Mekhai White has made plenty of previous trips to Virginia. But this weekend was different.
White’s prior visits had come with Bronco Mendenhall and his staff at the helm of the UVa football program. Saturday’s Junior Day was the first opportunity for the 2024 King George athlete to meet new UVa coach Tony Elliott and the staff he has assembled since being hired in December.
“The visit went really well. My family and I really enjoyed ourselves,” White told CavsCorner following his day in Charlottesville. “They were really family oriented and easy to talk to.”
Mendenhall stepped down in December after six seasons at UVa. Elliott was hired a week later after 11 seasons at Clemson, where he’d been co-offensive coordinator since 2014 and spent last season as offensive coordinator and assistant head coach. Elliott has since added Des Kitchings as his offensive coordinator while retaining two of the previous staff’s offensive assistants, offensive line coach Garett Tujague and wide receivers coach Marques Hagans.
In Hagans, White found a familiar face waiting when he got to Charlottesville on Saturday. Hagans was the coach who, back in mid-September, made White his first scholarship offer. That UVa offer was reaffirmed during Saturday’s Junior Day visit.
The original offer from Hagans came a few days after White, who also attended camp at UVa in June, was at Scott Stadium to watch the Wahoos hang 42 points and 423 passing yards on Illinois. He was also in town for the October shutout of Duke and the November loss to Notre Dame.
White described his relationship with Hagans, a UVa alum who has been on staff at his alma mater since returning as a graduate assistant in 2011, as still developing. But he also saw it as a credit to Hagans’ coaching ability that Elliott would choose to keep the wide receivers coach on staff. Under the UVa graduate, the Wahoos had four different players put up 600-yard receiving seasons last year.
“He is doing a really great job,” said White.
The 6-foot-3 White also fits the mold of those playmakers on the outside: Of those top four receivers last season, only Billy Kemp stood shorter than 6-foot-1. The 175-pound White also plays outside linebacker and safety for King George, who went unbeaten until a loss to eventual state champion Varina in the Region 4B semifinals.
The biggest thing White took away from the visit was the confidence of the new coaching staff. The Junior Day was his first chance to meet Elliott, who since being introduced last month has put an emphasis on UVa having a stronger presence with in-state recruits. Elliott preached character, integrity and, as White described it, “doing things with your heart” to the high school underclassmen who visited the McCue Center on Saturday.
“I didn’t know much about him other than being a coach at Clemson,” White admitted. “He is very personable and easy to talk to.”
Virginia will have plenty of competition for White, whose recruiting heated up after getting that UVa offer in September. By mid-November, that list had grown to eight offers. More than half are from ACC schools, with Virginia Tech and Pitt offering in October and North Carolina and Boston College joining the list a few weeks later. Maryland, West Virginia and Old Dominion are the other schools to offer.
In addition to his three visits to UVa for games last fall, White made trips to Penn State, Virginia Tech, Pitt, Notre Dame, UNC and South Carolina. As of this weekend, White had a visit to Blacksburg to meet new Virginia Tech coach Brent Pry and his staff lined up for January 29th.
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