'09 VA OT Andrew Miller (Virginia Tech Verbal)

[GoRU]

'09 VA OT Andrew Miller



Offensive tackle
Bassett (VA) Bassett

Ht: 6-foot-5
Wt: 275 lbs
Bench max: 350 pounds
GPA: 3.6
Class: 2009 (High School)

Wake joins UVa, Tech in Andrew Miller sweepstakes - Roanoke.com

Wake Forest has become the third ACC program to make a scholarship offer to Bassett’s Andrew Miller, a 6-foot-5, 275-pound offensive guard who ranks as the No. 1 football prospect in The Roanoke Times’ 19-county “Timesland” coverage area.

Other potential suitors would be best advised not to hesitate.

Bassett High School coach Jay Gilbert said Friday that he thinks Miller could make an announcement in the next 3-4 weeks. Boston College, Maryland and North Carolina State are among a group of schools that have requested film or otherwise have shown significant interest.

“The way it seems to work, as soon as one school offers, others follow,” Groh said. “Virginia was the first to offer. Then, Tech stepped up. Wake Forest came through [with an offer] this week.”

Tech has been considered the front-runner for Miller because his older brother, Tim, wrestles for the Hokies. The catch is, the Hokies want Miller to enroll as a wrestler.

It is Gilbert’s understanding that current Tech football projections allow for only one scholarship lineman in the class of 2009. The Hokies essentially are recruiting Miller for the football class of 2010 but want him to school on a wrestling scholarship, participate in wrestling during the 2008-2009 season, then join the football team in the spring.

Once he played in a football game for the Hokies, Miller would count against the football scholarship limit, whether he continued to wrestle or not.

“Tech is probably the frontrunner,” Gilbert said, “but I don’t know if he wants to go the wrestling route. There is the possibility that he could get hurt in wrestling.”

Wherever he goes, Miller will be the fourth Miller sibling to accept a grant-in-aid from an ACC athletic program. Oldest brother John went to Duke, where he played on the offensive line; sister Heather went to Wake Forest for basketball, and Tim is at Tech, where he saw limited action this year as a 197-pounder.

“Andrew’s dad was saying something about liking Virginia,” Gilbert said, “and I told him, ‘You really do want four children at four different schools.’ Virginia has done everything the NCAA probably allows to get him to commit in the last three or four weeks.”

Gilbert thinks that Wake Forest could quickly challenge Virginia Tech because of the Millers’ familiarity with the athletic program and the proximity of Wake’s campus to Henry County. Winston-Salem, N.C., is scarcely an hour’s drive from the Miller’s home.

Miller, who has a 3.67 grade-point average, has expressed an interest in majoring in agricultural science “and I’m sure that hurts Virginia some,” Gilbert said. “I’m sure there are some other majors that would challenge him but Andrew grew up on a farm. The agricultural part does interest him.”

Before the recruiting picked up, Gilbert said, he put a list of schools on a blackboard and asked Miller to rank them. Tech was No. 1 at that time.

“Andrew and Tim are real close,” Gilbert said, “but Andrew’s a really quiet person. I went up to Virginia with him last week and Andrew really could have loved it and I never would have known. He’s just that kind of kid.”

>> Gilbert has two other rising seniors, quarterback Rashawn “Boo” Woods and two-way lineman Dameon Hairston, whom he views as scholarship candidates at either the Division I-AA or Division II level.

Woods was named Timesland offensive player of the year after accounting for more than 1,000 yards both rushing and passing in 2007, when he helped Bassett to its first 10-0 regular season.

Woods has a 3.15 grade-point average, but his height (he’s 5-10, 191) probably will keep him from being recruited as a quarterback. At 6-1 and 295 pounds, Hairston, too, is height-challenged to play his position at the I-A level.

Miller joined Woods on the All-Timesland first team and Hairston was a second-team selection.

[GoRU]

Will Hokies' camp yield new commitments? - Roanoke.com

CHRIS HORNE, WHO covers recruiting for thesabre.com and techsideline.com, has put together an updated rating of the state's top 30 prospects, including seven of the players who have committed to UVa.

The two UVa-bound players who didn't make Horne's Pre-Summer Top 30 were the above-named Battle and 6-6, 265-pound Centreville High School offensive lineman Luke Bowanko. At the time of his commitment, Bowanko had offers from Florida State and Boston College, and since then he has gotten offers from Syracuse and Vanderbilt. Expect him to move up on subsequent lists.

It's interesting to think that Bowanko and Bassett High School offensive lineman Andrew Miller both have been offered by Florida State. Seminoles' O-line coach Rick Trickett was in the school at Bassett and felt, after watching 10 minutes of film, that Miller was worth an offer.

"He said you can shake a tree in Florida and out would come all the running backs and DBs you'd ever want," Bassett coach Jay Gilbert said, "but he said it's not as easy to find hard-working offensive lineman."

Gilbert originally thought Miller would have committed by now, but Miller, a Group AA championship wrestling, has participated in a series of weekend wrestling tournaments that end either this weekend or next. Gilbert expects Miller to sit down at that point and zero in on his decision.

Of the four schools that have made either written or oral offers to Miller, two, Florida State and Wake Forest, don't have wrestling programs. Virginia has a wrestling program that almost claimed the ACC championship, but the Cavaliers have told Miller that they don't think it's feasible to play football and wrestle in college.

That's fine with Miller, who has been offered a wrestling scholarship by the Hokies. Once he participates in wrestling as a freshman, according to the Tech plan, he will join the football team in the spring of 2010 and count as a scholarship football player at that point.

"I think you'd see the wrestling chapter of his career end at that point," Gilbert said.

[GoRU]

Rivals $

6/23

VT verbal.

Bassett's Miller to play 2 for Hokies - Roanoke.com

Miller, a rising senior who won the VHSL Group AA championship at 285 pounds in March, gave Tech wrestling coach Kevin Dresser an oral commitment late Sunday night.

Bassett football coach Jay Gilbert said Monday the 6-foot-5, 264-pound Miller plans to sign a wrestling scholarship with Tech during the early signing period and join the Hokies football program next year as a redshirt lineman.

When the 2009-10 wrestling season ends, Miller's scholarship will convert to a football grant-in-aid, Gilbert said.

"It helps football out," Gilbert said. "I think they only have nine scholarships left for [2009]. It helps wrestling out. Coach Dresser wanted him in next year because he'll need a heavyweight. It helps everyone out. This was too good an opportunity to let go."

Miller said he is not sure how long he would be able to continue wrestling at Tech once he becomes property of the football program. Nevertheless, the opportunity to try both sports in Blacksburg was a huge factor in his decision.

"It came down to seeing what I could do on the next level in wrestling, and also being part of one of the top football programs in the country every year," Miller said.

Miller had a 53-0 record last year at Bassett when he was ranked the nation's No. 1 heavyweight in the junior class by Wrestling USA magazine and was named Timesland wrestler of the year.

Miller, who picked Tech over Virginia, Wake Forest and Florida State, will join two older brothers and a sister -- all former Bassett athletes -- in signing a Division I scholarship.

The eldest brother, John, graduated from Bassett in 1997 and was a three-year football starter at Duke. Miller's sister, Heather, played basketball at Wake Forest and remains Bassett's career scoring leader with 2,395 points.

Miller will join his brother Tim, a 2006 Bassett graduate, in Tech's wrestling program. Tim Miller was the Hokies' starter at 197 pounds as a freshman in 2006-07.

"He's had a connection with Dresser for a while through his brother Tim," Gilbert said.

Miller helped lead Bassett's football team to a 10-0 regular season in 2007 as an offensive guard and defensive lineman. The Bengals finished 11-1 after losing to Salem 10-7 in the Region IV final.

Gilbert said Tech recruited Miller as an offensive lineman, either at guard or center.

"He does the long snapping for us, too, so they might look at him at center," Gilbert said.