COMMITMENT! UVA’s class of 2022 starts with tight end Karson Gay

The NCAA may have extended the college football recruiting dead period into May, but the Virginia Cavaliers won’t have to wait to start the class of 2022. Tennessee tight end Karson Gay announced that he chose UVA as his destination for college ball.

Gay is a 6-foot-7, 230-pound prospect out of the Boyd-Buchanan School in Chattanooga. Rivals and 247 both rate him as a three-star, with a 247 Composite of 86.28. In addition to Virginia, he holds offers from Virginia Tech, Pitt, Georgia Tech, Southern Cal, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Tennessee, Purdue, Indiana, and BYU.

Virginia’s 2021-22 roster has five players listed as tight ends after the addition of Oklahoma State transfer Jelani Woods in the offseason. Woods and Grant Misch are both junior, while redshirt freshman Joshua Rawlings represents the only other scholarship tight end on the roster.

Gay looks like he will add another big, athletic target to UVA’s stable of pass-catchers. He plays both in-line as a true tight end and flanked wide for Boyd-Buchanan, a good sign for his versatility in an offense. He navigates traffic well over the middle and fights off physical coverage. While not the most explosive athlete to ever play the position, Gay shows good burst as a ballcarrier (check out the screen he busts for a touchdown) and strength as an edge/second-level blocker. If his frame stays lean, he could make a good complement to a more slobber-knocking run-blocker; if Gay adds enough good weight to play at somewhere north of 260, he looks like a legitimate late-round NFL Draft prospect.