of 2017, tied for tops in the ACC with Miami.
So there’s volume.
The second way to look at recruiting: dang, that’s a lot of two- and three-star kids.
Nine of the 15 are three-star recruits, according to Rivals. None are four- or five-stars.
The headlines thus far have been about how hot the Cavs have been on the recruiting trail, with a slew of commits over the past week-plus.
Not to diminish any of these kids, but Mendenhall isn’t exactly stealing recruits from Alabama or Florida State.
UVA is getting players whose offers include the likes of ODU, Syracuse, Marshall, Florida, Penn, a few ACC schools, but few of the big boys.
A predecessor, a few steps back now, George Welsh, did well with kids who were two- and three-stars. Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer did a solid job himself with a lot of two- and three-star kids over the years.
Mendenhall, at BYU, won 99 games in 11 years without having a recruiting class ranked better than 52nd nationally.
One knock, though, on Mendenhall from some BYU fans, was that his teams, good as they were, never could win the big game, or even get into the big game, for that matter.
This is where fans link back to this article in three or four years when Mendenhall has turned UVA football around from the doldrums it’s been in for the past decade and say, Chris Graham is an idiot, he was critical of Coach Mendenhall early on.
Well, and I’m going to make sure this part of the article survives the test of time, I’m not being critical here. Just pointing out that his first recruiting class is shaping up a lot like Mike London’s last recruiting class.
Both have a lot of early, early, early commits, and those early, early, early commits are the low-hanging fruit in the easy part of the two- and three-star curve.
Mendenhall told us all when he got the job that he valued effort and character more than anything else out of his players.
These kids in the Class of 2017 better have a lot of effort and character to bring with them to Charlottesville, because they don’t seem to have as much in the way of talent.
UVA Class of 2017: Rivals
(updated July 2, 2016)
| Name | Pos | Location | Ht | Wt | Signed | Stars | Rating | Committed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terrell Jana | DB | Woodberry Forest, VA | 6’1″ | 185 | 5.5 | 6/26/16 | ||
| Ryan Thaxton | DE | Alexandria, VA | 6’5″ | 250 | 5.6 | 6/24/16 | ||
| Armando Alonso | DT | Miami, FL | 6’2″ | 275 | 5.4 | 6/24/16 | ||
| Brian Delaney | K | Chantilly, VA | 5’10” | 200 | 5.2 | 6/23/16 | ||
| Bryson Speas | OL | Greensboro, NC | 6’4″ | 265 | 5.5 | 6/23/16 | ||
| Harry Crider | OL | Columbus, IN | 6’4″ | 250 | 5.4 | 6/22/16 | ||
| Matt Gahm | LB | Dallas, TX | 6’3″ | 221 | 5.4 | 6/19/16 | ||
| P.K. Kier | RB | Winchester, VA | 5’11” | 206 | 5.5 | 6/16/16 | ||
| Zachariah Burton | DB | New Castle, DE | 6’0″ | 182 | 5.2 | 6/11/16 | ||
| Lamont Atkins | RB | Burke, VA | 5’11” | 195 | 5.5 | 4/22/16 | ||
| Germane Crowell | ATH | Winston Salem, NC | 6’3″ | 180 | 5.7 | 4/21/16 | ||
| Lindell Stone | QB | Woodberry Forest, VA | 6’1″ | 202 | 5.6 | 4/18/16 | ||
| Tyler Fannin | OL | Hoschton, GA | 6’3″ | 290 | 5.5 | 4/16/16 | ||
| Joey Blount | DB | Fairburn, GA | 6’2″ | 175 | 5.4 | 4/9/16 | ||
| Tommy Christ | DE | Sterling, VA | 6’5″ | 255 | 5.5 | 4/2/16 |
Column by Chris Graham
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