Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Coveted Stills a Rare Find for WVU
December 20, 2017 04:51 PM | Football
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - They just don't grow 'em quite like Dante Stills, at least around here anyway.
Stills is the son of former Mountaineer pass rushing star Gary Stills and his size (6-feet-4 inches, 284 pounds), speed and athleticism made Fairmont, West Virginia, a frequent stop on the recruiting circuit this summer.
The Fairmont Senior product's offer list was like a Who's Who of this year's Top 25 - Oklahoma, Georgia, Penn State, Miami, Michigan State … you name it.
Stills officially made West Virginia his school of choice this morning on the first day of the new December signing period. He is one of 18 players the Mountaineers inked before lunchtime today (the early signing period lasts through Friday).
West Virginia has gotten its fair share of highly recruited players before, just not defensive linemen and certainly not any from its own backyard.
You've got to go back a long time to find a homegrown defensive lineman as coveted as Stills was this year.
Charleston's Darrion Scott was a tremendous defensive lineman at Ohio State who later played in the pros with the Minnesota Vikings. However, his high school career in West Virginia was spent playing linebacker and running back at Capital High where he was honored twice on the all-state team, my good buddy Doug Huff informed me via email this morning.
Calvin Turner, Fairmont's last big-name defensive prospect, also starred at linebacker for West Fairmont High in the late 1970s before making the transition to defensive line at WVU.
Mount View's Kelvin Dubouse had an offer from Virginia Tech before flipping to West Virginia as part of Rich Rodriguez's first recruiting class in 2001, but his Mountaineer career petered out after just one year in the program in 2002.
Ripley's Brad Hunt was a good player for Don Nehlen in the mid-1980s, but he was not considered a national recruit.
The same goes for Charleston's Todd Robinson, voted the state's top lineman in 1989. He signed with West Virginia but never lettered for the Mountaineers. Guys like Gary Tillis, Steve Redd, Rick Dolly, Buddy Hager and Rick Stead were considered good, solid program players for the Mountaineers.
That leaves Stonewall Jackson's Mark Moore, the state's Hunt Award winner in 1986, who signed with Tennessee in 1987.
That's 31 years ago - a long, long time.
"He's a special player," West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said of Stills. "He told the Oklahomas and the Floridas (no). When he was born, he was probably tagged with a WV on him obviously with his dad and his older brother (Darius) here."
You miss out on a wide receiver and there is another one around the corner to replace him. Good running backs are a dime a dozen.
Linebackers? They're everywhere, too. Safeties? You can find them.
Good quarterbacks are a little harder to come by, but there are enough of them to go around.
Athletic offensive tackles? Long and lean corners?
Tougher to get, but not nearly as tough to get as those top-shelf defensive lineman with the size, the speed and the athleticism to match.
Those guys all seem to end up going to the same schools every year.
"Everybody wants them," West Virginia defensive line coach Bruce Tall said. "You win in the trenches, you win. You control the line of scrimmage and that puts the fear into the offensive coordinator of what to call because you never know who is going to break loose."
That's what West Virginia hopes it is getting in Dante Stills, a consensus four-star recruit picked to play in this year's Under Armour All-America Game.
His dad was certainly that type of player. Other than Bruce Irvin, no Mountaineer player had a quicker first step off the ball than Gary Stills. And the wider he lined up the better.
I'm not sure Dante is that type of player, but he fills a need West Virginia is desperately seeking up front - an athletic, physical defensive lineman with enough size to hold up over the course of a long, difficult Big 12 season.
The guys the Mountaineers are using up front this year have battled and given it everything they've got, but 268, 295 and 263 are just not going to cut it in this league. That's too many pounds to give up on a weekly basis while trying to hold up for nine straight weeks as this year's group of defensive lineman had to do.
Stills weighs 285 right now and the coaches believe he can comfortably carry an additional 10 or 15 pounds once WVU strength coach Mike Joseph gets his hands on him.
"I think he's really going to help us and help us early," Gibson said. "He's the smallest of the defensive linemen we signed and he's 285. The other kid who is going to be able to help us right away is James Gmiter out of Pittsburgh. He's 309. His back is as wide as these two seats."
Gmiter comes from Jeff Metheny's outstanding Bethel Park High program, which sent the Mountaineers Chicago Bears middle linebacker Nick Kwiatkoski a few years ago. Gmiter doesn't have Dante's national profile, but if he develops the way Kwiatkoski did during his career here Mountaineer fans are going to be extremely happy.
Gmiter and Stills are already bigger than anybody West Virginia is going to put on the field next Tuesday afternoon against Utah in the Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl.
"You're excited about their starting point and when Coach Joseph gets those guys in June what he is going to be able to do with them by the time August comes around," Tall said.
Tall won't be getting Stills in January when the new semester begins, but you get the sense that he wants him with his group as soon as possible.
"I think guys should enjoy their senior years so it's great that he gets to do that, but I know the way he works and the way he prepares, plus having his brother here, will help him know how to prepare," Tall said.
The good news is it won't take Stills too long to get here. He's just a couple Will Grier long bombs away from campus down Interstate 79.
Stills is the son of former Mountaineer pass rushing star Gary Stills and his size (6-feet-4 inches, 284 pounds), speed and athleticism made Fairmont, West Virginia, a frequent stop on the recruiting circuit this summer.
The Fairmont Senior product's offer list was like a Who's Who of this year's Top 25 - Oklahoma, Georgia, Penn State, Miami, Michigan State … you name it.
Stills officially made West Virginia his school of choice this morning on the first day of the new December signing period. He is one of 18 players the Mountaineers inked before lunchtime today (the early signing period lasts through Friday).
West Virginia has gotten its fair share of highly recruited players before, just not defensive linemen and certainly not any from its own backyard.
You've got to go back a long time to find a homegrown defensive lineman as coveted as Stills was this year.
Charleston's Darrion Scott was a tremendous defensive lineman at Ohio State who later played in the pros with the Minnesota Vikings. However, his high school career in West Virginia was spent playing linebacker and running back at Capital High where he was honored twice on the all-state team, my good buddy Doug Huff informed me via email this morning.
Calvin Turner, Fairmont's last big-name defensive prospect, also starred at linebacker for West Fairmont High in the late 1970s before making the transition to defensive line at WVU.
Mount View's Kelvin Dubouse had an offer from Virginia Tech before flipping to West Virginia as part of Rich Rodriguez's first recruiting class in 2001, but his Mountaineer career petered out after just one year in the program in 2002.
Ripley's Brad Hunt was a good player for Don Nehlen in the mid-1980s, but he was not considered a national recruit.
The same goes for Charleston's Todd Robinson, voted the state's top lineman in 1989. He signed with West Virginia but never lettered for the Mountaineers. Guys like Gary Tillis, Steve Redd, Rick Dolly, Buddy Hager and Rick Stead were considered good, solid program players for the Mountaineers.
That leaves Stonewall Jackson's Mark Moore, the state's Hunt Award winner in 1986, who signed with Tennessee in 1987.
That's 31 years ago - a long, long time.
"He's a special player," West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said of Stills. "He told the Oklahomas and the Floridas (no). When he was born, he was probably tagged with a WV on him obviously with his dad and his older brother (Darius) here."
You miss out on a wide receiver and there is another one around the corner to replace him. Good running backs are a dime a dozen.
Linebackers? They're everywhere, too. Safeties? You can find them.
Good quarterbacks are a little harder to come by, but there are enough of them to go around.
Athletic offensive tackles? Long and lean corners?
Tougher to get, but not nearly as tough to get as those top-shelf defensive lineman with the size, the speed and the athleticism to match.
Those guys all seem to end up going to the same schools every year.
"Everybody wants them," West Virginia defensive line coach Bruce Tall said. "You win in the trenches, you win. You control the line of scrimmage and that puts the fear into the offensive coordinator of what to call because you never know who is going to break loose."
That's what West Virginia hopes it is getting in Dante Stills, a consensus four-star recruit picked to play in this year's Under Armour All-America Game.
His dad was certainly that type of player. Other than Bruce Irvin, no Mountaineer player had a quicker first step off the ball than Gary Stills. And the wider he lined up the better.
I'm not sure Dante is that type of player, but he fills a need West Virginia is desperately seeking up front - an athletic, physical defensive lineman with enough size to hold up over the course of a long, difficult Big 12 season.
The guys the Mountaineers are using up front this year have battled and given it everything they've got, but 268, 295 and 263 are just not going to cut it in this league. That's too many pounds to give up on a weekly basis while trying to hold up for nine straight weeks as this year's group of defensive lineman had to do.
Stills weighs 285 right now and the coaches believe he can comfortably carry an additional 10 or 15 pounds once WVU strength coach Mike Joseph gets his hands on him.
"I think he's really going to help us and help us early," Gibson said. "He's the smallest of the defensive linemen we signed and he's 285. The other kid who is going to be able to help us right away is James Gmiter out of Pittsburgh. He's 309. His back is as wide as these two seats."
Gmiter comes from Jeff Metheny's outstanding Bethel Park High program, which sent the Mountaineers Chicago Bears middle linebacker Nick Kwiatkoski a few years ago. Gmiter doesn't have Dante's national profile, but if he develops the way Kwiatkoski did during his career here Mountaineer fans are going to be extremely happy.
Gmiter and Stills are already bigger than anybody West Virginia is going to put on the field next Tuesday afternoon against Utah in the Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl.
"You're excited about their starting point and when Coach Joseph gets those guys in June what he is going to be able to do with them by the time August comes around," Tall said.
Tall won't be getting Stills in January when the new semester begins, but you get the sense that he wants him with his group as soon as possible.
"I think guys should enjoy their senior years so it's great that he gets to do that, but I know the way he works and the way he prepares, plus having his brother here, will help him know how to prepare," Tall said.
The good news is it won't take Stills too long to get here. He's just a couple Will Grier long bombs away from campus down Interstate 79.
Players Mentioned
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