Soon-to-be Virginia running back Xavier Brown is a confident ball-carrier.
“I just feel like when I have the ball in my hands,” the 2022 3-star back who signed with UVa last month said in a recent conversation with CavsCorner, “I can change the game.”
Brown was a consistent game-changer for Lexington (KY) Christian last fall. He finished his senior season with 1,511 rushing yards and 22 scores on the ground—while averaging 12.9 yards per carry. Brown added six more TD catches, and led Liberty Christian to the brink of a perfect season before falling in the KHSAA Class 2 state title game.
Those numbers, coupled with a 3.63 GPA in the classroom, earned the three-time all-city selection an even bigger distinction last month: Gatorade Kentucky Football Player of the Year.
“Honestly, I wasn’t expecting at all,” Brown admitted. “Our AD came into one of our classes and just announced it, and it caught me by surprise.”
Since last July, when he was originally drawn to the family aspect preached by then-running backs coach Mark Atuaia and the previous staff, Brown had been committed to play at Virginia. But those plans were briefly thrown into upheaval during the first week of December, when then-UVa head coach Bronco Mendenhall revealed that he would be stepping down.
Brown was in shock. He’d just been at UVa the previous weekend for the Virginia Tech game. Two days before the announcement, Mendenhall and Atuaia had just visited Brown at practice while he and his teammates prepared for the state title game. After hearing the news from his father, Brown jumped on a group chat populated by his fellow UVa class of 2022 commits to find they were just as confused as he was.
“He didn’t say anything at all,” Brown recalled. “It just caught us all by surprise. We weren’t expecting it at all. We were just waiting to see what the future held for us, honestly.”
The recruits followed along for the next week while UVa searched for its next head coach. They saw the rumor mill churn out reports about Virginia all-time great Anthony Poindexter, now the co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach at Penn State. In the midst of the uncertainty, some recruits backed out of their commitments and eventually signed elsewhere.
But when Clemson offensive coordinator Tony Elliott was hired as UVa’s new head coach, Brown was instantly optimistic. He was among the recruits who met virtually with Elliott on Zoom two days after the new coach was hired and less than a week before the early Signing Day.
“That’s what set it in stone for me,” Brown said of that conversation. “One of his big things was how he loved how UVa was a high academic school, because that’s what he wants to recruit, high academic athletes. He doesn’t want to have to worry about them in the classroom at all.”
Brown was also excited by Elliott’s history coaching running backs at Clemson, most notably Travis Etienne, the two-time ACC Player of the Year who graduated as league’s all-time leader in rushing yards, total touchdowns and rushing touchdowns. Brown says he tries to model his all-purpose game after that of Etienne, who also caught 85 passes in his final two college seasons.
UVa has since added former Atlanta Falcons running backs coach Des Kitchings as offensive coordinator. Prior to spending this season in the NFL, Kitchings was running backs coach at South Carolina for a year after an eight-year stint in the same role at NC State. Kitchings guided the Gamecocks’ Kevin Harris to a 1,000-yard rushing season in 2020; during his time at NC State, the Wolfpack had backs break that mark in three consecutive seasons from 2016-18.
“From what I saw Coach Elliott do at Clemson, it speaks volumes on what he’s trying to do coming in here,” Brown said. “And then the staff he’s bringing in with him is amazing as well, from where they’ve come from and the things they’ve done before.”
Brown has yet to talk one-on-one with any of the Cavaliers’ new coaches. That will change later this month, when he and the other high school recruits who signed with UVa in December return to Charlottesville for an official visit weekend later this month. Those signees are also busy trying to recruit Snoop Amaama, who also attended the Virginia Tech game at Scott Stadium in November, and some of the other unsigned 2022 offensive line recruits who recently picked up UVa offers leading up to February’s Signing Day.
At UVa, Brown will join a running back depth chart that lost leading rusher Wayne Taulapapa to the transfer portal, but will return veterans Mike Hollins and Ronnie Walker plus Amaad Foston, who redshirted as a freshman this fall. He’s been working out since his senior season ended last month, and plans to run track in the spring before heading to school next summer. After being used more as a pass-catcher as a junior, Brown believes his experience as the lead back as a senior made him a better overall back coming out of high school.
“My running ability improved a lot this season,” he said. “I’m just excited to get on campus and start working and get the opportunity to play.”
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