UVa among the many recent stops for 2023 safety Sandy
Zahbari Sandy is making the most of his time off for Easter break.
The road trip for the 2023 three-star safety from St. John’s College High in Washington, DC began at Ole Miss last weekend. He was at Tennessee on Monday and South Carolina on Tuesday, with a stop at North Carolina on Wednesday's schedule and another at Wake Forest on deck for later this week.
All three of those SEC schools he’s visited in recent days have already offered. Sandy’s list is up to 22 schools, with half of them coming in the last three months as his recruiting has picked up.
Virginia is one of the most recent schools to enter the picture. New defensive backs coach Curome Cox, hired in mid-January, was the first UVa staffer to reach out to Sandy. The Cavaliers’ new head coach, Tony Elliott, offered in mid-February.
“I really like him,” Sandy recently told CavsCorner about the Hoos’ new big whistle, “I like how he’s trying to rebuild UVa.”
As a junior, Sandy earned WCAC Capital Conference all-conference honorable mention as a defensive back after helping St. John’s College go unbeaten last fall. The 6-foot-1, 199-pound safety first started collecting offers the previous spring during his COVID-altered sophomore season. Penn State was the first offer that March; ACC schools Boston College, Louisville and Pitt all offered last April. Maryland, West Virginia and Cincinnati also offered last spring.
Sandy pointed to South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia as the three schools currently showing him the most interest. The Gamecocks first offered last November; Tennessee offered in early February.
Before embarking on his college tour this week, Sandy was in Charlottesville last Wednesday to watch spring practice and tour Grounds at UVa.
“I actually came on the day they were scrimmaging,” Sandy said. “It was good. Both sides of the ball battled.”
Sandy spent that scrimmage studying the coaching styles of the UVa staff. During the visit, he also got to meet with with Cox, a former NFL safety who also has DC roots, having played his high school football at Gonzaga College High School. Cox was one of the last additions to Elliott’s initial staff at UVa, making the move from Air Force with defensive coordinator John Rudzinski.
It was Sandy’s first time meeting Cox in person. The safety said was able to "learn a lot from him to up my game a notch" through the course of that conversation.
“I really like him not only as a coach but more as a person,” the safety said. “He’s a family guy and really likes to get the person he’s recruiting and not just the football part.”
