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Published May 9, 2024
The Commitment: What Jurgensen brings to the table
Justin Ferber  •  CavsCorner
Editor In-Chief
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@justin_ferber


The Commitment: UVa landed three-star quarterback Bjorn Jurgensen last week following a visit to Charlottesville and an offer early shortly thereafter. Jurgensen, a standout prospect from Bishop Moore in Orlando, became UVa’s second QB commit in this class and another Sunshine State product to choose the Cavaliers, joining current Cavalier and Tampa-area native Anthony Colandrea in the pipeline. Jurgensen chose the Hoos over offers from Appalachian State, FAU, ODU, Temple and others.

What it means for UVa: Jurgensen is UVa’s 12th commit overall in the 2025 class and his 5.6 rating helped boost Virginia’s class ranking. There’s a long way to go in this recruiting cycle, but his verbal moved UVa up to the No. 16 class nationally, with a pair of four-star pledges and 10 three-stars, of which Jurgensen ranks second behind Jon Adair (5.7).

Jurgensen, as mentioned, is also UVa’s second quarterback commit in the class, which is a relatively rare phenomenon. Fellow three-star Cole Geer picked the Hoos way back in early December, becoming one of the first commits in the 2025 class. UVa has said all along it wanted to take two signal callers in the class and Tony Elliott and Co. have achieved that goal.

When looking at UVa’s quarterback room, taking a pair of QB makes sense from a depth perspective. Tony Muskett is a senior and will be out of eligibility after this year. Assuming he doesn’t redshirt, Coandrea will be a junior when Jurgensen and Geer are projected to join the program. UVa took transfer QB Gavin Frakes but that feels more like a depth move for this season than any sort of long-term planning. And the Wahoos didn’t take a quarterback in the 2024 class either. Ethan Minter was a high school QB but has already transitioned to safety. Walk-on Grady Brosterhaus entered the transfer portal last week, so QB depth beyond Colandrea and Frakes next year is certainly needed. Not to mention, these two-QB scenarios usually have a way of working themselves out. One player could redshirt while the other doesn’t thereby creating a class buffer, or one of them could transfer out at some point. UVa took two QBs in the 2022 class, Bronco Mendenhall’s last. Both players, Davis Lane and Delaney Crawford, ended up in other position groups and the latter is now in the portal.

So let the numbers and depth charts work themselves out, because both Geer and Jurgensen are talented players so it’s worth trying to bring both of them in and see what happens.

What he brings: Jurgensen has been a productive player at Bishop Moore, leading them to a nine-win season and a playoff berth in his first year as a starter. He threw for 29 touchdowns and ran for 12 more as a junior, his first year at Bishop Moore after transferring over from another prep power in the Orlando area, Doctor Phillips.

It’s hard to judge the complexity of an offense but Jurgensen’s highlights show a lot of similar looks and schemes to what many college teams run, including UVa. His clips show a lot of boots, rollouts, and play action, which could help him adjust to the college game.

Mechanically, Jurgensen seems pretty solid and the balls are delivered on time and with accuracy. His clips don’t indicate that pure arm strength is his best quality but he seems to have adequate zip on his intermediate and deep throws. Jurgensen has a big frame, too, and moves well both in and out of the pocket. He might not be an elite athlete, but he’s not terribly far off the old “Thorterback” model the previous staff used to look for when finding signal callers.


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Long-Term Projection: Jurgensen is talented enough to develop into a starting quarterback but given UVa’s depth at the position, that role is almost surely years off, if he is to reach it.

Still, it will be interesting to see how both Jurgensen and Geer progress next fall, should they both sign. At this point we’re assuming that Colandrea is the starter and Frakes is competing with these two freshmen to back him up, so perhaps one of them can end up as the backup similar to the situation Colandrea found himself in last fall.


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