Virginia football won a major victory on the recruiting trail on Friday night, as highly-pursued wide receiver and former Florida commit Josiah Abdullah announced his commitment to UVA in an Instagram post. Virtually every major conference college football program offered Abdullah during the course of his recruitment, including the likes of Alabama, Texas, LSU, Michigan, and Tennessee, but it was the Virginia Cavaliers, and their recent success in developing wide receivers, who ultimately landed his commitment.

A 5’10” wideout from Woodward Academy in Atlanta, Georgia, Abdullah verbally committed to Florida earlier this year, but then decommitted in early June. In addition to the Gators and Cavaliers, more than 50 programs offered Abdullah, including Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida State, Duke, Colorado, Louisville, LSU, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, NC State, North Carolina, Ole Miss, Penn State, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M, West Virginia… you get the idea.

Though he is only considered a three-star prospect according to ESPN, 247Sports, and On3 (and a four-star on Rivals), it’s clear that most of the country views Abdullah as far more valuable than that. ESPN rates Abdullah as the No. 34 wide receiver in the country and Rivals has him at No. 44, while On3 and 247Sports have him just outside the top 100 in that category. Most of the recruiting services have Abdullah ranked as a top 75 prospect in the state of Georgia, perhaps the best football recruiting hotbed in the country.

Watch Abdullah’s junior season highlights here.

Abdullah visited Virginia last week and saw what he needed to see, announcing his commitment to the Cavaliers a week later. He becomes one of the highest-rated prospects in UVA’s 2025 recruiting class.

Virginia football now has 18 verbal commits in its 2025 recruiting class:

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It’s early August, and at the Wildlife Center of Virginia you might say it’s chimney swift season. As homeowners take advantage of warm weather to clean their chimneys, dozens of baby birds fall or are removed from nests and brought in for care.

Chimney swifts have feet that are perfect for perching or building nests on vertical surfaces like rock crevices or hollow trees, so when humans began building homes with chimneys, swifts made the switch — according to Connor Gillespie at the Wildlife Center of Virginia.

“They find different sticks that they like,” Gillespie says. “They’ll bring them into that chimney and secrete a glue-like substance from under the tongue and adhere those sticks to the side of a chimney.”

There they create colonies.

“Huge colonies, beautiful colonies, very loud colonies,” says Alejandra Olvera, a rehabilitation supervisor at the center.

“They’re kind of like the last baby birds we see in our season. They start fletching out of chimneys because people are cleaning their chimney or attics – doing renovations over the summer and they find all [these] babies.”

At first, employees feed the birds a nutritious mix of high protein kitten chow, vitamins and minerals. Later they get tiny worms or crickets, and when they’re ready, staffer Mac Stewart says they’re freed in areas near other chimney swift colonies.

“Once they show us that they’re able to fly around their enclosure, they’re eating on their own on the wing, their feathers are in good condition and waterproof, we can release them,” Stewart says. “And they’ll do just fine.”

This work is especially important because – in the age of central heating – fewer homes and businesses have chimneys, so swift populations are in decline.

Peyton Falzone, a four-star recruit out of Nazareth (PA) made the decision to end his recruitment process almost 2 years before the early signing period and committed to the Virginia Tech Hokies over offers from major colleges Syracuse and Penn State. Falzone is the 6th ranked quarterback in the state of Pennsylvania and 215th in his class according to 247 Sports.

In an interview with 247 Sports, here’s what Falzone had to say on his early commitment:

“It’s more why not, the family atmosphere around the program and the great coaches made the decision easy. I love everything Coach Pry is about and I am excited to be a part of their journey. I talked to Coach Bowen and Coach Pry earlier in the week discussing my interest in committing, It was something I had been thinking about since my visit and I was just super excited to be apart of Hokie Nation.”

According to 247 Sports, Falzone was also seen at Virginia Tech’s “Hokie Fest” and helping do some early recruitment for his future class of 2026 and did an interview about it:

“I’m obviously locked into Virginia Tech and I want to help build a strong ’26 class. Every time I get on campus it feels more like home. The coaches have found great guys and I’m going to help out anyway I can to bring them home.”

Having a quarterback coming in at 6 foot 5 and can see over defenses, scramble, and throw the ball far down the field is very exciting for the Virginia Tech Hokies’ class of 2026. Falzone gels well with what offensive coordinator Tyler Bowen and head coach Brent Pry are looking for. History shows Virginia Tech likes to have versatile duo-threat quarterbacks such as Michael Vick, Tyrod Taylor, and Kyron Drones all of which future Hokies quarterback Peyton Falzone brings to the team.