Every month, NFL Player Engagement and Scholar Baller® highlight a high school or college football student-athlete for their outstanding performance in the classroom and community. This month’s Scholar-Baller of the Month is Blake Bortles, a redshirt-junior quarterback on the football team at the University of Central Florida.
Blake Bortles: From Afterthought Recruit to Potential NFL Franchise-Changer
When Blake Bortles was a senior at Oviedo High School in Florida, he failed to make Scout.com’s list of the top 137 high school quarterbacks in the nation.
Now, just four years later, he’s among the short list of players in the conversation for the top pick in the 2014 NFL draft.
And while it’s easy to see that Bortles has all the physical tools necessary to become a star in the NFL, it’s somehow gone unnoticed that he’s been a big reason why his UCF Knights have become the most academically-driven football team in program history.
It was national news when Bortles led his Knights to a 52-point outburst in their Tostitos Bowl victory over Baylor, cementing UCF’s claim as a legitimate powerhouse for the 2013-2014 season.
What might surprise you, however, is how Bortles’ team was able to compliment their on-field success with unprecedented academic success for any program in their conference.
Last year, UCF became the first football team in conference history to boast a team GPA higher than 3.0. The team had 81% of its players graduate and had seven different players finish with 4.0 GPAs over the two semesters.
Bortles, himself, earned recognition for finishing with a GPA above 3.0, an impressive feat for any typical student-athlete.
The thing about Bortles, though, is that he’s far from just any typical student-athlete. Bortles’ work ethic and determination have distinguished him as a true “Scholar-Baller®” with an undying commitment to become the best quarterback possible.
Coming out of high school, Bortles was mostly recruited by coaches who envisioned him as a backup tight end at the Division 1 level.
Bortles used this lack of recruiting interest as a motivation to excel at the next level.
Now, he’s a Sports Illustrated Honorable Mention All-American after throwing for 25 touchdowns and amassing 3,581 yards in the air.
He was the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl MVP and finished the season as the American Athletic Conference’s Offensive Player of the Year.
Bortles announced earlier in the month that he will be declaring for the NFL Draft. He will be leaving the UCF football program with more athletic and academic prestige than ever before.
“Building chemistry on and off the field is what we strive [for]. Hopefully that will be my legacy at the end.”
~ Blake Bortles