Virginia Tech's transfer portal drought is over as the Hokies have landed a commitment from Clemson S Sherrod Covil Jr, as announced by Covil on Instagram and first reported by VT Scoop's Kolby Crawford.
BREAKING: Clemson transfer S Sherrod Covil Jr. has committed to Virginia Tech
— Kolby Crawford (@kolby_crawford) December 19, 2024
The 5’11 200 lb. defensive back from Chesapeake, Va. had 12 tackles and a PBU this season
1 year of eligibility remaining
Story: https://t.co/b7JkzxWYqA pic.twitter.com/ebUe5Vqa4w
Covil is the first transfer commit of this cycle for the Hokies, with his decision coming just days after he visited Blacksburg.
The 757 native Covil comes to Virginia Tech after spending the past three seasons as a rotational safety and nickelback at Clemson. During his time with the Tigers, he had 36 tackles including one for loss plus a pass breakup. He will have one year of eligibility remaining plus a redshirt year if something were to necessitate that.
Covil should immediately come in and be able to compete for a starting safety job alongside Quentin Reddish. While Covil likely would be the favorite for that second starting job on paper at this time, it seems very likely that Tech will look to add at least one more safety to provide further depth in that room beyond Reddish and Covil. Both incoming freshman Sheldon Robinson and rising redshirt sophomore Braylon Johnson are also depth options though Tech likely would prefer to redshirt Robinson if they can.
Covil is the latest former high-profile in-state recruit to choose to return to his home state via the transfer portal following in the footsteps of Antwaun Powell-Ryland (Florida), Kelvin Gilliam (Oklahoma), and Kaleb Spencer (Miami). Covil is more like Gilliam and Spencer than Powell-Ryland as the first three all were rotational guys at best at their previous school while Powell-Ryland had started down the closing stretch of the 2022 season at Florida prior to transferring to VT.
The 757 native Covil has shown potential during his time at Clemson, though he took on a much larger role as a nickel and had his lowest PFF grade of his career at a 50.8, the first sub-60 PFF grade in his three seasons at Clemson. Covil seems better fit to be a safety who may be better as more of an in-the-box strong safety type rather than a coverage, ball-hawking free safety based on the advanced data at Clemson, which shows him earning a 74.4 run defense grade from PFF this past season.
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