Feeling Like Virginia Tech's "Main Priority," 2018 LB Dax Hollifield Sets UVA Visit

2018 LB Dax Hollifield of Shelby (N.C.) HS has made the trip to Blacksburg so many times now that he could probably use his own student I.D., but he's not done with his Virginia Tech visits for the year quite yet.

The junior prospect last trekked to Tech just a month ago to watch the Hokies clobber Miami, on top of his visits for the team's "Blacksburg Bash" this summer and the spring game before that. Now, he's planning on stopping by one last time in 2016 to see the Hokies take on UVA in their annual Thanksgiving-week clash.

"I love Lane Stadium for any game," Hollifield told The Key Play. "I think that's my favorite place to go to a game."

Hollifield — who's rated a 4-star recruit by the 247Sports Composite ranking — thinks he's probably seen campus close to a dozen times by now, so there wouldn't seem to be any particularly compelling reason for him to return once more. Yet Hollifield has been talking to Bud Foster since before Justin Fuente arrived in Blacksburg, and he says the Hokies' DC always bends over backwards to make him feel welcome, giving him ample motivation to keep coming back.

Indeed, when Hollifield last visited for the team's Miami matchup in October, he remembers feeling like the only recruit in town.

"They had some other recruits there and I felt like I was their main priority," Hollifield said. "And that's what I want to feel like, I want to feel like somebody's priority. I don't want to be somebody's number two, I want to be number one, so I felt like they really wanted me."

Considering Hollifield's status as one of the top recruits in the country — 247 rates him 115th in the nation for the 2018 class — it's hardly a surprise he's earned such treatment. But he notes that it's the substance of Tech's message, not just its style, that's kept him coming back.

Sure, he says Justin Fuente and the rest of the staff met extensively with him in their offices before the game — he notes that "my whole family was sitting in there forever." Yet what he really values is Foster's pitch about his potential.

"He thinks, if I come in, I can play," Hollifield said. "He said I'd probably be playing at the will or the mike, and I know that they only have about five linebackers, that's what surprised me a lot."

Certainly, the Hokies are limited at linebacker, with precious little depth behind starters Andrew Motuapuaka and Tremaine Edmunds. Hollifield can't say for certain how he might factor into the depth chart if he were to come to Tech, but he can take a pretty good guess.

"I know he's not going to say, 'If you come here, you can start your freshman year,' but he's hinted to it a lot, and I feel like I could," Hollifield said. "And that would be my goal, getting to play as a freshman. That'll be a factor."

After all, he says that's all he's ever known in his days playing football.

"I've never really not played in my life," Hollifield said. "My main goal is, I want to go somewhere where I'm gonna play a lot as a freshman. I don't want to go anywhere where I have to sit out a year or something, I want to get in there and play."

Based on what he saw of the linebackers' play against Miami, he thinks he's got the same sort of skillset to fit in seamlessly with Foster's defense. While he feels he could make plays at either the mike or backer position, he seemed particularly taken with Edmunds' responsibilities out on the field.

"He gets to make a lot of tackles in space," Hollifield said. "It seems like the ball is always thrown to him or 54, so that's awesome. I really like that about it. It seems like he's really good at making open field tackles, and I think I'm pretty good at it also, so I'd fit in well with that. He also has to cover a lot, and I think I could do that too."

But no matter where exactly he might fit in Foster's system, he seems quite enthusiastic about joining a unit like the "Lunch Pail D." After all, he was treated to an especially dominant performance from the defense in his last visit.

"I was surprised at how good the defensive line played, because they had two of their starters out," Hollifield said. "I was surprised how good they played, they did awesome. Eight sacks is insane, especially against Miami."

Now, the Hokies will have yet another chance to impress Hollifield by producing a dominant defensive showing against their most hated rival.

He's got plenty of other visits to compare it to — he visited South Carolina at the end of October, and North Carolina earlier this month. He even got to see Penn State shock Ohio State in State College, though he admits that trip won't have much bearing on his ultimate decision.

"That was great, but I'm not gonna go there, because it's too far away from my house and it's freaking cold up there," Hollifield said.

Indeed, he thinks those games leave a lot to be desired compared to Lane Stadium. But with a noon kickoff set for the UVA matchup, Hollifield wonders if even this weekend's big game can live up to his most recent experience in Lane.

"I'd never been on Thursday night," Hollifield said. "When they played Duke last year, it got into where it was dark, but it really wasn't anything compared to that....At night, it's just a little different. At night I thought it looked great."