Owings Mills' Donovan Smith a top 2011 recruit
Owings Mills might be the last local school you'd expect to find a major Division I football recruit.
After all, the Eagles were mired in a 53-game losing streak dating back to the first game of the 2004 season.
That five-year stretch of futility ended last season, when Owings Mills battled to a 3-6 record. A major part of the Eagles’ unexpected turnaround was offensive lineman Donovan Smith. The 6-foot-6, 260-pound tackle has made a quick transition from relative anonymity to heavily recruited offensive line prospect.
“I knew I had the potential and skills to play, but Owings Mills is Owings Mills,” Smith said. “If I was playing for a powerhouse school, [colleges] probably would have seen me earlier. During football season I was a nobody. But after probably December or early January, I just got that letter saying ‘You are projected to be one of the best underclassmen in the nation.’ And I got an invite [to the U.S. Army All-American Junior Combine in San Antonio, Texas], went down there, placed in the Top 10 overall for offensive tackles and made the second team overall.”
Smith grew up in Amityville, N.Y., and moved to Maryland to live with his uncle before his sophomore year. A sprained elbow prevented Smith from suiting up for the Eagles as a sophomore, but a dominant junior season had plenty of college coaches taking notice. Smith’s uncle sent highlight tape to several schools, and his recruitment took off from there -- especially after his performance in San Antonio.
“When we got to the Alamodome, there were players my size,” Smith said. “Going there, I felt like a giant. But then I’m looking at dudes face to face, eye to eye -- people that are taller than me and bigger than me. I was a little nervous going into the drills. But just like any other football game, I was nervous at first and then after that, I won about 75 or 80 percent of my battles, so it was just like a normal football game.”
Rivals.com has already recognized Smith as one of the Top 250 players in the country for the class of 2011. Unsurprisingly, Smith has several scholarship offers to consider.
“I have five scholarship offers: West Virginia, Maryland, UConn, Duke and Virginia Tech,” Smith said. “I’m being heavily recruited by Penn State, Michigan -- they’ve been keeping in contact -- Cincinnati, I just sent back a questionnaire for them, Florida, and a couple other schools around there.”
Smith said he has no favorites and is in no rush to end his recruitment. He’ll take his time and be “open to whoever is out there that wants” him. He will, however, always appreciate the first school to offer him a scholarship.
“The first offer came from West Virginia,” Smith said. “Actually, that was surprising because I’m at my locker in the morning, a normal day, and Coach comes walking down the hall and I said, 'Oh my gosh, I don’t know what I did now.’ But he’s got a letter in his hand and we open it and it said ‘We would like to offer you a full scholarship.’ I was just shocked. I was just looking at the paper and thinking, ‘This can’t be real.’ But it was real, so it was really surprising.”
For now, Smith said he’s just putting in a lot of time in the weight room. He has plans this summer to compete at a few camps, visit some schools on his list, and do his best to keep Owings Mills headed in the right direction.
“It’s actually looking good,” Smith said. “We have a couple people coming out who’ve been in school but afraid to come out, but I guess since we started winning and having scouts come out, they want to come out and play. A lot of the team [is back], so we’re going to be pretty good.”
