Devin Gil
Name: Devin Gil
Height: 6’1″
Weight: 225 lbs.
High school: Pembroke Pines (FL) Flanagan
Position: Linebacker
Class: Freshman
Jersey number: N/A
Last year: Gil was a senior in high school (LINK). He made 60 tackles.
TTB Rating: 63
A one-time Miami commit, Gil was listed early in his recruitment as a safety. After pledging to the Hurricanes in January of 2015, Michigan offered him in March. The coaching staff had already starting pursuing teammate Devin Bush, Jr., and they would eventually offer Josh Metellus after a camp in South Florida. (Michigan has offered more teammates for the 2017 class, including Stanford Samuels III.) Even before Gil visited campus, it seemed he was likely to flip to the Wolverines. Then a visit in mid-June helped him pull the trigger. By the time his senior season rolled around, Gil was playing linebacker for Flanagan. He was thought by many – including me – to be too slow for safety in college, so he got in a year of linebacker experience before college.
Don Brown has pegged Gil as an “outside linebacker,” though that could mean either the SAM or WILL position. I think he will end up at WILL, which is also the position Bush plays. With Mike McCray II looking like the starter at WILL and Bush playing pretty well after enrolling early, Gil looks to be no higher than third string as a freshman. There are also a couple other players who could slide in at WILL if needed, so it would make sense for him to redshirt. He may find a role on special teams, but those roles can often be filled by other players.
Prediction: Redshirt
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I’m not sure any of our LB/S prospects are very likely to red-shirt given the needs next year. I don’t think Gil has the upside to make a RS worthwhile. Of course if he absolutely doesn’t deserve to see the field and would be a liability, then it’s worth getting the 5th year option, no matter how unlikely it is to be fruitful.
Is WIL really an OLB position? In Mattison’s D and Durkin’s the WIL and MIK spots were both considered ILB and the OLBs were the SAM and rush end/buck/weak end. Not that I’d worry about Gil’s position yet, there’s lots of time to work through all that and his size seems like it could fit at any LB spot.
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I’ve seen the coaches refer to Devin Bush, Jr. as an OLB, and he was playing WILL in the spring. If Gil is pegged for the same spot, then I guess he counts as an OLB.
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Interesting. That could be a philosophical change from Mattison days, or just semantics.
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