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We would watch Rivals at the time, and we watched a lot of Sharrif Floyd then. We would keep watching high school players more than anything and look at the things they were doing wrong." Though he says his son was blessed to be given the talent he has, a lot of detail and work went into honing his craft. "The talent is there, some of it is certainly God given," Brown explained. "But you still have to work at it. It just doesn't happen overnight. We worked 30-45 minutes per day just on his hands. There's a pole in the backyard that is set up so that he can keep working on his hands. Staying out until nine or 10 o'clock at night on the side of the house, running through cone drills, doing the speed ladders, holding candles because it was the only thing I could find in the garage so he could swing and punch and club." If the workouts were tough, the recruiting process was tougher, in large part because the Browns were very thorough. Brown Sr. said he wanted his son to "get to know these people, to really know them" before he got too excited about picking a school. And that's about the place in Brown's story where UVa head coach Mike London comes in. Ask the father why the son picked the Cavaliers over Alabama, Florida, Florida State and Virginia Tech, among dozens of others, and he'll answer plainly. "Mike London," the elder Brown said. "I think a lot of it was getting to know him over time and building that relationship of trust. Plus he spoke to me and made some promises as a father. "It's a unique situation because I am a single dad. Whereas a lot of the times coaches are really dealing with moms, now they were dealing with a dad. This time the relationship was totally different as far as the things we talked about, the things we discussed about our kids. It was just a different process." It wasn't that long ago that the No. 1 defensive tackle in the country and the No. 7 overall player in the nation, according to Rivals.com, was thinking about taking official visits. But something changed when the Chesapeake, Va., native traveled to Chicago for the Rivals100 Five-Star Challenge in June. Spending time with other players, Brown began to appreciate the fact that he didn't need to take the trips. "He got to Chicago and he talked to the other players. He got a consensus from different guys about visits and what they are and what they aren't," his father said. "And he started to think maybe that wasn't what he wanted to do because he didn't know how much he'd actually get out of it. It seemed like a waste of his time. I'm glad he Class Of 2014 UVa football commitments Name Pos. Quin BlandingDB Andrew BrownDT Caanan BrownLB Evan ButtsDE Jordan EllisRB J.J. JacksonDE Steven MossOL Will RichardsonOL Gary WunderlichK Ht. 6-2 6-3 6-3 6-4 5-10 6-4 6-5 6-6 6-0 Wt. Hometown (High School) 206 Virginia Beach, Va. (Bayside) 298 Chesapeake, Va. (Oscar Smith) 225 Clearwater, Fla. (Central Catholic) 225Newtown Square, Pa. (Episcopal Academy) 216 Suwanee, Ga. (Peachtree Ridge) 220 Purcellville, Va. (Woodgrove) 273 Fredericksburg, Va. (Chancellor) 330Burlington, N.C. (Cummings) 180 Memphis, Tenn. (Memphis University School)