STORRS -- It was 10 minutes before midnight on Christmas Eve and UConn coach Randy Edsall was out celebrating the holidays, enjoying carolers with his family in his hometown of Glen Rock, Pa., when his cellphone rang.

"I see Jarrell Miller [on caller ID] and I'm thinking, `Uh oh, this can't be good.'" Edsall said.

About a week earlier, the high school All-American from Richmond, Va., had called Edsall to offer his oral commitment. With word spreading that Miller was wavering, Edsall was wondering if the prize of his recruiting class was about to disappear.

"So I pick it up," Edsall said. "And first of all, I don't know how he thinks I'm even going to be up at that time. Usually I'm in bed. So I pick it up and [I] said, `Jarrell, what's up?'" Edsall said. "He said, `I'm just calling to wish you a Merry Christmas.' I said, `Thank you.'"

On Friday at the Burton Family Football Complex, Edsall introduced Miller, one of the most surprising gifts he received over the holiday season.

Miller, a 6-foot-3, 270-pound middle linebacker, was a Parade All-American from Highland Springs (Va.) High School. He went to North Carolina to start the 2006 season, but decided before practices began in August that it wasn't where he wanted to be. He enrolled at Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy to get in a prep school season.

In December, Miller was being pursued by Virginia, South Carolina, Auburn, Alabama and Tennessee. But Miller could see himself at any of those schools.

"I started to panic," Miller said. "I didn't think I was going to go anywhere. I was like talking to Division I-AA schools. I didn't want to settle."

And then one day in December he walked into an assistant coach's office at Fork Union, where UConn assistant head coach for defense Hank Hughes and UConn defensive coordinator Todd Orlando were on a scouting trip. They talked Miller into taking a visit.

"They saw him and they got talking to him about what his situation was, that he was looking for new opportunities, and we just took it from there," Edsall said.

Miller visited Storrs and was taken aback.

"When I got here I was like, `Whoa, this is where I'm coming. This is where I'm going to be in January.'" Miller said. "It was everything. I believe the facilities here at UConn are second to none. The indoor practice field, the weight room, the support system to deal with academics, the campus itself, there's a lot of things that drew me here."

While UConn officials had to do little to convince Miller to choose UConn, others tried to sway his decision.

"Those people I'd see around my neighborhood and where my school is, they'd say, `UConn is a basketball school, you don't want to go there.'" Miller said. "They say things based on what they'd seen on TV, but they don't look at the things on the Internet or come up here and see it with their own eyes. If they see all the things that I'm seeing, they'd say, `That's where I need to be. You need to be at UConn.'

"Where I'm from they mostly talk about the SEC and the ACC and USC and Texas and the big programs. I felt really good about actually doing something different than just doing the things that people want me to do. I was going to do something that I wanted to do for a change."

Miller said UConn has landed a player with a deep passion for the sport on and off the field.

"When I step on that field I go crazy," Miller said. "I start foaming at the mouth. I yell after I make a good play. When my teammates make a play I run to them and yell. ... When I get that big hit, I just like to look at the guys and be like, `Make yourself comfortable down there.' But after the game I'll shake that man's hand.

"I have an attitude toward football. Football has kept me alive. I don't want to disrespect it or take it for granted. You never know, in an instant your ability to play could be gone. You might not see the game again. Every day, anything that's surrounding me I know I could lose in an instant. I don't want to take it for granted. So I go hard every day at it because that could be my last day."

Contact Shawn Courchesne at scourchesne@courant.com.

Read Courchesne's blog at courant.com/uconnfootball.

Miller is a 4 star, by the way.

That may not be the only 4 star we get BTW. There's a decent chance we nail Jermale Hines, a 4 star safety with Ohio State, Michigan, WVU, and Iowa offers. He visits next weekend.