There were 62 four- and five-star recruits from Virginia in the recruiting classes between 2017 and 2022. UVA landed two of them.
“Oh, that’s going to change,” said Chris Slade, a two-time All-America defensive end at Virginia in 1991 and 1992, who has returned to his alma mater as an assistant coach on the staff of new head coach Tony Elliott.
And the two, Class of 2021 four-stars Logan Taylor (offensive line) and Bryce Carter (defensive end), have played a total of four snaps at Virginia to this point in their careers.
Virginia Tech and Penn State each have eight Top 10s from the state dating back to 2017. North Carolina has seven, including five in the Class of 2022 alone.
Clemson, Ohio State and Notre Dame each landed four of the four- and five-stars from Virginia over the past six years.
I did an analysis of the contributions of Virginia prep recruits on the 2021 UVA season, and it was shocking, and a bit depressing.
The Virginia recruits on the 2021 roster played on 9.2 percent of the total snaps for the offense, defense and special teams, with the bulk of their contributions coming on special teams – a full 790 of the 2,080 snaps from the group coming there, 38 percent of the total.
This is the sum total of five full years of recruiting the Commonwealth for the Bronco Mendenhall regime.
A lot of guys running around on special teams, four snaps on defense from Bryce Carter, not much else.
“That’s the thing that we have to do better,” Slade said. “I mean, we have to do a better job of recruiting the 757. That’s why we want to make sure we get our footprint down there and recruit the 757 hard. Between Biscuit (wide receivers coach and UVA alum Marques Hagans) and I and hopefully Coach Elliott making his stops whenever he can within the rules, we’re going to hit it hard, you know, we want to invade it.”
And it’s not just the 757 area code, the talent-rich Tidewater region that spawned the likes of Slade, Hagans, Terry Kirby, Aaron Brooks, all UVA alums who went on to productive NFL careers.
Think Heath Miller, Herman Moore, Thomas Jones, Ronde and Tiki Barber, James Farrior, Jamie Sharper, the million other guys I’m leaving out.
Virginia produces a ton of football talent.
Those kids just aren’t matriculating on Grounds like they used to.
“When we were really good, we got Virginia, like, our region, Virginia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, a little bit in that area, that’s kind of where our team came from, and now, we’re, like, all over the place,” said Ray Roberts, another former Virginia All-American, who played high-school ball in Asheville, N.C.
“The response was basically, like, this is a national college, so we should be able to recruit nationally. I’m like, Yeah, I don’t know about that,” Roberts said. “I really do think that you have to focus in on winning your fair share of the battles in the state of Virginia, because we have some of the greatest athletes. Look at these national championship teams that have players from the state of Virginia, you know, and not that you have to get all of them, but dang it, like, we should get some of them, you know, or at least be really strongly in the conversation, to be part of it.”
It was well-known that the Mendenhall regime didn’t prioritize Virginia the way Mendenhall’s predecessors did, preferring to stick to the recruiting contacts that the coaches, the bulk coming with Mendenhall from BYU, had out west.
“He went out to west coast and recruited those kids that fit the culture, what he was looking for,” Slade said. “It’s hard to get a kid from Warwick High School if you’re a Mormon. I mean, you know, it just it is what it is. You know, Phoebus, you know, Hampton High School, Kecoughtan. It’s just a different deal.
“Obviously, Bronco was extremely successful out west at BYU, because that was all the kids that wanted to go to BYU as a destination place,” Slade said. “You know, if you’re a Mormon, and you wanted to go to a Mormon school, to a good football program, you want BYU. You know, if you’re, if you’re Catholic, you know, you want to go to good school, you want Boston College or Notre Dame. They obviously take other kids, too, but that’s a big deal.”
The Elliott staff hit the ground running once the former Clemson offensive coordinator was named head coach at Virginia in December. Social media was full of selfies with Virginia coaches and high school coaches from all corners of the Commonwealth for the next several weeks.
“We’ve got to recruit better, which is something that we’ve started to do,” Slade said. “I don’t think that’s a secret. You know, we’ve only had one season where we have won 10 games, my true freshman year, and I think that’s absurd, with all the players we’ve had come through this program.
“That kind of stuff, I take personal, you know, and I want to be a part of something special, I want to be a part of getting back here, and getting us to that next level back to where we’re consistently, you know, embarking on a possible 10-win season, or get 10 wins, or more than 10 wins,” Slade said.
“I’m excited about their refocusing their recruiting efforts in Virginia, because there are a lot of great athletes all over the state, whether it’s, you know, Southwest Virginia, or 757, or, you know, there’s Northern Virginia, there’s just great athletes, football players, you know, all over,” Roberts said.
“If you can get your fair share, then I think you have a great chance. Not that Bronco’s tenure there was a failure, by any means, but you kind of get out of that 6-6, 7-5 area and maybe you get up to more, nine wins. 10 wins, you know, something like that, eight, nine, 10 wins more consistently, you know, because you have a talent pool that’s more consistent coming into the school,” Roberts said.
Story by Chris Graham
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