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With National Signing Day upon us, all eyes and thoughts are on the #NewHoos. Here at STL, we decided to take the opportunity to look at Virginia's scholarship count for the coming years and to break down the roster by year and position.
As we explained last year, each FBS football program has a scholarship allotment of 85. FBS football is also a head-count sport, so 85 scholarships means 85 players on scholarship; other sports can split partial scholarships among multiple players to end up at the equivalent of their allotted number.
The table below breaks down UVa's scholarship allotment by year and position group. More notes after.
2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | Total On Scholarship | Incoming | |
DB |
3 CB Demetrious Nicholson FS Mason Thomas |
4 CB Tim Harris CB Divante Walker CB Wilfred Wahee SS Kelvin Rainey
|
3 CB Kirk Garner SS Malcolm Cook S Quin Blanding |
1 CB Darious Latimore |
11 |
3 S Juan Thornhill CB Kareem Gibson CB TJ Griffin |
DL |
4 DE Mike Moore DE Trent Corney DE Kwontie Moore DT David Dean |
2 DT Andre Miles-Redmond DT Donta Wilkins |
1 DT Andrew Brown |
3 DE Michael Biesemier DE JJ Jackson |
10 |
4 DE Naji Abdullah DE Steven Wright DT James Trucilla DT Eli Hanback |
LB |
1 OLB Darius Lee |
2 OLB Zach Bradshaw |
1 MLB Micah Kiser |
3 OLB Caanan Brown OLB Chris Peace OLB Cory Jones |
7 |
5 ILB CJ Stalker ILB Jahvonni Simmons OLB Eric Gallon |
QB |
0 |
2 Greyson Lambert Matt Johns |
1 Brendan Marshall |
1 Corwin Cutler |
4 |
1 Nick Johns |
RB/FB |
1 FB Vincent Croce |
3 FB Connor Wingo-Reeves RB Taquan Mizzell RB LaChaston Smith |
1 RB Daniel Hamm |
1 RB Jordan Ellis |
6 |
2 RB Olamide Zaccheaus RB Christopher Sharp |
WR |
3 Dominique Terrell Canaan Severin T.J Thorpe (transfer) |
3 Kyle Dockins Jamall Brown Keeon Johnson |
3 Jamil Kamara Doni Dowling |
0 |
9 |
3 David Eldredge Warren Craft |
TE |
1 Rob Burns |
0 |
0 |
1 Evan Butts |
2 |
2 Tanner Cowley Richard Burney |
OL |
2 G/C Ross Burbank T Jay Whitmire |
7 C Jackson Matteo C Eric Tetlow G Ryan Doull G Sean Karl T Eric Smith T Sadiq Olanrewaju T Michael Mooney |
2
T Jack English
|
2 G Steven Moss OL Jake Fieler |
13 |
3 OG Ryan Bischoff OT Grant Polk OT RJ Proctor |
ST |
1 K Ian Frye |
|
1 |
|||
TOTALS | 16 | 23 | 12 | 12 | 63 | 23 |
By our count, the Hoos will be at 86 scholarships for the 2015 season. Let's take a quick look at how we got to that number:
Virginia finished the 2014 season with 83 scholarship players. The program lost 16 scholarship seniors to graduation. In addition, Virginia lost five other scholarship players: David Watford transferred to Hampton, Eli Harold and Max Valles declared early for the NFL draft, and Mario Nixon and George Adeosun lost "counting status" after career-ending injuries determined they wouldn't suit up for the Cavaliers in the future.
On the plus side, Virginia added 23 true freshman and senior wide receiver transfer TJ Thorpe.
So for you math majors out there: 63 - 16 - 5 + 23 +1 = 86
Now, even a UNC athlete can tell you 86 is more than 85, but don't fret. It's generally a positive thing for a program like Virginia to over-recruit a bit. The Cavaliers usually experience attrition during the off-season as spring and summer grades come in. Additionally, there's the possibility that an incoming freshman or two may need to attend prep school for a year. Somehow, the roster will get down to 85 scholarship players in time for the season opener.
How the Wahoos will perform in that opener...well, that's a problem for another day.