National Signing Day 2015: Virginia Cavaliers Scholarship Breakdown

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.

3

CB Demetrious Nicholson

CB Maurice Canady

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

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 Darrious Carter

DE JJ Jackson

10

4

DE Naji Abdullah

DE Steven Wright

DT James Trucilla

DT Eli Hanback

1

OLB Darius Lee

2

OLB Zach Bradshaw
OLB Mark Hall

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

ILB Dominic Sheppard

OLB Gladimir Paul

0

2

Greyson Lambert

Matt Johns

1

Brendan Marshall

1

Corwin Cutler

4

1

Nick Johns

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

3

Dominique Terrell

Canaan Severin

T.J Thorpe (transfer)

3

Kyle Dockins

Jamall Brown

Keeon Johnson

3
Andre Levrone

Jamil Kamara

Doni Dowling

0

9 

3

David Eldredge

Warren Craft

Myles Robinson

1

Rob Burns

0 

0

1

Evan Butts

2

2

Tanner Cowley

Richard Burney

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

G Jack McDonald

T Jack English

2

G Steven Moss

OL Jake Fieler

13

3

OG Ryan Bischoff

OT Grant Polk

OT RJ Proctor

1

K Ian Frye

1

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.