Stampeding Through the 2025 USF Football Roster: #5 S Fred Gaskin
One of USF's top recruits of the Golesh era enters his second season.
PLAYER: Fred Gaskin
POSITION: Safety
YEAR: Sophomore
HEIGHT/WEIGHT: 5’10”, 180 lbs.
HOW DID HE GET HERE? One of Alex Golesh’s biggest recruiting coups. Gaskin, depending on where you looked, was rated anywhere from a very high three-star to low four-star prospect. He played quarterback, receiver, and safety at Vanguard High School in Ocala, and racked up an offer list that included pretty much every big-time program in the southeast. In January 2023, after his junior season, he wrote a story in the Ocala StarBanner announcing a top eight of Alabama, Auburn, Colorado, Florida State, Michigan State, Ole Miss, Penn State and Tennessee.
Instead, he ended up committing to USF in July, and stuck with the Bulls through early signing day, when he made it official. At the time of his commitment, Rivals rated Gaskin the third-highest USF high school commit ever. Can you guess the top two?*
HOW WAS HIS 2024 SEASON? Gaskin was in the rotation in the secondary all season, but his season really took off starting with the Charlotte game, when he nabbed his first career college interception in the fourth quarter. After that, he saw significant playing time against Tulsa and Rice, and actually got the call to replace Tawfiq Byard in the starting lineup against San Jose State in the Hawaii Bowl (an interesting note: though he nominally started at Byard’s strong safety position, USF played a lot of two-deep safety looks against SJSU’s vaunted passing attack, so Gaskin basically played as a second free safety).
He ended the season with 12 tackles and the aforementioned interception. He earned the third-most defensive snaps of any Bulls true freshman, behind only James Chenault and Dinellson Exume.
WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT IN 2025? The easy answer here is to say that since Gaskin took over at strong safety when Byard transferred last winter, he should be a plug-and-play starter in 2025. But he’ll have to contend with a number of qualified options for the position, including McNeese transfer Boogsie Silvera and Jaelen Stokes, who started at strong safety in 2023.
Gaskin is a versatile player, though, and he played a bit of free safety and slot corner in addition to strong safety last season. I don’t know exactly where in the secondary he’ll end up, but I’m buying Gaskin stock. Seems like a safe bet that he ends up starting sooner rather than later.
*Ryne Giddins (2009) and Terrence Mitchell (2010)