Colleges

Star recruits? We'll be the judge of that, Bulls say

Selvie and Grothe, unheralded by recruiting "experts,'' have worked out rather well at USF.

By GREG AUMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published January 25, 2008

ADVERTISEMENT [Daniel Wallace | Times] Matt Grothe, a two-star recruit, beat out his more heralded quarterback competition. [Jim Damaske | Times] Standout defensive end George Selvie (95) was a one-star recruit as a center out of Pensacola.

TAMPA - If there's an oral commitment who sums up USF's ability to find and land talented players who are badly misjudged by the major recruiting sites - if not the rest of college football - it might be Miami Northwestern linebacker Quavon Taylor.

Taylor was a first-team all-state selection, the leading tackler for a team that has won back-to-back state championships and was ranked by ESPN.com as the No. 1 high school team in the country. The two major recruiting sites, Rivals.com and Scout.com, rate players with up to five stars: Scout.com gives him a pedestrian two stars, Rivals.com has him with zero.

One reason he's undervalued is that he's undersized: his 6-foot, 190-pound frame might make him a safety at the college level. USF coaches can't comment on him until he signs next week, but he follows their thinking with recruits: Don't count stars, just find them.

"We don't recruit off lists," said Carl Franks, USF's recruiting coordinator for the past four years. "It's about finding out how much better a guy can get, which is difficult to ascertain. What somebody rates them should not be an indication of how good a recruiting class is."

USF is full of talented examples. Defensive end George Selvie, a first-team consensus All-American who led the nation in tackles for loss, was a one-star recruit, according to Scout, as a center out of Pensacola three years ago. The same class had a two-star quarterback named Matt Grothe, the 2006 Big East rookie of the year now preparing for his third year as starter; the four-star can't-miss quarterback in that class, Carlton Hill, missed, played sparingly in his only season at USF.

"Nobody really knows," Bulls coach Jim Leavitt said. "You study film, you try to get to know a young man the best you can. You don't know who's going to be a great player in college."

The key to USF's ability to find gems other schools overlook? It might be proximity, recruiting primarily in-state recruits, which allows familiarity and exisiting relationships with programs. Grothe, like Taylor, was a star in high school, the state's player of the year for his classification. USF's coaches identified him early and trusted their instincts.

"USF has a first-hand knowledge of the area around them," said Keith DeMyer, who coached Grothe at Lakeland Lake Gibson. "Matt wasn't your prototypical quarterback, wasn't 6 foot 3 or anything. The biggest thing that sold Leavitt was that he was a winner. They noticed the intangibles that can't be listed in anybody's rankings."

The Bulls might have another gem from Lake Gibson in offensive lineman Josh Garvin, a 6-4, 285-pound recruit who played tackle for DeMyer but will likely move to center or guard. Garvin is also a two-star recruit, but USF won him over by finding him first and sticking with him.

"Josh isn't a real high-star kid, if at all," DeMyer said. "Kids remember who their first offer was, and (defensive coordinator) Wally Burnham is very visible here. Now after USF got him, you had West Virginia wheeling in here after him, but USF was first."

That's not to say USF is avoiding top-rated recruits. This weekend, the Bulls will bring in four-star receiver Tommy Streeter of Northwestern, one of the nation's top uncommitted recruits, for an official visit. Defensive end David Bedford, a four-star junior-college recruit from West Palm Beach, already committed, choosing the Bulls over West Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi and Kansas State.

"Coming back home was big, but Coach Leavitt has such pride in his players," Bedford said. "They're moving in the right direction."

[Last modified January 24, 2008, 21:38:21]