George Selvie is a two-time, first-team All-American. He had 14.5 sacks and came half a tackle shy of setting the NCAA tackles-for-loss mark his sophomore season and in the year and a bit since, few teams are dumb enough to leave him to a single man.
“I don’t know. I think they’re double-teaming me more than George,” Jason Pierre-Paul said. Sounding serious. In fact, very serious.
“Uh,” George said, hearing his new teammate’s words. “Uh,” he said again. Then he belted out one of his deep, throaty laughs, coughed a few times and said, “I don’t think that’s true.”
But it might be one day. One day soon.
When South Florida (5-0) and Cincinnati (5-0) kick off tomorrow night, in a likely sold-out and rocking Raymond James Stadium and in front of ESPN’s cameras, how the Bearcats handle Selvie and Pierre-Paul could be the game’s key.
“That’s what we’re hoping for,” Selvie said. And look, he went on, “If they’re doubling Jason, that’s fine – it means they’ll stop doubling me.”
Unless Cincinnati gets special dispensation for an extra couple bodies up front, it really is a pick-your-poison with these two. Selvie’s the established, bonafide 6-foot-4, 245-pound Freak. He’s got great technique, fabulous footwork and absurd quickness.
Pierre-Paul’s a bigger Freak. He’s 6-6, 265 and has an 81-inch wingspan. (That’s 6-9 for you at home. Or better yet, if you matched fingertips with him, your arm would probably end at his elbow.)
In what’s now official lore, Pierre-Paul can do a standing backflip and land on his feet. It was his fourth-quarter forced fumble that sealed USF’s win over Florida State, his bat-down of a Greg Paulus pass that turned into a pick-six and his own pick-six of a Paulus pass that sealed USF’s romp over Syracuse. He was always a basketball player (“That was my thing,” he said) and only started playing football as a junior at Deerfield Beach High (“My mom told me I needed to stay out of trouble”). He went to two junior colleges, had offers from the SEC’s elite, but stuck with South Florida when the Bulls told him he could enroll this fall – if he finished 18 credits this summer.
“I think I’m about there,” Pierre-Paul said, rendering the two weeks of training camp he missed (while finishing those 18 credits) irrelevent. Major college football athletes are “bigger, stronger and faster than junior college guys,” he said, but he’s starting to feel comfortable. In no small part because of how he stacks up with Selvie.
Selvie has 20 tackles, he has 15. Six and a half of his are for a loss, 4.5 of Selvie’s are. They both have two sacks (for a matching 12 yards), Pierre-Paul’s forced a fumble, Selvie’s recovered one. A year ago, Selvie faced a double team on 79 percent of opponents’ run plays, 53 percent of pass plays. And even when he was double-teamed, tailbacks ran away from him 80 percent of the time. In this season’s first three games, Selvie faced a double – or TRIPLE – team more than half the time. In the Bulls’ last two games though, since Pierre-Paul’s Defensive Player of the Week show against FSU, that’s changed.
“Jason’s definitely out there making plays. Everyone’s not focused on me,” Selvie said. He joked about how much that matters, because his body’s getting old (“Just watch how slowly I get off the field now,” he said with a laugh) and because coach Jim Leavitt cuts him no slack (“Special treatment? Are you kidding?” he said) . And he more seriously said it’s huge for the Bulls, especially tonight.
“Tony Pike’s a great quarterback who releases the ball early. Cincinnati’s got an offense that’s up tempo that’s a challenge. We can’t get caught off guard,” Selvie said.
That’s unlikely. Not with the two-year younger Pierre-Paul over on the other side.
“Right now we’re tied in sacks,” Pierre-Paul said. And then said nothing. Leaving the meaning clear: for now.
Aditi Kinkhabwala has written a regular column for SI.com and been published in Sports Illustrated.