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# Stampeding Through the 2025 USF Football Roster: #97 DT Jahari Grant
- URL: https://www.bayareaexaminer.com/stampeding-through-the-2025-usf-football/
- Published: 2025-05-23T13:01:06.000Z
- Updated: 2025-05-23T13:01:06.000Z
- Description: 97 days to kickoff! Let's get started.
- Author: Collin Sherwin
- Tags: #Migrated-1792597384348, #Import 2026-10-21 15:44

**PLAYER:** Jahari Grant

**POSITION:** Defensive tackle

**YEAR:** Sophomore

**HEIGHT/WEIGHT:** 6'2", 315 lbs.

**HOW DID HE GET HERE?** From the other side of the state – Treasure Coast High School in Port St. Lucie. He signed with the Bulls out of high school over offers from a smattering of mid-major programs, taking visits to FAU and FIU before committing to the Bulls in May 2023\. He stayed committed and inked his LOI on early signing day in December. Recruiting services gave him low-to-mid three-star marks.

**HOW WAS HIS 2024 SEASON?** Pretty great, all things considered. It was evident from the jump that Grant might be able to make an instant impact in green and gold, as he totaled six tackles and a TFL in the season opener against Bethune-Cookman (a performance that even caught the eye of Pro Football Focus, for whatever that means to you). It was quiet for a while from there as he took a backseat to the more experienced options on the defensive line, but he made himself a permanent fixture in the rotation by the Navy game, the first of a string of three straight games where he saw at least 20 snaps.

By the end of the season, Grant had worked his way to the #2 spot on the depth chart at nose tackle after Doug Blue-Eli transferred out before the bowl game. He finished the season with 13 tackles, 2 TFLs, and 0.5 sacks, having appeared in nine of the Bulls’ thirteen games.

**WHAT SHOULD WE EXPECT IN 2025?** The USF defensive front is notoriously \~multiple\~ under Todd Orlando, with many players on the line able to rotate across different positions on four-man and three-man fronts. Grant, for what it’s worth, is decidedly *not* multiple. Along with Doug Blue-Eli, he was basically the closest thing the Bulls had to a true nose tackle in 2024, playing very literally every one of his snaps in the interior of the line.

Good news for him: there’s a big ol’ hole in the middle of USF’s defensive line where players used to be. To wit:

- Blue-Eli transferred to Rutgers, presumably to enact an intricate inside-job revenge scheme for the 2007 season.
- Decarius Hawthorne, one of the Bulls’ best defensive players last season who played pretty much every possible position across the line, is in the Buffalo Bills’ training camp.
- Jacquez Williams, the Bulls’ second-string nose tackle for much of last year, is no longer on the team.
- Bernard Gooden, who wasn’t a nose tackle but nonetheless played mostly along the interior of the line, transferred to LSU.

I’m not willing to say defensive tackle is a position of *weakness* for USF in 2025, but it’s certainly a position that you look at and say “hm! We need some dudes there.” Alex Golesh seems to agree, the Bulls have gone portaling for defensive linemen like mad this offseason, signing at least four (!!!) seniors with extensive interior line experience as one-year rentals. Whether they can fill the sizable shoes vacated by the likes of Blue-Eli, Hawthorne, and Gooden is another question, but we’ll get to that later in our countdown.

It’s unclear where Grant falls in the hierarchy among this influx of dudes. As of this moment, he remains the closest thing to a pure nose tackle on USF’s roster (of note, he’s their only defensive player weighing in above 300 pounds), and I think there’s little doubt that he’s one of a number of players the Bulls are going to be counting on in their interior defensive line rotation. Someone’s going to need to step up at nose tackle for USF in 2025, and Grant is as good an option as anyone.