Varina coach: UVa 'got a steal'

Varina High School coach Stu Brown knows a college football player when he sees one, and he’s seen a lot in turning the Blue Devils into a powerhouse. Brown said Virginia got a couple of good ones Wednesday when they signed Varina stars Tyrell Chavis and Maurice Canady.

“We send a lot of players to Division I programs out of here,” Brown said. “We’ve got six players in the pros and these two are as good as any of them.”

Canady, an athlete with potential to play multiple positions, and Chavis, a big offensive lineman who will likely spend next year at Fork Union Military Academy before joining the Cavaliers, come in rated as 3-star recruits by Rivals.com, but Brown said circumstances may have kept them from earning higher ratings.

Brown said Chavis had divided attention, spending most of his free time caring for an ailing mother. That’s left the 6-foot-3, 300-pounder with work to do academically before he qualifies to play at UVa. Nothing is set in stone, but Brown said he will be surprised if Chavis doesn’t spend next season play for the post-graduate team at Fork Union.

It’s a similar path that another former Richmond-area lineman, Morgan Moses, took to Virginia. Brown said Chavis is also similar in talent to Moses, one of the nation’s top recruits in 2009 and a current UVa starter.

“Tyrell has SEC talent,” Brown said. “I think he’s going to have to prep at Fork Union first, he’s still got some work to do there, but he absolutely dominated here. He shouldn’t have even been on the field in high school football, he was that dominant.”

Canady -- who is listed at 6-foot, 160 pounds, but has grown two inches since the fall -- could be a receiver or defensive back at the college level, Brown said, but he spent most of the past two seasons playing quarterback for Varina after the Blue Devils starters went down with injuries.

“I know I’m biased,” Brown said, “But I think Maurice Canady was the best player in the Richmond area. Two years in a row we lost our starting quarterback, so he never got to play his natural position. The best player in Richmond really was Maurice and he’s a good kid too. He showed he’s unselfish by switching positions. Virginia got a steal.”