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Virginia football takes first step to recovery from tragedy on early signing day

Scott German
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Photo: UVA Athletics

Considering everything the Virginia football program has endured over the last six weeks, yesterday’s signing day was certainly a breath of fresh air around the McCue Center.

Why? Considering most national ranking services don’t think much of Coach Tony Elliott’s first recruiting season as the head coach, that’s a legitimate question.

And to be honest, it’s hard to argue that feeling. Take a quick look at the new crop of Cavaliers, and one can easily see that UVA wasn’t winning the recruiting wars over the likes of the Georgias and the Alabamas, or for that matter not even the Marylands or Minnesotas.

Yet, for all the turmoil that has defined Virginia football over the last six grueling weeks, there was hope. Even a smile radiating from Tony Elliott on an occasion or two. Which, like him or not, was a good thing. No one has seen that emotion from Elliott, or anyone connected to the UVA football program, for a long time.

Considering the Cavaliers stood 3-7 when their final two games were canceled after the shooting tragedy that killed three football players and severely injured a fourth, then maybe what all the so-called rating services say about Virginia signees, are, at least this year, unimportant.

What public opinion was about UVA football, even the city of Charlottesville, had to be a bit concerning, could have all worked against Elliott and his staff.

It wasn’t like the staff had a great deal of free time lately sealing up loose ends on the recruiting trail, even flipping a player or two over to UVA. Instead, the entire football staff and support staff were dealing with far more critical issues, like being supportive of their players and families, and keeping an eye on everyone.

Somehow Elliott and his staff were able to sign a 19-member recruiting class that said yes to Virginia, we want to be part of the rebuild. And make no mistake about it, this will be a massive rebuilding task for UVA football.

The most important signing of the day came from an area that Elliott said would be an important focus of his recruiting, Virginia. And despite his unnecessary last-minute drama, the Cavaliers landed four-star linebacker Kamren Robinson, who signed with UVA Wednesday after flirting with Florida State and South Carolina earlier this week.

Drama aside, Robinson said yes to Virginia. He said yes to Elliott, and what Elliott is trying to build at UVA. Moving forward, it is going to take plenty more highly rated players to buy into the program, but Wednesday was a start.

This is a huge win for Virginia, as Robinson is rated the No. 8 overall recruit from the Old Dominion, where both UVA and Virgina Tech have been bludgeoned on the recruiting trail for about a decade.

With the transfer portal and NIL, coaches face a far different landscape now than just a few years ago. Now a head coach has three recruiting areas – his own team, the transfer portal and high schools, in that order.

“Today a college coach probably spends equal time between recruiting his own team, the transfer portal and then high school football,” college football recruiting analyst Mike Farrar said.

While the Cavaliers did take it on the chin strap in players entering the portal, a number of players stayed committed as well.

Wednesday’s signing day may have been underwhelming to the recruiting experts, and they are probably right. Hopefully, the players that said yes to Virginia will be part of something bigger than signing day. And to those players we need to say thank you.

Scott German

Scott German

Scott German covers UVA Athletics for AFP, and is the co-host of “Street Knowledge” podcasts focusing on UVA Athletics with AFP editor Chris Graham. Scott has been around the ‘Hoos his whole life. As a reporter, he was on site for UVA basketball’s Final Fours, in 1981 and 1984, and has covered UVA football in bowl games dating back to its first, the 1984 Peach Bowl.