Playing on a Friday night prevented the Virginia football program from hosting many visitors, but 2016 Fort Lauderdale linebacker Kenneth Ruff was in the house for his official visit.
While the game did not go as anybody hoped that it would, Ruff saw all that he need to see to bring his recruitment to a close. On Saturday night, the six-foot-one, 236-pound middle linebacker committed to the Orange and Blue.
Ruff selected Virginia over additional offers from Clemson, Georgia Tech, Kentucky, Louisville, North Carolina, and South Carolina among others.
The Florida native is a consensus three-star recruit across the board, and is ranked as the 26th best inside linebacker in the entire class of 2016 by Rivals.com.
Ruff is the third prospect to commit to Virginia in as many weekends. The three-star is the 25th member of the class of 2016. Look for the Hoos to bring in several offensive and defensive linemen to close out this solid class.
Take a look at Ruff's junior highlight film above. As seen in the clip, Ruff excels against the pass, which is rare for a middle linebacker. Ruff is solid in coverage, and can lay the lumber against opposing wideouts. The three-star defender has decent size for a middle linebacker, but will need to get bigger to compete at the college level .
Ruff's pledge adds depth to an already pretty good situation in the linebacker corps. Starting mike 'backer Micah Kiser has been a tackling machine so far, and still has two years left in the program after this one. In addition, the Hoos added blue chippers Dominic Sheppard and Jahvoni Simmons in the last cycle.
Running backs coach Chris Beatty deserves another tip of the cap here. The Hoos were not really on Ruff's radar until the summer, and Beatty helped Virginia out muscle many schools in the south for Ruff's services. Ruff marks the ninth verbal commit secured by the former Landstown High School head coach. If/when a coaching change is made, the new head whistle would be wise to consider keeping Beatty around.
Boy the comment section on Facebook is going to be fun.