MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University freshman linebacker Troy Gloster has spent his first two games on the sidelines watching the Mountaineer offense. This Saturday, though, he admits he will be paying a little closer attention to the Maryland side of the ball. That’s because his big brother Drew Gloster is a starting defensive lineman for the Terps.

Troy, too, could have played at Maryland but after doing some extensive research he decided to chart a different course for his college career.

“I would have loved to be close to home and the University of Maryland was only 30 minutes away but a lot of their recruiting classes I knew they brought in a lot of guys before me and I liked the defense here,” Troy said Tuesday evening. “They play aggressive. They play fast and I thought my tools would translate well to this defense.”

As for Troy’s big brother Drew (number 15 in your program this Saturday), his career is finally taking off this fall after a couple of position switches. He has appeared in 25 games over four years and has finally become a starter for the first time, bagging nine tackles and a tackle for a loss in Maryland’s two early wins over Navy and Morgan State.

It was Drew Gloster’s success in high school that actually got Troy interested in football. Up until his freshman year, Troy says basketball was always his No. 1 sport.

Troy was always bigger and more precocious than the other kids his age and for the longest time he thought he was going to one day become a power forward for some major college basketball program. But those early growth spurts stopped by the time he reached high school.

“I actually went to Good Counsel to play basketball,” he said. “Growing up I was always bigger than most of the kids – I was always off the charts when I went to the doctor, but I wasn’t as big as the doctors expected me to be so I didn’t think I was going to be much of a 6-foot four-man, which is what I played most of the time when I was little. So I had to make the switch.”

Troy was also a little apprehensive at first about taking up football – that is until he saw what football did for his big brother. “After seeing all of the success and accolades he was able to get. I said, hey, I may be able to do the same thing,” he said.

And it happened.

The younger Gloster was a two-time all-conference choice at Good Counsel High, earning first team all-state honors as a senior. Gloster was considered one of the top 20 players in the state and among the top 100 linebackers in the country following his senior year in 2009.

West Virginia was a school that had always intrigued Troy because he recalled his brother being recruited by West Virginia’s D.C. area recruiter, which at the time happened to be a persistent assistant coach named Bill Stewart.

“I remember I was about 12-13 years old and he would call my house and talk to my brother and every time he would call to talk to my brother he would actually ask about me,” Gloster recalled. “He was always asking about how my basketball games were going and I spent about five minutes on the phone with him every time he called.”

Stewart’s genuine interest and sincerity during those brief telephone conversations paid off handsomely a few years later when Gloster’s college recruiting turned serious.

“I felt like talking to him at such a young age I had built a relationship with him and from that he had planted the seed about West Virginia,” Gloster said.

Troy said his big brother never really pressured him to consider Maryland.

“He understood that it was going to be my decision and he wanted me to do what was best for me and where I felt I would be the most comfortable,” he said.

Although Gloster won’t be playing on Saturday (he gets to play Maryland linebacker Demetrius Hartsfield on the scout team this week), he says it will be the first time he has ever been on opposite teams from his big brother.

“Growing up my brother and I always liked to play together,” Troy said. “With him being four years older than me we always played in different age groups so we never really played on the same travel teams or against each other so it’s going to be a different experience.”

It is also going to be a different experience for their parents Terry and Jocelyn Gloster. Troy said they are still trying to work out the logistics.

“It’s going to be crazy,” he said. “I’m not sure who they will be pulling for mostly because my brother is a senior and he’s been playing more. They want both of our teams to have success but I’m not sure how they’re going to handle it.”

The way Troy understands it now he believes mom is planning to sit in the Maryland section with friends and family while dad is going to sit with the West Virginia fans.

“They’re going to have to work that out amongst themselves,” he laughed.

Troy said he’s been waiting for this weekend ever since he arrived in Morgantown this summer to begin his Mountaineer career.

“I’ve been talking to him about this game since the summertime. He was texting me during the Marshall game saying he was scouting us,” Gloster chuckled. “He said they were going to be ready. We will be exchanging texts during the week back and forth.”

Good natured banter for sure.

“The thing that is going through my mind is, of course I want us to win, but I want him to do well,” Troy admitted. “I am going to be eying him every time they snap the ball on defense and I want him to have as much success as he can.”