Illinois Football: Illini offer Georgia standout Donovan Westmoreland

The Illinois football team continues to build its southern pipeline, offering Griffin High School outside linebacker Donovan Westmoreland.

Westmoreland becomes the latest offer for the Illinois football program, as the Big Ten’s return to play announcement has football back in the center of the sports world yet again.

With a little over a month until we see Fighting Illini football on our television sets, Westmoreland, among others, have been put on notice by the Orange and Blue as the program builds for the future.

The Georgia product hails from Griffin High School in Griffin, Georgia, and brings a 6-foot-2, 195-pound frame to the outside linebacker position. As a member of the 2022 class, Westmoreland currently has 11 schools on his radar. Including the Illini, Westmoreland has interest from Akron, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Maryland, Syracuse, and Mississipi, to name a few.

Westmoreland’s Griffin Bears squad went 11-2 in 2019, racking up five-straight wins to start the season before dropping their first loss against Starr’s Mili, 38-35. The team would eventually make a deep playoff run before losing in the quarterfinals to Jones County, 49-14.

On average, through 13 games, the Bears scored 40-plus points per week, making them a tough opponent no matter who they faced on a weekly basis. As of this writing, the Bears sit at 1-2 through its first three games of the 2020 season.

Donovan Westmoreland is not ranked by 247 Sports.

Westmoreland is uncommitted and unranked on a national recruiting scale but seeing schools like Illinois, Georgia, and Louisville show interest means that his high school career is moving in the right direction.

In his first game as a junior, Westmoreland showcased a lot of potential for what he could become, as he registered a sack and flew around on defense, having a good awareness of where the ball was in each highlight.

Fans should be excited for the future of the defense, as the 2020 season will showcase a lot of where Illinois sits as a program amongst the conference elite.