Local QB Foust ready to take advantage of 'dream' opportunity at Maryland

Edgewater (Md.) South River High School’s football team finished the 2019 regular season 10-0 and was crowned Anne Arundel County champions. Despite losing in the playoffs, South River had quite the season, one in which they averaged 43.9 points per game. Much of that offensive success had to do with senior quarterback David Foust, who committed to being a preferred walk-on at Maryland back on March 16.

Foust finished his senior season with just under 2,800 passing yards to go along with 34 touchdowns and just four interceptions while completing 63.4 percent of his passes. He accrued 65 total touchdowns through the air and on the ground between his junior and senior seasons.

Last year’s Rhodes Trophy (Anne Arundel County’s Most Valuable Player) winner and Capital Gazette Player of the Year is a straight-A student with strong leadership skills and plenty of athletic ability. Foust had other options at the next level, including several high-academic schools and service academies such as West Point and the Naval Academy, but he ultimately chose the university he had been dreaming of attending since he was a kid.

“Maryland had just been somewhere that I looked to as one of my top schools — even taking football out of the picture. As a kid, I always wanted to go to Maryland,” Foust told TSR. “When they extended the preferred walk-on offer, it was at the top of my list because of the academics that it brings and everything like that when you take football out of the picture. After my four years are up, I think I’m going to have a lot of opportunities there.”

Foust, along with his wide receiver teammate Sean Leonard, received the preferred walk-on offer from Maryland back in the fall prior to South River’s postseason. It came in an email from former Maryland Director of Player Personnel Dave Mencarini a few weeks after Terps defensive line coach Brian Williams visited South River to meet with head coach Ed Dolch.

He had a good idea back then that Maryland was where he wanted to end up, but Foust’s unofficial visit to College Park back in late February as well as being accepted into the university’s Robert H. Smith School of Business in March solidified his decision.

“When I went on my visit that’s what really sold it to me,” Foust said. “I just kind of got to go around and see the buildings and everything like that. I got to talk to the director of recruiting, Marcus Berry. And he just kind of sold me. We went to the apartments and everything like that and it was a great time. All the information that I got from that is what kind of helped me make my decision.

“I had a pretty good idea of that, but just going on my visit and getting all the information from them it just kind of blew me away with the internship opportunities and how much I can do if I work hard while I’m there. I can set myself up to be really good right out of college. That’s something that other schools couldn’t offer. And even the schools that could, there’s other stuff with Maryland, obviously. It’s the hometown team, it’s the best opportunity for football that I could play at in terms of division and everything like that. So the academics were huge for me, but also playing D-I football would be amazing. It’s something that I’ve been working for since I was seven or eight years old and something that every kid kind of dreams of. And just being able to say you’re living that dream is kind of awesome.”

Foust has always had a connection to College Park. His mother is a Maryland alum and, according to Foust, many of his friends have always been big Terps basketball fans.

“It’s the team,” Foust said.

Having grown up in an area where many follow Maryland football, Foust is aware that the Terps have had to dig deep into their quarterback pool in the past. He’s hoping to earn an opportunity to play through his hard work rather than unfortunate depth chart blows, but Foust plans to be ready to play if necessary.

“A lot of teachers at my school have been saying that Maryland goes through quarterbacks and I might actually get a chance out there early on. So yeah, that is pretty surreal too, that I could actually get my name called whenever,” Foust said. “But at the same time, I’m just a competitor so I’m not really going to worry too much about what everybody else is doing around me. I’m just going to work my hardest and if I do get my name called I’m going to take every opportunity that I can get.”

When Foust was offered the preferred walk-on spot from Maryland, the Terps had a full quarterback room and no more scholarships to give at the position. However, since then, Maryland signal caller Tyler DeSue has decided to retire from football and fellow former Terps quarterbacks Tyrrell Pigrome and Max Bortenschlager have entered the transfer portal, leaving Maryland with just Josh Jackson and Lance LeGendre as the only scholarship quarterbacks on the roster.

From what he has been told so far by Maryland coaches, Foust believes he will have the opportunity to earn a scholarship if he can prove himself on the field.

“From my understanding, if we work our way up the depth chart and get on the field then a scholarship should be coming,” Foust said. “That’s definitely a big goal, being put on scholarship. That would mean the world.”

In order to help his chances of being successful at the next level, Foust is hoping to add more weight to his 6-foot-4 frame. He said bulking up was a consistent critique he received from college coaches, but he has already started doing so, adding about 30 pounds since his senior season ended.

“One area I’d like to improve on overall is just filling out a little bit more, which I’m working on right now,” Foust said. “At the end of the high school season, I was like 165 pounds and that’s really underweight for someone that’s 6-foot-4. I always struggled to put on weight, but in the last four months I’ve put on about 30 pounds and I’m weighing around 190-195 right now. So I’d like to fill out a little more and I think that’s definitely possible in the weight room and being put on a meal plan at Maryland.”

Not only is Foust looking forward to seeing what Maryland’s strength and conditioning program can do for him, he also is eager to see what he’s capable of when he dedicates himself to football year-round.

A multi-sport athlete at South River competing in football, basketball, and baseball, Foust believes the extra focus on playing just football will do wonders for his development as a quarterback.

“I think having the whole year to focus on football will be great,” Foust said. “I love the sport so any free time I will be getting will be an opportunity to get more work in, which I haven’t really had too much of in high school. I think I can grow tremendously there. Not only physically, but also watching more film and learning the game more. I think I can grow a lot more because of that, and same with Sean. I definitely think Sean and I have really high ceilings and the fact that we’re going to be playing year-round football instead of basically just one season I think we’re going to grow a lot more because of that.”

Leonard, one of Foust’s best friends and a 6-foot-2 wideout that caught 18 touchdown passes from him last season, announced his commitment to Maryland about a month after Foust, once he was accepted into College Park’s engineering school.

Foust is looking forward to teaming up with Leonard again at the next level and said the Terps are getting two hard workers from South River.

Foust and Leonard were both team captains for South River last season. And while the quarterback considers himself more of a vocal leader, he said Leonard is one who leads by example.

“It’s just overall crazy to have [Leonard] as a teammate again for another four years,” Foust said. “He’s a great athlete. He came into high school playing quarterback, he switched to play some safety so he could be on varsity as a sophomore, then he started playing receiver and started getting more reps at the end of sophomore year and the beginning of junior year. So he’s versatile like that, but he’s just a great teammate. He works hard. Me and him work harder than anyone else out there I think, but his is all under-the-radar. And that’s kind of what I admire about him. He doesn’t care if anybody is watching him. He’ll go out on his own and work and he’ll do it for him to get better. I just think that really speaks to how great of a teammate and how great of a competitor he is.”