Signee McGowan to enroll for fall as guard

Mike McGowan is no longer a greyshirt, and no longer a tight end.

The West Boca Raton graduate, who signed with USF in February as a tight end with the intentions of deferring his enrollment until January 2008, said Wednesday that he will report with the rest of USF's incoming freshman class next week.

What's more, the 6-foot-4, 255-pound McGowan said he'll start his USF career as an offensive guard, rather than the tight end position he played in high school. We'd reported this possibility after starting guard Matt Huners suffered a knee injury during USF's spring game in April. McGowan, by the way, is athletic enough that he shared Player of the Year honors from the Boca Raton News in basketball, where he averaged 18 points and 11 rebounds.

Moving McGowan into this year's class is a signal that USF may have more academic nonqualifiers than expected in its incoming class. If the Bulls were at or over the limit of 25 scholarships for this year (or 85 total scholarships, for that matter) they would not be actively moving a scholarship recruit from next year's count into this class. Coach Jim Leavitt recently said he expected "five or six" signees not to qualify, though the only confirmed nonqualifier so far is defensive end Claude Davis, who is already enrolled at Pearl River Community College in Mississippi.

-- An update on the recruiting front: the Times' Izzy Gould talked with Gulf quarterback Alton Voss, who said Wednesday that he has been told by the NCAA Clearinghouse that he is fully qualified and cleared to report next week for classes at USF. Good news for USF's quarterback depth, though Voss is still likely to redshirt this fall, as most freshmen do.

Comments

[Jim]

Well done Greg, now please contact Keifer the soccer coach and find out how his recruiting class went and the names. Because his roster is low and he lost some key players to the MLS last year including his Herman (like Hesman in soccer) candidate.