Derrick Smith
      Jason Chery
Corey Fredrick


Texas high school football has its legends, its traditions, its aura. It has "Friday Night Lights" and its own magazine.

The southern part of Florida doesn't have that level of national recognition - except from those who truly know football - but it does have one distinction Texas can't boast.

South Florida has produced enough talented high school football players to spawn three brand-new college programs - the University of South Florida, Florida International and Florida Atlantic - in the last decade.

All are now Division I-A members, and the latter member of that group comes to Cajun Field at 7:05 p.m. tonight to take on Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns in the Sun Belt Conference opener for the hosts.

The rapid growth of those programs comes as no surprise to Jason Chery, Derrick Smith and Corey Fredrick. They experienced first-hand what kind of talent was present in the little latitudes.

"It's pretty hot down there," said Smith. "There's a lot of good talent down there, a lot of skill players and a lot of speed. They take pride in having all that speed."

That threesome - two first-time freshmen and a junior college transfer - have brought that type of speed and athleticism to the Ragin' Cajun program and to the wide receiver corps. It's not a coincidence that the only three Floridians on the UL dress roster tonight are all wide outs.

The rest of the story

Dan McDonald
dmcdonald@theadvertiser.com