Then sun had not yet come up when Dakota Twitty got on the road with his dad and younger sister last Saturday morning. It takes between four-and-a-half and five hours to get from their home in Mooresboro (NC) to Charlottesville, and the game against Illinois was set to kick off at 11 a.m.
It was the first time Twitty, a three-star wide receiver in UVa’s 2022 recruiting class, had been back to UVa since a visit in June. Even with the first few hours of the drive under the shroud of darkness, it was a trip he was eager to be making.
“When you know, you know,” Twitty told CavsCorner this week. “And I love that when I keep going to Charlottesville, every time something hits me new and I’m like, ‘Yes. This is the place where I need to be.’”
Twitty and his family picked the right weekend to come back. They got to watch first-hand as the Wahoos put up 556 yards of total offense (including 423 through the air) while rolling past the Illini 42-14 to improve to 2-0.
At one point late in the first quarter, a stat flashed on the big screen at Scott Stadium that quarterback Brennan Armstrong had already thrown for 171 yards. It caught the Twitty family’s attention.
“My dad was just like, ‘That’s unreal,’” Twitty recalled. “And I was just like, the receivers, the quarterback connection. Just the way the offense flows, the way the team plays together. It was amazing to watch.”
Ten different players caught passes in the win. Wide receivers Dontayvion Wicks and Ra’Shaun Henry each had a pair of catches that went for at least 28 yards. Wicks had a pair of touchdown receptions; another wide receiver, Billy Kemp, caught one too.
Throughout the recruiting process, UVa coaches had been selling Twitty on an offense that likes to spread the ball around and air it out downfield and “let their guys go get it and really have fun,” as the 6-foot-5 receiver described it. But because of the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of those conversations had taken place virtually.
Watching first-hand as the scheme played out the way the coaches had described it was reassuring for Twitty and his family.
“It really just shows that everything they say, they stand by,” he said. “And I really appreciated that because during this COVID process, without body language and in-person stuff really tells you about a person. But just seeing it translate from on the calls, on the FaceTimes, on the Zooms to in-person, it’s amazing knowing that I chose the right place.”
Twitty committed to Virginia in May despite not getting a chance to visit the school until a month later. His connection with UVa wide receivers coach Marques Hagans was a deciding factor when he made that commitment. Twitty used phrases like ‘mentor’ and ‘father figure’ this week to describe that relationship, adding that he hears from Hagans on practically a daily basis.
And the North Carolina native isn’t the only one in his family who has gotten good vibes from Hagans, going back to last winter.
“The first call that I got on with my parents and Coach Hagans,” Twitty recounted this week, “my mom, as soon as we got off the call she was like, ‘There’s something about that man. I like him.’ You know, when mom has that sixth sense, she says it, she gives you the go-ahead, then it just turned on from there.”
Twitty also appreciates how his conversations with Hagans and other UVa coaches often don’t center around football. Before getting on the road for home after Saturday’s game, he got a chance to catch up with head coach Bronco Mendenhall for a brief chat. Mendenhall asked about his family and the COVID situation in North Carolina, as well as the ’Route Tree’ T-shirt brand that Twitty and his uncle launched earlier this year.
“He was genuine as always,” said Twitty, who had brought shirts for Mendenhall and other members of the coaching staff.
Back home in Mooresboro, Twitty and his Thomas Jefferson Academy teammates are off to a 2-0 start to the season. In the Gryphons’ most recent win, Twitty had four catches for 144 yards and two touchdowns on offense, plus an interception on defense that he took back to the opposing 1-yard line.
“I tried to dive in,” he said with a laugh, “but I got cut a little short.”
Twitty is planning to be back at Scott Stadium for Virginia’s regular season finale against Virginia Tech in November, and may try to also make it up for the Notre Dame game two weeks earlier. He’ll spend the rest of the season tracking the Hoos from home and, he hopes, watching the offense put up more big plays through the air.
“It really gets my hopes high,” he said. “I’m ready to come in and work and hopefully be on the same stage as those guys.”
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