Kylan Wilborn to Arizona: Three-star outside linebacker signs with Wildcats

Arizona adds a pass-rush specialist.

Kylan Wilborn was the third commitment to this year’s Arizona Wildcats recruiting class, with the head coach’s son, Rhett Rodriguez, being the first, and the now-departed Greg Johnson being the other at the time. While we all watched the recruiting class fluctuate, Wilborn was a constant, which is hard to come by nowadays with the state of college football recruiting the way it is.

Wilborn is a 6-foot-2, 240 pound linebacker, who will likely be playing the hybrid DE role in Marcel Yates’ defense. Wilborn committed to Arizona back in April of 2016 and held offers from Idaho and Hawaii, but in a piece by the LA Times, he said Arizona doesn’t care about the stars as long as you can produce on the field.

“The best thing I like about Arizona is they don’t care about stars,” he said. “They don’t care about how many offers you have. It’s what your film does, what your team does. You have great highlights, you get sacks, it doesn’t matter what you are. You have decent height, decent speed, decent strength, they’re going to recruit you.”

Arizona is in some need of help since Cody Ippolito is playing his final year at Utah and John Kenny is leaving the program . That leaves Arizona with DeAndre’ Miller and Brandon Rutt as the only linebackers with experience returning.

This is kind of a scary thought after watching the linebacker shortage of 2015 and the running back and quarterback shortage of 2016. We have all seen how quickly things can change and how much depth is needed. The departures tell me that Rich Rodriguez has confidence in the guys he has coming in and the redshirts from 2016 (Jacob Colacion and Kahi Neves). Wilborn is part of a six-person linebacker class.

He played at Notre Dame Prep in Sherman Oaks, California. After a junior campaign where he played well at linebacker (no stats available for that year, but watch his junior film), his coach decided to put him at running back as well. At 6-foot-2 and 240 pounds, Wilborn was quite the power runner.

In his senior year, he had 37 solo tackles, 7 sacks, 1 interception, 1 forced fumble, and 7 TFLs. He also added 581 yards and 11 touchdowns on 104 carries on the offensive side of the ball.

Here is his senior year film.

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