Wednesday afternoon 2016 Woodgrove (Purcellville, VA) defensive tackle Clay Dean tweeted his commitment to the Virginia Tech Hokies.
I am proud to say that I have committed to Virginia Tech to play football. Go Hokies! pic.twitter.com/YNnQ7iznQo— Claybrooke Dean (@ClaybrookeDean) March 25, 2015
According to Clay, Virginia Tech was the lone school to offer him. 247Sports rates Dean as a 3-star prospect.
New #Hokies commit Clay Dean adds that Torrian Gray was his main recruiter, but he also met Bud Foster/Charley Wiles at a Junior Day event.— Alex Koma (@AlexKomaVT) March 25, 2015
Jason Butt of the Washington Post spoke with Dean about his Hokies offer in February.
On the morning of Feb. 4, Dean received word from Woodgrove Coach Mike Skinner that he needed to call Virginia Tech defensive backs coach Torrian Gray whenever he could. Dean did so and was surprised to hear the Hokies wanted to give him his first collegiate scholarship offer.
"It felt amazing, just that I've reached this point," Dean said.
Dean played an integral role on Woodgrove's defense in 2014, totaling 82 tackles and 14 sacks. The first-team All-Conference 21 honoree believes the defense will be able to improve with hopes of reaching further in the postseason this coming fall. Woodgrove's 2014 season ended in the second round of the Virginia 4A playoffs to Salem, 38-28.
Alex Koma hopes to speak more with Clay for a more indepth report later.
Comments
Excellent. I will post my reaction gif when I get home.
Hooray for Dean! (and Emma Watson)
How cool I wish I was
How cool I am
My reaction gif
From what I've heard, I'd watch that Elmo guy closely...
A commitment from Dean deserves a dance from Gene...
Gene, Gene, the dancing machine
Leg and R.I.P.
I'll take as many interior lineman as I can get!
Man I was reved! Thought it was an OL guy!
Awesome! Welcome, Clay!
247 says he's 6'2'', 240. While I recognize he's only a junior in high school, that seems awfully small for a DT. Which makes me that much more excited to see his tape, cause if he's that size and still got offered, he must be a pretty impressive player.
VT has a history of playing some lighter Defensive Tackles. The entirety of our depth chart at Nose is 270 or less, Marshal is 262, Baron 265, and Mihota 270. For comparison, Dadi Nicholas was about 210 when he arrived on campus and now weighs 236, so if we assume that he can gain the same amount of weight, he would be able to play in the 265-270 range that most of our current nose tackles fall into.
Or the coaches want Clay for DE. Seems about the prototypical size for a VT DE, and we have little (no) depth there right now.
He doesn't seem to have VT DE speed, but is about the size we've been pulling dts in at a lot of the time. I'd expect him there, especially since he'll have lots of time to develop with our DT depth. Highlights with stats!
He mentioned to Koma he's being recruited as a DT.
TOS says specifically they want him as a DT. this one is a head scratcher.
Yes, we've had success developing guys like this and making it work out. Guys with less than prototypical size but a big time drive to make plays anyway. Which is precisely why I said I was excited to see his tape. I wasn't knocking the guy. I was saying that he must be a hell of a player to compensate for his lack of size.
He's a year and a half from the Fall '16 camp. He'll almost certainly be bigger than 240 when he arrives on campus. My guess is closer to 260.
Good chance he'll be 280+ by the time he's a r-So.
The Dean of Mean!
Nice, now he needs to work on convincing some DEs to bookend for him!
Glad to haven him on board and congrats! Seems like a nice young man. Having said that, very underwhelmed with 2016 commitments at this point. Several have no offers from anybody else and not seeing any 4 stars committing anytime soon. This is first commitment that's not an athlete or DB. Yes I know the staff is great at identifying talent early but we just continue to whiff on all the big boys in Virginia and I don't see it changing this year. JMO
Not seeing any 4* commitments coming soon? Did you foresee any of the recruits who have signed thus far?
Regardless people get way too caught up in the 3* vs 4* thing. While the relatively few high 4* can be viewed differently, there is little difference these days between the mid to high 3* and low to mid 4* players that fill out much of VT's roster (and most Power 5 teams' rosters to varying degrees, for that matter). I can assure you that the VT coaches are completely unconcerned about things like whether somebody is a high 3* or a low 4*.
If we looked at their rankings on a 100 pt scale, we'd get far less worked up about getting kids rated as, say, an 88.5 that fits the system or fills a position of need instead of a 90.2 that doesn't.
But the recruiting services (and message boards and even message board posters!) like us getting worked up, so the star system it is.
I'd rather take commits early from players we see good potential in and then sort it out as the recruiting class shapes up. If he sucks at camp, you can always have a heart to heart talk.
Dean is currently an undersized tackle as a junior in HS with a really good first step coming off the ball, good quickness, and a good motor. If he preps/grayshirts and then redshirts, he would be a redshirt frosh in fall 2018.
You can get bigger and stronger in the weight room. It is very difficult to get quicker.