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"DBU" is certainly not shying away from the best. Despite being committed to LSU since his sophomore year, the Hokies are still in the "conversation" when it comes to Trinity Christian Academy five star cornerback Kevin Toliver II. It's kind of like asking the prettiest girl in school to prom. She knows of you and thinks of you in a positive light...but you just aren't going to quite cut it for her. So you'll wait around, hoping that your contingency status improves closer to the big dance.
The Hokies do have one thing going for them in the recruitment of the consensus #1 CB in the nation. 2014 Hokies WR commit Isaiah Ford also attended Trinity Christian Academy in Jacksonville, Florida. This helps out a lot, especially when that former teammate was also highly regarded. Tech will need all the help they can get if they want to pull off the impossible.
Toliver contends that he is still completely committed to LSU, but will take his five official visits this fall (LSU, Auburn, Ohio St, UCLA and VT). He obviously is a smart young man who has been paying attention. Despite his allegiance to Coach Les Miles, Toliver seems to understands the fickle and fluid nature of college football recruiting. Anything can happen, things change all the time and he wants to be prepared in the event that something drastic occurs.
Toliver boasts offers from every major D1 program in the nation, so the fact that VT made his top five should give Hokie fans some optimism regarding future recruiting progress. Take a look at some of the major programs that Tech beat for one of his five official visits:
Alabama, Clemson, Florida, Florida State, Miami, Texas A&M, Georgia, Michigan, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Tennessee and USC. That's college football royalty for the most part.
Take a look a Toliver's highlight reel and write up by SBN's Bud Elliott:
2015 DB/ATH Kevin Toliver 2013 season highlight remix (via Prep1Force)
Toliver's blend of size and speed are attributes that aren't always seen in top flight DB's. As it stands now, LSU looks to mold Toliver in the way they did with former players and NFL first rounders Morris Claiborne and Patrick Peterson.
Tech has only had a few DB's that come to mind that have had both size and speed, namely Jimmy Williams and Kam Chancellor (he played CB for a year). Williams' time at CB for the Hokies worked out pretty well for both parties as he was named first team All-American in 2005 and drafted in the second round of the NFL draft.
With "DBU" about to produce another early round draft pick in Kyle Fuller and sophomore sensations Kendall Fuller and Brandon Facyson ready for another stellar year, the Hokies hope to make a great case for themselves in trying to flip Toliver's decision towards Blacksburg.