By Steve Irvine
November 5, 2026
If recruiting attention is the measuring stick then Samford’s Max Steve wasn’t supposed to make an impact in his first college football season.
Yep, the same Max Steve who contributed 20 tackles and one interception in Samford’s over Wofford and 33 tackles over the past two weeks. The same Max Steve who was selected as the Southern Conference Defensive Player of the Week and chosen by Stats Perform as the FCS National Freshman of the Week. The same Max Steve who is second country in total tackles by a freshman (65) and third in tackles in a single game for all FCS players this season. And the same Max Steve who started in his first game at Samford and has been a key part of the defense throughout.
For the record, it’s also the same Max Steve who was originally slated to attend Davidson College, which is a FCS team that plays in the non-scholarship Pioneer League, before opting to take a walk-on spot at Samford when John Grass and his staff were putting together Grass’ first roster as the Bulldog head coach.
“Everybody missed on that kid,” Grass said.
It’s not hard to pinpoint why recruiting was slow in a world that often relies too much on a measuring tape and scale. Steve is a 5-foot-9 safety, who is listed at 190 pounds in his first season at Samford and was 175 pounds in his final season at Hebron Christian in Georgia.
“You saw it in high school on film, so you knew he had the potential, but you just don't know,” Grass said. “But I tell you what, when we put them pads on, that separated him. I say that in recruiting, that's the hard thing. You can have a guy that's a combine warrior in shorts. He comes to camp and he looks really, really good. Man, he's long. He fits the parameters, height, size, speed, quickness and when you put the pads on, he can't play. Then you got guys like Max that may not fit all the parameter deals and you put the pads on (and he thrives). … Max Steve is a great example of when the pads come on, that kid's a player. He might not go to the combine and be the fastest or the biggest or jump the high vertical or whatever. He does that stuff well too, but he ain't gonna win no contest doing that stuff. But when you put the pads on, he's a football player.”
Steve put up big numbers for a Hebron Christian team that won GHSA 3A-A Private titles in each of his final two high school seasons. Steve had 356 tackles and eight interceptions while playing four varsity seasons. Yet, again, there was light recruiting interest.
“It was tough,” Steve said. “We were successful as a team. (I was) winning awards, making plays, filling up stat sheets the best I could just going through high school. I wasn’t getting much in recruiting, getting offers or anything like that. When you see yourself compared to other guys getting all these other offers, you know, it's very tough mentally. It's one of the toughest things about high school for a lot of guys. Going through high school football, it challenges your mentality and makes you question some things about yourself. But, really, I just kept focusing on the team and winning and knew that God’s got me and I would find a spot that was best for me.”
Davidson looked like that place until Steve got a call from Samford. The choice became easy once he met with the staff and looked deeper into the program. Steve joined the program in late May but his biggest impact came once fall camp opened in August.
“We got him as a walk-on kid at a very bitter end, just by some relationship stuff, and so glad we did,” said Grass, whose team travels to East Tennessee State this weekend after winning back-to-back SoCon games. “Once he got here, we saw his work ethic. Everything we saw in fall camp, every time we scrimmaged, you would see him show up around the ball and making tackles like you see in games now. We kind of recognized it early that this guy's gonna be a player. He’s just steadily has gotten better and better and better. But this game will never change and guys that love football and can block and tackle, there's a place for them in this game for sure.”
Obviously winning games and playing to his potential is the focus for Steve but he also wants to provide some inspiration for other players overlooked in the recruiting process.
“I look at it as an opportunity to show people that not every football player has to be this and that,” Steve said. “It shows that you can go out there and make plays. I hope I have an impact for guys out there that are not being recruited and they’ll get more opportunities than I had just because they are good players and not just what they look like or how big they are.”