Donovan Wilson was this year's lone early enrollment for Tech's football team. Our second commitment on May 15, Wilson was already in class at Signing Day, and will benefit from having participated in Spring Practice. Wilson chose Tech over offers from Air Force, Boston College, and Purdue, but was also drawing interest from schools such as Cincinnati, Iowa, Nebraska, Notre Dame, and Ohio State.
Wilson stands at 6 feet tall and a little over 200 pounds, very similar to fellow RB recruit Travis Custis. (Why play them at different positions then? Custis has more of a low-pads, downhill running style where he makes good use of his power, while Wilson runs with his pads a little bit higher and utilizes his shiftiness more.) His skillset reminds me an awful lot of recent alumnus Orwin Smith. Wilson has extremely good balance and is very tough to tackle unassisted, very similar to Smith. The two are also very similar in that Wilson is very comfortable as a pass-catcher, as well as running laterally before cutting up the field (picture Orwin on the toss play). Overall, I picture him stepping into the void left by Smith and playing the "big" A-Back role.
One area Wilson could use improvement in will be his speed. He doesn't appear to be the kind of guy who will just fly past people, but the A-Back position is one where speed is very valuable. He'll probably have to work on his route-running as well, as he moves from a set-back role (very simple route tree) to a wing-back role (the route tree can get more complicated).
Do you think Donovan Wilson makes it onto the field this fall? Do you see him having an impact similar to Orwin Smith?