During his first press conference, Viginina head coach Mike London said winning the in-state recruiting battle was key to turning the program around. Virginia’s Chris Slade explains why he thinks London can succeed in Virginia.
Mike London is a man of good integrity. He’s a guy with a lot of good character and he’s not going to just tell you what you want to hear when he’s recruiting kids.
And I think because of his background in the Tidewater area and the whole state of Virginia, because he played at the University of Richmond, he’s a Tidewater guy and he has a reputation.
If he was this just a slick kid coming up in the ranks, I think the area high school coaches would be leery of him. But because he has such a good reputation and people know him as a guy who has good morals or good standing, then I think that’ll help him a lot in recruiting.
When he walks through that door he comes in with his credibility and he’s proven it in recruiting. If you look back at Virginia six, seven years ago when the program was really good in the ACC, I think that was because they got a lot of top players and London got a lot of those guys to come to Virginia.
He had a big hand in Elton Brown, who was with the Arizona Cardinals. He also had a big say in Darryl Blackstock, who also spent some time in the NFL. And I know he had something to do with Chris Long coming to Virginia as well. So he’s helped haul in big in-state recruits in the past.
He had a big influence in Virginia recruiting before he left to go to Richmond.
Some people will argue that London’s success at Richmond was fluky because he was coaching another coach’s players. Well, whether he recruited those guys or didn’t recruit those guys, you still have to coach them. You still have to get the guys to play. You still have to get the guys to believe in your system. You still have to put them in the right position to make plays and be successful.
So at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. He just coached the players that he had and he was very successful there and that’s what he’s going to do in Virginia. Coach Groh recruited some great players, so Mike is going to inherit some talented players at Virginia and it’s going to be a good situation for him.
I don’t know who he’s going to sign in the next month or so, but I think that because he has such a good rapport with a lot of coaches in the state of Virginia, he’ll get some commitments that were going to go to Richmond but decide to go to Virginia.
Mike London is a good guy and a great coach and parents are going to want to send their kids to a place where they can trust the coach, a good school and a place with a lot of integrity. And that’s Virginia.
So maybe we can lure some of those recruits away from Richmond and he can bring them to Charlottesville. If he’s recruiting them, I’m sure they are guys that can play at any level.
With his No. 85 jersey retired by the Cavaliers, former DE Chris Slade is now the radio sideline reporter for the Virginia Sports Network.
Got a question or comment? E-mail him here
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