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Selvie, USF are moving forward

Tribune file photo (2007)

Selvie had 14.5 sacks and 31.5 tackles for loss during his sophomore season.

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By MARTIN FENNELLY | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 18, 2009

TAMPA - Not that it means anything, but when Jim Leavitt's 2009 South Florida football team went to pose for a team picture at media day/fan fest on Saturday at Raymond James Stadium, it began to rain. Big, strong men kept blinking their eyes. You're right. It probably didn't mean a thing.

You make your own history.

Bulls senior defensive end George Selvie, the most decorated player in USF football history, a future NFL first-rounder(?), just loves history. He recently earned his USF degree and hopes one day to teach history. Standing in a Raymond James locker room before the team snapshot, someone asked the likable Selvie to pick a moment in history he'd like to have witnessed. What about Gettysburg?

"No, I don't want to be where the bullets are flying," he said with a laugh. "I would want to be around to hear Martin Luther King's speech, be there in Washington, D.C., with that big crowd."

Selvie smiled.

"If you don't know your history, how can you move forward?"

Selvie and the Bulls have made their share of great history the past two seasons. Selvie is the football program's first All-American, first two-time All-American and USF's all-time leader in sacks. Meanwhile, the Bulls rose to No. 2 in the country in '07 and as high as 10th last season.

But they've made some lousy history, too - a pair of pathetic Big East collapses that eventually marked them as underachievers. Selvie? His amazing start in 2007 was tempered by some disappearing acts down the stretch, followed by a 2008 sometimes consumed by double teams and an ankle injury.

And, once again:

No Big East title.

To 2009.

"Be champions, just be champions," Selvie said.

He pulled out of consideration for the NFL draft when he found he wouldn't go as high as he wanted, so he's back in the hunt for that elusive conference title. USF fell flat on its face last season, despite Selvie, Matt Grothe and all that other talent. A win at that inaugural bowl in the baseball park was little consolation, just what the Bulls deserved.

But Selvie sees past the collapses the past two seasons and past those double teams and the injury. He had 14.5 sacks in 2007 and 31.5 tackles for loss that incredible sophomore season, but was down to 5.5 sacks last season, with only half of one across his final five games. He sees past all of it.

He sees new history.

He's practicing like it, too.

"He's relentless," new USF defensive coordinator Joe Tresey said. "Your marquee players, if possible, need to be your leaders. That's the world we need to live in. And he's showing it right now."

USF isn't picked to win the Big East. They're seen as the conference's third- or fourth-best team, which they probably are. Selvie sees something else.

History, and learning from it.

"What happened before, you don't want to make the same mistakes," he said. "That's why you have to learn. That's the way I look at it."

He looks at 2009 and sees Florida State and Miami, at last.

"We're trying to make big steps," Selvie said. "We've got Florida State on the schedule. We've got Miami. The Big East is wide open right now. Those two games, and a Big East championship, would definitely move this program up a few levels."

He thinks a late September win in Tallahassee could do for USF what that upset at Auburn did early in the 2007 season.

"If we beat FSU, it can be that type of game."

It would be great history but wouldn't mean a thing if the Bulls haven't learned lessons from the bad history. That's how you move forward.

"We've just got to do it," Selvie said.

Outside, it looked like ... oh, never mind.

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