I first noticed Skyler Gill-Howard the way draft analysts often do: by accident, and then all at once.

I saw his name last week while scanning the list of defensive linemen who had received invites to the NFL Scouting Combine. I turned on Gill-Howard’s 2025 tape and he immediately flashed — one play after the next, one series after the next, one game after the next. 

And if not for a season-ending ankle injury suffered against Kansas in mid-October, Gill-Howard, who transferred to Texas Tech ahead of last season, would already be a household name.

But before we can look ahead — to the combine in late February, the next two months of the pre-draft process, and whatever his NFL future holds beyond that — it’s instructive to look back at what led Gill-Howard to this moment.

That story does not begin with a blue-chip recruiting profile, a five-star pedigree or even a background as a defensive lineman. It begins with a 5-foot-11 kid in Wisconsin wrestling reluctantly and trying to figure out where he fit on a football field.

“Throughout high school I played linebacker,” Gill-Howard told me this week over Zoom. “But I wasn’t really serious about linebacker until probably the end of sophomore year because I was more of an offensive guy.”

He then told himself, “I’m just gonna play defense and see what happens.”

Those nine words — “I’m just gonna play defense and see what happens” — are essentially the thesis of his football life. Try something. Adjust. Keep moving.

Because even as he leaned into defense, he was still doing everything else.

“[As a junior and senior] I was playing a lot of running back, a lot of tight end, kind of like a fullback position, so I was getting the ball in my hands. I was making plays,” he said. “But ultimately I ended up on defense — that’s how I became a linebacker.”

The other sport that shaped him into the player he is today? Like many offensive and defensive linemen: wrestling. Except even that didn’t start the way you might imagine.

“A fun fact: I really did not like wrestling,” Gill-Howard explained.

He tried it in middle school. Quit as a freshman. Wanted to hoop instead. Then came back the next year almost out of circumstance. After winning a JV state title his sophomore year, he stuck with it: “You could see the difference it made in football, so I just kept doing it.” As a junior, Gill-Howard made it to the state finals and advanced to the semifinals his senior season. 

That difference shows up today in ways anyone half paying attention would instantly recognize — leverage, balance, hand usage — but back then it was just another thing he was figuring out on the fly.

Then COVID hit, and whatever conventional recruiting path he might have had evaporated as the country shut down.

“Basically, it messed everything up,” he said. “We ended up playing our football season in the spring. And I kind of lost all interest that I had from the Division I schools.”

The long way around: Upper Iowa and NIU

Despite interest from several FCS schools, Gill-Howard found himself without a home as programs dealt with returning players and limited roster spots. He eventually landed at Division II Upper Iowa in 2021, though he never intended it to be his final destination.

“I didn’t really have any intentions on staying there for more than two years,” he admitted. “I knew I could play at the next level.”

Reality had other ideas. He barely saw the field outside of special teams. He was out of shape. He was far from home. He couldn’t control playing time — but he could control the work.

So Gill-Howard and teammate Myles McHaney would wake up at 4 a.m. to train. Lift, class, practice, repeat. Day after day. No spotlight, no guarantees. Just quietly working while no one was watching. He transformed his body, sharpened his focus and gained perspective.

“It taught me how to really grind and just stay the course no matter what my situation is,” he said.

After leaving Upper Iowa at around 235 pounds, the portal didn’t immediately open doors. The first window closed without an offer. So he worked — at FedEx, coaching track, saving money and waiting.

Track, by the way, wasn’t just something he picked up to help pay the bills between chasing his football dreams.

“When I was running track … I ran 11.7 in the 100. I high jumped too. I was a 6-2 jumper,” he said. “A lot of people don’t know that. That’s kind of where I get my speed from.”

His breakthrough finally came when Northern Illinois University offered him a chance to walk on — but it came with a catch: NIU wanted him to switch positions.

“They’re like, you could come … but as a D-tackle,” he said.

Just so we’re clear: Gill-Howard was still a 235-pound linebacker who hadn’t played much football since high school and had never played defensive line.

“I was so excited just to get the walk-on offer that I just said yes without even thinking. But a few days later I’m like, ‘Wait, I’m about to play on the defensive line.’”

So why gamble on a 235-pound Division II linebacker as a MAC defensive lineman?

The NIU coaching staff had seen his explosiveness on film and believed he could be molded. Gill-Howard embraced the challenge, mostly because it meant he was playing Division I ball. He began working with trainer Johnny Bridgewater to gain weight while maintaining his speed and lateral agility. By the time he hit the field for NIU, he was 270 pounds.

“I got on campus and I was just really explosive, but I was still trying to play linebacker out of a three-point stance,” he recalled.

You wouldn’t have known it watching him. After redshirting in 2022 and serving as a reserve defensive tackle a year later, he had a breakout 2024 season for the Huskies. He earned All-MAC honors and became a Burlsworth Trophy nominee — an award, according to the website, that recognizes “college football‘s most outstanding player who began his career as a walk-on.”

That linebacker DNA never left. Even after Gill-Howard transformed his body and position at NIU, his game still reflected his off-ball roots.

“I think I just still have a really good feel for the game,” he said. “I’m a great reactor … I can react so quick, and I think I do the same thing while I’m playing 3-tech or 4. … But also, when I get [into the backfield], I’m a ball hawk.”

This isn’t hyperbole.

“I’m always flying around just trying to get to wherever the ball is,” he said, “because you never know what could happen, and you see that like with the pick-6. I’m always trying to get to the ball because those linebacker instincts kick in.”

Taking his talents to Texas Tech

Gill-Howard talks about “the pick-6” with all the nonchalance of a Rod Woodson recounting one of his NFL-record 12 interceptions returned for a touchdown. But man, it is something to behold.

Gill-Howard and I watched the play together a few times before he informed me that he hit 19 mph on the GPS. For perspective, the fastest player in the NFL last season was Colts running back Jonathan Taylor, who hit 22.4 mph, according to Next Gen Stats. Gill-Howard was three mph slower. Three.

“I like to say that I’m not a D-lineman,” Gill-Howard continued. “I’m just an athlete playing on the line.”

The honesty is as easy to appreciate as his developmental timeline is difficult to wrap your head around. It explains why the jump from the MAC to the Big 12 didn’t overwhelm him — even while sharing a defensive front with projected top-10 edge rusher David Bailey and early-round defensive tackle Lee Hunter.

He’s been preparing for this moment since he left for Upper Iowa, even if he didn’t know it at the time.

“The O-linemen were way more athletic [in the Big 12] … and the speed of the game was overall faster,” he said. And early on, that speed was a wake-up call.

“We got [Texas Tech RBs] Quinn Joyner and J’Koby Williams — those guys are speedy and they’re making me look like a fool at practice when I first got there. I’m like, man, I gotta lock in.

“Once I adjusted to the speed of the game, it didn’t really feel too different,” he said. “It just felt like I belonged there.”

There’s an old saying that defense travels. Turns out, so does leadership.

Gill-Howard may have been a newcomer in Texas Tech’s locker room, but he had already lived through enough football whiplash to know what was important. Before spring ball even began, he asked for an opportunity to speak to his new teammates.

The message was noteworthy because of the messenger: A man who hadn’t yet played a snap in Lubbock, but whose winding journey provided a perspective his teammates lacked.

“We have the chance to do something that no Tech team has ever done, ever,” he told them. “So why not go out there and give it all you got? Because [otherwise] you would only be doing the person in front of you a disservice. If the O-line isn’t going as hard as they should be while we’re practicing in the spring, how is that going to make me better? How is that going to make you better? We’re not going to be anything, even with this $30 million roster — and I had to let them know straight up: none of that stuff matters.

“My main point,” he continued, “all the expectations that people had for us were just external [and] that really doesn’t mean anything if we don’t have a standard that we set for ourselves individually. That’s what really matters. Standards are internal. Expectations are external. So I let them know that you have to have a standard for yourself of who you want to be and what you want to accomplish.”

The NFL Draft process and overcoming the ‘size’ question

That same clarity shapes how Gill-Howard is approaching the next phase — the combine, the interviews, the inevitable questions about his size. He knows what’s coming. And he knows what he’s going to say.

“Aaron Donald’s the guy I try to model my game after, but I like to tell people all the time: it’s all about leverage. I’m a guy that can beat any O-lineman with leverage. It doesn’t matter if they’re 6-8, 330 pounds or whatever. I have natural leverage.”

And for a player who has already made a career out of responding — to setbacks, to adversity, to anything the football gods put in front of him — the draft process is just the next version of that same test.

“I’ve only been playing D-line since 2022,” he said. “So I’ve still got a lot to learn and a long way to go.”