It’s one thing to approach your college decision when you’ve got a group of favorites to choose between. It’s another when one of three is looking at you not only at a different position but on a different side of the ball entirely.
But that’s the situation that three-star lineman Austin Firestone is facing ahead of his pending commitment tomorrow afternoon. The 6-foot-5, 275 pounder is down to a final three of Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and UVa and in talking with him this week he couldn’t be more excited about the group he’ll choose from even if the “fit” question has been a more difficult one to navigate than most.
Having seen all three on official visits last month, as well as an extra unofficial back to Northwestern in the third week of the month prior to his UVa OV so his mother could see it in person, the Niceville (FL) product believes that he’s in a great spot at this point to make the call.
“I thought it was going to be a little more stressful than it was,” he told CavsCorner. “But it was nice to finally get to meet everyone in person for the first time. It was a lot different than just doing a bunch of Zoom calls. So I actually enjoyed the people part more than anything I think.”
So how did the run of visits match up with what he thought going in?
“Honestly, that’s what I expected,” Firestone said. “I knew we would have to cram everything in the month of June. So, let’s do it. I was excited that I was going to get the opportunity, though. My friend who went to LSU last year, he didn’t get a chance to take any visits. So, you feel really blessed to be able to have these.”
Led by Garett Tujague and Bronco Mendenhall as well, the Cavaliers have made their case to Firestone that he would be great on the offensive side of the ball while both the Wildcats and Commodores want him on D.
The time that he spent with around the OL at Virginia helped him get a great feel for what the Wahoos are all about, something that had been building for more than a year.
“They’ve been with me since the start,” Firestone said of UVa. “So, like March of 2020. I initially heard from Coach Tujague. He was my first point of contact and I talked to him for a while. Then I got to know Coach Mendenhall really well. Those have kind of been my two main guys that I’ve been talking to.”
The one thing about the incredibly long dead period is that it allowed recruits to learn a great deal about the various schools that were involved in their recruitments. But it left a lot to be desired when it came to connection.
“You get all of this information in these Zoom meetings and calls and things, right, and then you think you kind of know what it’s going to be,” Firestone explained. “So then you go there to see it and you have to put the faces to the voices and verifying how the environment feels. You can get a bunch of facts. You can get a bunch of graphics. But you can’t tell from far away how an environment feels. So it’s just a matter of getting there and meeting the players, seeing the coaches in person, meeting with the academic people, and doing stuff that you can only do in person.”
Hosted by Joe Bissinger during his time on Grounds, Firestone got to see a lot of sides of the program.
“He was awesome,” Firestone recalled. “But I had a lot of guys that I talked to a lot. It was great seeing those guys and getting to hear their stories about how they all ended up at Virginia. They’re just a very motivated group and some really cool guys.”
That was aided in part by the way Tujague handled one of the film sessions.
“We did a lot of that on Zoom,” Firestone said of the film work, “but we did have a session one of the mornings where he showed us some great film. And then he left and all the players kind of coached us through some of their key concepts. That was really cool.”
In Mendenhall, Firestone found someone with a similar personality in some ways.
“It was great,” he said of spending time with UVa’s head coach. “We went out there to his house and he taught me how to ride a horse, which was fun. I love that stuff. I had a lot of great, thoughtful conversations with him. We’re both kind of that reader type so we could talk about books that we’ve read. We also talked about the way that he runs the program and all that and he’s got a great feel for it that’s for sure.”
The fit portion of his decision is an integral piece that he’s had to sort through.
“They’ve talked to me about both offense and defense,” Firestone said. “If I’m with Coach Tujague and I’m playing offense, I think he sees me as a tackle. I love that left tackle spot for sure.”
“It is tough, that’s for sure,” he added later. “And position matters. I’ve got to figure out what I love and what side of the ball I want to play most. For most schools, that’s D-line. But you also have to take into account the people you’re going to be around and the program you’re going to be in, so that’s a big part of why I’m giving Virginia such heavy consideration. At the end of the day, it’s about the people you’re surrounded with and the environment you’re being coached in.”
As far as the process goes, he couldn’t be happier with how it’s played out even if it provided a tough decision, one for which he’s very clear on what matters most.
“First of all is the culture and the environment of the team,” Firestone said. “How the synergy is between the coaches and athletes and is it something that I am excited to come into. Academics will also be a big piece, making sure I have both sides of the coin covered between the football and academics. And also of course the city, ya know? The environment, how close it is to home, is it a big city or a small city, that kind of thing. All of those have their pros and cons.”
With a commitment on deck soon, Firestone knows what’s beyond tomorrow’s decision.
“I’m going to be relieved to be honest,” he said with a laugh. “It’s really cool to be able to come close to the end of the recruiting process and kind of see the cloud start to clear from the sky and get that clarity. It’s actually really awesome.”
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