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Duke’s Mark Gilbert believed he was on a “fast-track” to the NFL. He had good reason to after a breakout sophomore season, earning 2017 first-team All-ACC honors while leading all the league cornerbacks in votes.
Then came an unexpected road block.
Gilbert, now a redshirt senior cornerback, suffered a dislocated hip injury requiring surgery that wiped out both his 2018 and 2019 seasons. He was injured in the second game of 2018 at Northwestern. He still wasn’t ready for the start of 2019 and missed another season.
“That definitely was something that made me realize I was taking school for granted,” Gilbert said. “That made me lock into my books. Not that I wasn’t already, but it was a light-bulb moment when you realize the importance of school without football.”
The future always comes sooner than expected when you’re in college, but Gilbert always thought about his academics as a highly recruited corner with NFL size out of Fayetteville Terry Sanford. The 6-foot-1,1 75-punder picked Duke over 14 other offers. Recruits don’t choose that path unless they value a prestigious degree to go with their football.
He’s a sociology major pursuing a certificate in documentary studies. There’s enough going on in the world with social injustice protests he has enough material now for a project.
“I think it’s beautiful — all the peaceful protests, the entire movement is beautiful,” Gilbert said. “People want to see change with the corruption, with police brutality and social injustice. It’s time for this generation to speak of change.”
But it turns out he has a football season to play in 2020, after all. Duke is scheduled to open the season Sept. 12 at Notre Dame and its home opener without fans Sept. 19 against Boston College at Wallace Wade Stadium. The TV times and networks have been set for Notre Dame, 2:30 p.m. on NBC, and Boston College, noon on RSN.
College football has been holding its breath since mid-August for the other shoe to drop once the Big Ten, Pac-12, Mid-American and Mountain West postponed their seasons to the spring, but the ACC, SEC and Big 12 are still moving ahead. Gilbert has been holding his breath longer that.
First, he wondered if he’d make it back. Then he wondered if he could get back to being the player he was.
“That was a mental battle I had throughout the entire process,” he said. “There was a little doubt. Would I ever play again? Was I going to the player I was before? Was I going to reach the elite level I was playing my sophomore year? As a started practicing, I started gaining my confidence.”
The cornerback he was after his sophomore year was playing himself into declaring for the NFL draft after what was his true junior season, 2018. He started all 13 games with 35 tackles, 3.0 tackles for a loss, six interceptions and 15 pass breakups. Quarterback Daniel Jones, a NFL first-round draft pick in 2019, said Gilbert gave him a taste of what to expect from NFL talent.
Giilbert set a school record and was first in the ACC ins total defended (21). The interceptions tied for third in the nation and the total passes defended was third.
Duke has been known for its secondary in the 4-2-5 schemes head coach David Cutcliffe prefers, and a one-on-one coverage corner helps the other four defensive backs with other roles. He has coverage skills in his blood as a cousin of NFL cornerback Darrelle Revis, a seven-time NFL Pro Bowl selection known at the height of his career for the “Gilbert Island” shoe commercials. Wide receivers got lost on Revis Island.
“That’s my goal — to return to Gilbert Island as a player,” he said. “I know I haven’t played in a game in two years. I’ll have to get used to game speed. Once I do that, Gilbert Island will be present.”
It takes a little bravado to be a cornerback, but Gilbert isn’t without some humility. He learned to become a student of the game during rehab, studying film. He also thinks he can be more physical. But that’s not all. His injury also taught him to appreciate missing more than games.
“One thing I missed was practice,” he said. “Those blood sweat and tears on our practice field. Going out the field with your teammates. You don’t realize how much you miss it until taken away from you.”
Duke knows how much it has missed Gilbert since the second game of 2018.
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Tom Shanahan, Author: Raye of Light http://tinyurl.com/knsqtqu
— Book on Michigan State’s leading role in the integration of college football. It explains Duffy Daugherty’s untold pioneering role and debunks myths that steered recognition away from him to Bear Bryant.
http://shanahan.report/a/the-case-for-duffy-and-medal-of-freedom
Don’t believe the myths at Duffy Daugherty’s expense about Bear Bryant’s motivation to play the 1970 USC-Alabama game or myths about the Charlie Thornhill-for-Joe Namath trade. Bear Bryant knew nothing about black talent in the South while he dragged his feet on segregation.
http://www.shanahan.report/a/forty-four-underground-railroad-legacy-facts
http://shanahan.report/a/myths-that-grew-out-of-1970-alabama-game-with-usc
http://shanahan.report/a/mystery-solved-in-thornhill-and-namath-myth
David Maraniss, Pulitzer Prize winner and biographer; “History writes people out of the story. It’s our job to write them back in.”
Raye of Light: Jimmy Raye, Duffy Daugherty, The Integration of College Football, and the 1965-66 Michigan State Spartans
https://www.augustpublications.com/
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