It’s been a busy weekend for UVA Football on the spring transfer portal, with coach Tony Elliott landing commitments from a pair of O linemen, an edge rusher and another running back.
O line depth is always a priority, and is more so for Virginia this spring after the program lost the big winter transfer portal pickup, left tackle Monroe Mills, to a torn ACL in spring practice.
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Elliott had already picked up a right tackle, Wallace Unamba, who spent the spring at Kentucky after transferring in December from New Mexico.
Over the weekend, Virginia got commitments from Syracuse left tackle David Wohlabaugh Jr. and Arkansas State right tackle Makilan Thomas.
Thomas, listed at 6’3”, 315, logged 2,395 snaps over four seasons at Arkansas State, including 650 in the 2024 season.
He got a Pro Football Focus grade of 73.4 last season, allowing three sacks and 15 total QB pressures on 378 pass-block snaps.
Wohlabaugh, listed at 6’6”, 301, was in on 258 snaps in 2024 at Syracuse, with a PFF grade of 68.6, allowing two sacks and six QB pressures on 174 pass-block snaps.
Unamba, at New Mexico in 2024, got a 64.0 PFF grade on his 699 total O line snaps, allowing a total of nine QB pressures, and notably, not allowing a sack, on 395 pass-blocking snaps.
The 2024 season at New Mexico is Unamba’s lone full season at the D1 level.
The pickup at edge rusher is Tennessee Tech transfer Daniel Rickert, listed at 6’2”, 232, so, probably more an outside linebacker at the FBS level than edge rusher.
Rickert will be a sixth-year grad senior in 2025; his career started at Tennessee Tech back in the 2020 COVID season, and he got a medical redshirt for his injury-shortened 2022 season.
Last year, Rickert logged 444 snaps, with a PFF grade of 84.0, with 31 tackles, 34 total QB pressures and eight sacks on 242 pass-rush snaps.
He had 12 sacks and 36 QB pressures on 209 pass-rush snaps in 2023, with a 90.5 PFF grade.
The running back pickup is Wyoming transfer Harrison Waylee, another sixth-year grad senior, who played for three years at Northern Illinois, and had his 2024 season cut short by injury.
Waylee has been tremendously productive, rushing for 3,193 yards and 16 TDs, averaging 5.4 yards per carry, with a career-high 943 yards on the ground in 2023 at Wyoming.
He has caught 40 passes on 52 targets across his five seasons for 252 yards and one receiving TD, and he’s a plus in the blocking part of the game, getting PFF grades of 70 or better in four of his five seasons.
Virginia had already added to its backfield with Colorado’s leading rusher from 2024, Isaiah Augustave, a 6’2”, 210-pound rising junior from Naples, Fla., who played at year at Colorado after a year at Arkansas.
Augustave’s 2024 at Colorado had him rushing for 379 yards, averaging 4.5 yards per carry, with 11 catches on 12 targets for 62 yards (5.2 yards per catch) through the air.
His numbers as a pass-blocker: not good – he allowed three QB hurries on 35 pass-block snaps, with a 38.1 grade from PFF.
His overall PFF grade was solid: 73.6.
This Augustave kid looks like a good get. Coming out of high school, he had offers from the likes of FSU and Tennessee, among the Power 5s interested in his services, before landing at Arkansas in the SEC.
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Chris Graham
