Incoming Quince Orchard Safety High on Locksley, Terps Early in Recruitment
Rising junior Steven Sannieniola was a standout on a stout Bullis team a season ago but made the transfer to Quince Orchard over the offseason to add another Power Five talent to one of the best defenses in the state. The decision to transfer into the program led by John Kelley gave Sannieniola a chance to add more film to his junior tape, part of his reasoning to depart from the IAC.
“Coming from Bullis to QO, I already understood that I’d get to play more football games at QO before the whole pandemic happened. QO mostly plays 13, 14 games where Bullis has a set ten-game schedule so when you want to do something, repetition, just get onto the field and experience it,” Sannieniola told All Terrapins. “The three of four added games at QO is more time to get ready and get better for college.” The defensive prospect showed himself as the ball hawking safety at Bullis as Sannieniola found himself routinely tested downfield. Showing more versatility as an upperclassman is the next step for him.
“I really didn’t get to show man coverage. Coming into Bullis, I played corner my whole life and they made me switch to free safety because we had a lot of corners. I was like let’s go do this and I had a good year, but I’m more of a corner than safety. So this year I want to move around and line up at corner to show I’m not just. Free safety, you can play me anywhere on the back line.”
The desire to become a more versatile defensive back stems from studying a pair of role models from the NFL as Sannieniola added he prides himself on “getting to the ball.”
“I call myself Ed Reed at 6-foot-2. I watch film on guys like Minkah Fitzpatrick, Ed Reed and they’re always around the ball. That’s something I want to pride myself on, being around the ball and forcing takeaways for the offense.”
The recruiting process for Sannieniola began during the process of his transfer from Bullis to Quince Orchard as the local school became the first to join the mix. “My coach had given me a phone call while I was going through the process of switching schools. He told me they put some coaches onto my film, and he had just gotten off the phone with (inside linebackers’ coach) George Helow and they told him Maryland had offered after watching my film.”
Pittsburgh and Boston College became the second and third offer for Sannieniola as he took in a pair of gameday visits to both Maryland and Penn State to get a closer look at each school, but the Nittany Lions hosted Pitt during his visit to give him a chance to scout the Panthers in-person.
“What I noticed was when they got a turnover, they had a little hoop and they dunked on it, so it was their version of the turnover chain.” While Sannieniola will look to connect further with the Terps staff come September 1, he is fond of what the hometown team is doing under head coach Mike Locksley.
“I grew up watching Stefon Diggs, Yannick Ngakoue and recently Anthony McFarland who came from DeMatha to Maryland and now just went into the league. What I’ve always enjoyed about Maryland is they try and keep kids in-state instead of going other places and coach Locksley coming in to make this DMV-to-UMD movement happen, I’m on board with it.”
