Pitt's Delaware duo

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Delaware hasn’t produced the fewest Division I recruits of any state in the nation, but it’s not far from the top - or is it bottom? - of that list.

Since the class of 2002, 83 recruits from the Blue Hen State have claimed a scholarship offer. Maine has produced fewer prospects over that span (12). So have tiny eastern states like Rhode Island (21) and New Hampshire (38) and frontiers like Wyoming (30), Montana (33), Alaska (11) and the Dakotas (27 in the south, a whopping 52 in the north).

And at the very bottom is Vermont, having produced just one recruit who claimed a scholarship offer since 2002 (that was Anthony Davis, a 6’3” 200-pound athlete prospect in the class of 2013 who said he had offers from Colorado, Florida A&M, Georgia Tech, Indiana, Maine, Montana, Old Dominion, Towson, Wake Forest and Washington but appears to have not signed with any schools - and even he was originally from Maryland, not Vermont).

So Delaware’s 83 recruits since 2002 look like a pretty solid amount by comparison to those nine states. But when stacked up against some of its neighbors like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia, the First State seems to be pretty far behind. Each of those states - or commonwealths - has produced more than 1,000 recruits in the last 15 years, with Virginia topping 2,000 and Pennsylvania just shy of that mark.

With all of those numbers in mind, it’s pretty remarkable, then, that Pitt has two players from Delaware on its 2017 roster - and both are candidates for all-conference and potentially All-America honors.

Junior receiver Quadree Henderson hit both of those levels last season, including consensus All-America status after being named a first-team kick returner by the Football Writers Association of America, the Sporting News and Walter Camp.

And redshirt junior Brian O’Neill is one of the top offensive linemen in the ACC, in addition to seeing some national recognition as he enters his third year playing on the line.

“There’s definitely talent in Delaware - in every sport,” Henderson said recently. “Football, basketball, baseball. I think Delaware gets overlooked because it’s such a small state; you can get through the whole state of Delaware in like two hours. But there’s definitely talent there. It goes unnoticed. You don’t usually hear about guys coming out of Delaware; you hear about guys coming out of Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, places like that.

“Me and Brian coming out of Delaware and doing what we’re doing here, I feel like we’re setting a trend for athletes to follow in our footsteps. I get a lot of messages on Instagram and Twitter and stuff from young athletes back in Delaware to keep doing my thing up here. I have athletes back home that look up to me.”

Henderson and O’Neill aren’t the only Delaware players to make waves nationally in recent years. Wide receiver Chris Godwin was a third-round pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2017 NFL Draft; he attended Middletown High School before going to Penn State in the class of 2014.

Quarterback Darius Wade was also in the class of 2014 at Middletown, and he’s in a battle to be Boston College’s starting quarterback this season. Safety Darnell Savage was in the class of 2015 at Caravel Academy in Newark, Del., and he started 12 games at Maryland last season.

(For what it’s worth, pro-football-reference.com lists just 32 NFL players all-time who claim Delaware as their hometowns; interestingly enough, former Pitt lineman C.J. Davis, who went to West Allegheny, is among them.)

O’Neill was in the same class as Godwin and Wade, and Henderson was in Savage’s class, but O’Neill says that all five played together on a seven-on-seven team in high school. Wade was the quarterback, Godwin and Henderson played receiver, O’Neill was the tight end and Savage led the way on defense.

Not bad for a squad from little old Delaware.

“We’ve had a lot of good talent come through, and a bunch of other guys played D-IAA ball,” O’Neill said. “We don’t really care where you’re from. We come from Delaware and we’re just as good as anybody else.

“People kind of wonder, is there good football in Delaware? And you want to prove to people that, yeah, there is good football in Delaware.”

Of the 83 recruits from Delaware who are listed as having a scholarship offer in the Rivals.com database, eight are in the 2018 and 2019 classes; 68 of the other 75 from the classes of 2002-17 signed with a Division I school, 52 went to FBS schools and 39 went to a school that is currently in one of the Power Five conferences.

Breaking down those 39 Power Five recruits from Delaware even further, 20 went to Penn State (9), Rutgers (6) or Maryland (5). Henderson and O’Neill are the only two who went to Pitt (the Panthers offered 13 recruits from the state in that span).

Now they’ll both be expected to build on their performances in 2016, when each player emerged as one of the best on the team. In 2017, Henderson will look to expand his abilities as a receiver, while O’Neill will be transitioning to left tackle after starting 25 games in the last two seasons at right tackle.

Both were preseason All-ACC picks, and both will likely end up on the post-season All-ACC team as well. Beyond that, there’s a good chance that O’Neill and Henderson find themselves on some all-time lists of the best athletes to come out of the state of Delaware, with their names alongside the likes of Delino DeShields and Randy White.

“I would say I’m probably somewhere high up on the list,” Henderson said. “I won’t say a certain number, but I’m definitely high up on the list.”

O’Neill is probably on that list, too, but the real question is this:

Who would be ranked higher: O’Neill or Henderson?

“I’m going to give it to number 70,” Henderson said. “He was an all-stater in basketball and football, you know? I was just all-state in football. So I’m going to give that to Brian.”

O’Neill had his own take.

“I gotta give it to him,” he said. “He did much more in high school, in terms of scoring more points and productivity than I did. I’ve been playing against him since I was six, seven years old, in terms of Little League, basketball, we played seven-on-seven football together for three years. We were always playing city league football games, basketball games, leagues at the YMCA, so I’ve seen him his whole life and I’m going to give him this one.”