Recruiting is a marathon, plain and simple. Slow and steady usually wins the race to national signing day where consistency is key. Coaches who attempt to sprint to February will be left for dead, with the finish line as merely an afterthought as they are escorted from the team facility to the unemployment line. In college football, talent is everything with recruiting being the lifeblood.
With recruiting, it’s fantastic to land these recruits early on in the process, but much more important to finish off with the best class in the AAC come December and February. Bottom line, the number of LOIs (Letter of Interest) signed is the grand prize for each college football program across the nation with recruiting. Regardless, we must acknowledge how impressive it was for the coaching staff to land 9 recruits between June 15th and June 22nd.
Since then, the momentum has unsurprisingly cooled off with no new commitments between June 23rd and July 5th. With that being said, let’s take a look at the recruiting world with USF from the last week of June:
The Scoop:
Just as the week was wrapping up, the coaching staff was able to land 3-star OLB Vincent Starling (@5k_starling) out of Palm Beach Lakes HS in West Palm Beach, FL. According to verified results from 247Sports, Starling stands at 6-2.5” and weighs in at 192 LBs. Starling currently holds an impressive offer sheet which features several P5 programs including Boston College, Florida, FSU, Maryland, Pittsburgh, and Nebraska. Here’s a brief breakdown on Starling’s Junior Season tape and where I can see him fitting on the USF roster if he signs with the team in the upcoming months:
The Tape:
Right off the bat, Starling comes off a very instinctual LB, both in coverage and in the run game. He has a good knack for finding the ball and working his way through the offensive line to find the ball carrier. As a taller than usual ILB at the high school level, being able to work through the mess up front and be effective in run support was the most impressive thing for me from Starling’s film.
The Verdict:
I believe that Starling can be effective as either an ILB or OLB at the next level, but I see him fitting into the OLB role more as a guy that may spend a lot of time on the line in a two-point stance and/or dropping back into one of the ILB spots on the defense depending on the defensive front called at the time.
Stay tuned for recruiting updates throughout the year with an individual player breakdown come December and February when these current commitments become official Bulls!
by Mike Cusimano
Contributor, SoFloBulls.com | @micCusi