There was a report I heard that Miami actually had Chop rated above the other edges, specifically b/c of how Weaver wants to run his DL rotations. Weaver wants to be able to use Chop all over the DL, even at NT sometimes. This is how Chop was used at Penn State and it's probably not something you could do with Latu, Verse or Thomas.
Obviously this could just be the usual, "he was the guy we wanted all along" stuff, but it is consistent with how I expect Weaver to run our DL rotations this season. It also mitigates the loss of Wilkins and would increase the snap potential for Chop even after 2 and 15 are back.