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Last year, those two schools produced five NCAA Division I-A football signees, while the rest of the county’s public schools produced six. Over the last three years, 21 Seneca and Northwest alums have received I-A or I-AA scholarships, more than any other city.

And that’s not all — Good Counsel, a private school in Olney, has dipped into the town’s considerable talent hotbed, with similar success. In the last few years, the Falcons have sent three of their players, who they recruited from Germantown, to Division I schools: Maryland tight end Drew Gloster, Connecticut fullback Anthony Davis and Buffalo quarterback Zack Ingle.

No one can seem to fully explain the phenomenon, even the people who have been around the county football scene the longest.

‘‘I was in the area and at Seneca since 1976, and to be honest, I couldn’t tell you why there’s so much talent coming out of there recently,” said former longtime Screaming Eagles head coach Terry Changuris, who won seven state titles with the school. ‘‘I think for parents, it’s appealing to move here because it’s right off I-270 and close to D.C. — that could be maybe something. I know it was more a country-type area back in the day and things were spread out. Now I think there’s a better mix of kids, all types of kids.”

While he doesn’t have the answers, Changuris noticed the talent level increasing as far back as 2002. That year, he coached a state title-winning team on the strength of two players that talked to him about the team’s football exploits before moving to the Germantown area — defensive lineman Daniel Muhwezi’s (a senior linebacker at East Carolina) family moved there from Kansas during the prior summer, while star halfback Justin Warren (school records of 1,825 yards rushing, 29 touchdowns that year), who is currently second on the tailback depth chart as a senior at North Carolina, came to the school in the spring semester of 2001 after previously living in the Philadelphia area.

So, assuming they drink the same H2O as the rest of the world, what is it about the area that enables it to produce so much talent?

There is no one answer, but a share belongs in the hands of the schools’ outstanding coaching staffs. It all starts with the head coaches, Bob Milloy of Good Counsel, Fred Kim of Seneca Valley and former Northwest helmsman Randy Trivers, who recently left to become the running backs coach at Syracuse University. Andrew Fields, the team’s offensive coordinator since the school opened in 1998, now looks to carry on the Jaguars’ tradition.

Milloy has coached for 37 years in the county, the last six with the Falcons. He holds the state record for state championships with eight, six at Springbrook and two at Sherwood, and has racked up over 300 victories in his coaching career.

And both Kim and Trivers are known as two of the hardest-working coaches around, doing anything and everything to prepare players for life after high school. They transformed their teams into year-long programs, not just legends of the fall. Much of their success can be quantified on the field, as the programs have accounted for five playoff appearances and a state championship since 2004. But a lot of it cannot.

‘‘We pound the pavement pretty hard to get names out,” said Kim. ‘‘It’s certainly our entire staff and we’ve been blessed with some superb athletes, but once the season ends, it’s just the beginning for us. We make highlight films and player profiles, and send them to every single I-A and I-AA school other than maybe a couple. I don’t know what everybody else does, but we do everything we can to get our players ready.”

Kim also has become a go-to guy for scouts all over the country, and is constantly setting up meetings with recruiters. He estimates that over the past year, at least 30 to 40 universities have sent representatives to speak to him, then the players.

Apparently, they’re coming away impressed. Big-time schools are finding Seneca Valley a hotbed for talent of late, including West Virginia sophomore left tackle Jon Walko, New Mexico redshirt freshman linebacker T.J. Radzilowski and Virginia Tech redshirt freshman tight end Andre Smith.

No recruiting class was more successful than last year’s, which produced five Division I players — linebacker Anthony Chase (Duquesne) and offensive lineman Malinda Weeramunda (Towson) in I-AA; linebacker Fred Branch (Buffalo), fullback Jourdan Brooks (Rutgers) and defensive tackle Donald Langley (Tennessee) in I-A.

A two-time All-Gazette first-team performer, Langley was the most coveted of Seneca’s gifted class, with 42 schools offering the 6-foot-2, 290-pound force a full-ride. But once he decided to become a Volunteer, he did what Kim had taught him to do: be more prepared than the next man. He graduated from Seneca last winter and left for Tennessee on Jan. 9 to get in on the intense spring practices.

And despite being at one of the nation’s marquee programs, Langley doesn’t think anyone is capable of coaching him better than the Seneca Valley staff did.

‘‘That program is so well respected everywhere and Coach Kim, I have to say, is the best high-school coach in the state and probably down the East Coast,” Langley said. ‘‘I’m playing for a great one right now, and I played with the Hoover High coach [Rush Propst] from MTV ‘Two-A-Days,’ but I’m going to tell you right now, they’re no Coach Kim.”

The pedigree coming from the black and silver of Northwest is similarly stellar. Since the spring preceding their Class 4A state title-winning season of 2004, the Jaguars have sent 27 players off to college rosters, with eight in Division I-A. They include Virginia Tech sophomore quarterback Ike Whitaker (who could see time at wide receiver this season), fellow Hokie and freshman defensive lineman Justin Young, Rutgers freshman safety Joe Lefeged, West Virginia sophomore wideout Darren Brownlee and Miami (Ohio) redshirt freshman linebacker Dexter Korto.

Included in the class are three Maryland Terrapins. Guard Lee Oliver and cornerback Arnold Davies are 2004 graduates who walked on to the Terps squad, while 2006 grad Brandon Jackson-Mills earned a scholarship to play cornerback for the Terps, in large part because of his 4.4-second, 40-yard dash speed.

Though his former mentor is gone, Jackson-Mills never forgets where he came from.

‘‘The last time I talked to Coach Trivers was before he got the big Syracuse job,” Jackson-Mills said. ‘‘Of course I’d really like to talk to him, thank him and just say, ‘Look how far we’ve come.’”

The task of turning those wide-eyed Northwest youngsters into college players and students falls heavily on Fields now. He has some big shoes to fill, not just in the recruiting circuit, but on a team that didn’t lose a game during the 2006 regular season.

But he has numbers in his favor. Taking a look back on his first year with the Jaguars in 1998, he jokes that only 23 players suited up for the team picture. Nine years later, he expects anywhere between 60 and 70 for this year’s shoot.

He’ll have the talent to work with, but the challenge for Fields will be adding to the Germantown legacy. Not only of Northwest’s former head coach, but their rivals from Seneca Valley too.

‘‘With us and Seneca Valley, you’ve got two schools who have been very good over the last few years, and as a result, that makes more people want to play not only when they get to high school, but even beforehand,” said Fields. ‘‘And I definitely anticipate having to put in the work to keep sending our kids off to schools — we’ve started that process already. I know all the work Randy put in and I plan on continuing the tradition. And you know what? I’m gonna enjoy it.”

G-town Pipeline

Recent NCAA Division I-A signings from Germantown

2005

Darren Brownlee - West Virginia

Jon Walko - West Virginia

Ike Whitaker - Virginia Tech

2006

Anthony Davis - Connecticut

Drew Gloster - Maryland

Brandon Jackson-Mills - Maryland

Dexter Korto - Miami (Ohio)

Andre Smith - Virginia Tech

T.J. Radzliowski - New Mexico

2007

Fred Branch - Buffalo

Jourdan Brooks - Rutgers

Zack Ingle - Buffalo

Donald Langley - Tennessee

Joe Lefeged - Rutgers

Justin Young - Virginia Tech