Virginia Football is not done working the transfer portal, adding two of the more sought-after guys still out there – Miami (Ohio) defensive end Kam Butler and Stanford defensive end Andres Fox – to its defense in the past week.
The D line position group was an area of huge need going into the spring, so these two are huge gets for head coach Tony Elliott and defensive coordinator John Rudzinski.
Butler, a 6’3”, 252-pounder, had offers from Penn State, Ole Miss, Iowa, West Virginia and Kansas State.
The new guys
A first-team All-MAC performer in 2021, Butler had an impressive 79.3 Pro Football Focus grade last season, after recording 53 tackles, 32 QB pressures, eight sacks and three forced fumbles.
Butler will be a fifth-year senior in 2022. He logged 1,894 snaps over four seasons at Miami, including 702 in 2021.
Fox, a 6’4”, 245-pounder who can line up on the end of the line or at outside linebacker, will have two years of eligibility remaining.
As a prep at Mobile (Ala.) Christian School, Fox, who had offers off the transfer portal from Florida State and Maryland, was rated the No. 138 overall prospect in the nation in the Class of 2017, but he struggled to get snaps in his time at Stanford, logging just 312 total snaps over parts of four seasons, including 107 snaps in seven games in 2021.
Suddenly, depth at the end spots
Butler and Fox join two other transfer portal defensive end additions from the 2022 offseason – Columbia grad transfer Paul Akere and Michigan State transfer Jack Camper.
Akere, a 6’3”, 240-pounder, was a second-team All-Ivy selection in 2021, with five sacks and 25 total QB pressures on 530 snaps and a PFF grade of 75.7.
Camper, a 6’5”, 250-pounder, missed the final 10 games of the Spartans’ 2021 season with an injury. A backup in Michigan State’s first three games, he was on the field for 31 snaps.
He saw action on a career-high 249 snaps in 2020, with a Pro Football Focus grade of 59.3, and over portion of four seasons, two cut short by injury, he played 532 snaps, had 15 QB pressures, one sack and 29 tackles.
Depth inside
Another guy I’m counting as a transfer portal addition is Aaron Faumui, a 6’1”, 300-pound interior lineman, who had put his name into the transfer portal on Dec. 13, but announced on Jan. 31 that he intends to stay on at Virginia.
Faumui logged 460 defensive snaps in 2021, with a Pro Football Focus grade of 53.2.
Faumui will be joined on the interior by 6’2”, 315-pound sophomore Jahmeer Carter (496 snaps, 23 tackles, 2 TFLs, 49.4 PFF grade in 2021) atop the depth chart on the inside.
Depth at tackle will come from 6’4”, 270-pound sophomore Ben Smiley III (219 snaps, 30.4 PFF grade) and 6’6”, 280-pound redshirt freshman Olasunkonmi Agunloye (204 snaps, 54.0 PFF grade).
Class of 2021 four-star recruit Bryce Carter, a 6’3”, 280-pounder, only got four snaps this past season, but just based on what the recruiting services thought of him, you’d think he’d be in the mix to earn some two-deep time in the spring.
Another Class of 2021 recruit, Michael Diatta, a 6’5”, 255-pounder, got 35 snaps (with a 59.3 PFF grade) as an interior lineman in his true freshman year in 2021.
Story by Chris Graham
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