Highly energetic and dedicated to helping young players improve their skills with each passing day, Greg Frey has been on the USF coaching staff from the inception of football in 1996, when he came aboard as a graduate assistant. He took full-time status in 1999 as the defensive ends coach and assumed his current role as offensive line coach in 2000.
Since the 2000 season, Frey has coached four offensive linemen who were either drafted into the NFL or signed as free agents. Frank Davis and Levi Newton are both currently with the Detroit Lions.
Frey has rapidly built a reputation for molding young offensive linemen into outstanding players as individuals and more importantly as a unit.
Between 2001 and 2002 after Kenyatta Jones, who was drafted in the fourth round by New England, and Joey Sipp, a four-year starter, had departed, Frey worked almost exclusively with freshmen and sophomore starters and yet his charges always performed well beyond their collective experience while protecting quarterback Marquel Blackwell as he set nearly every USF passing record.
In 2002, USF quarterbacks were sacked just 19 times, despite a starting line comprised entirely of freshmen and sophomores. In 2001, USF quarterbacks were sacked just 16 times.
In 2004, Frey had the luxury of a complete starting unit that remained intact for a second straight season, including seniors Alex Herron, Levi Newton and Derrick Sarosi.
Newton signed originally signed a free agent contract with Indianapolis before doing the same with Detroit, and despite the fact that he, Newton, Sarosi and Frank Davis, a senior in 2005, have all departed, Frey has continued to develop new talent.
A former standout offensive lineman at Florida State University and Clearwater High School in Pinellas County, Frey has been a perfect fit on the USF staff.
“Greg Frey has displayed the devotion and passion we look for in the South Florida football program,” head coach Jim Leavitt said upon announcing Frey’s original promotion in 1999. “He has been a very capable member on our staff from the beginning, and we are pleased to have an opportunity to promote him.”
In his graduate assistant role at USF from 1996-1998, Frey worked mostly with the offensive line, but he also played an instrumental role in breaking down opponent film.
When he took over the defensive ends, he played a critical role in the early development of Shawn Hay, who was USF’s all-time sack leader when he graduated in 2000.
A 1992 graduate of Clearwater High and a 1996 graduate of Florida State, Frey was an offensive tackle on the Seminoles’ 1993 National Championship team. In 1990, Super Prep Magazine rated him the top offensive lineman in the country while he was at Clearwater High, and he went on to earn Parade All-America status.
Frey was born December 4, 1972.
