Del Rio-Wilson brings competitiveness, leadership to Gators’ quarterback room

Carlos Del Rio-Wilson played several sports as a child, including basketball and baseball. However, none of them brought him as much joy as football. He convinced his father, Carlos Del Rio, to let him play when he was just 5 years old.

The elder Del Rio quickly recognized that his son was enormously talented and unusually dedicated to a sport for such a young age. He pushed his son to be better, sometimes near the breaking point.

“I had trainers that would run him uphill when he was 8 years old and 9 years old in 100-degree weather up here [in Georgia],” Del Rio said. “He’d be crying. I’d tell him, ‘Hey, if you ever don’t want to do this, just let me know. We’ll do something else. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.’ I don’t want to torture my own kid. And he’d wake up the next morning and be like, ‘Let’s go. I want to go. Let’s go work out.’”

That perseverance has paid off. Del Rio-Wilson enrolled at Florida about a week ago as one of two quarterbacks in the Gators’ 2021 class.

While he’s a UF quarterback now, he didn’t always play the position. He was always bigger than most of the other kids growing up, so coaches initially tried him out at running back and on the defensive line. When he was 7 or 8, he got his first crack at playing quarterback.

“We tried him out at quarterback, throwing the ball,” his father said. “He threw a real tight spiral for never having thrown the ball. He was actually real accurate. We was like, ‘Woah.’ From then on, he never looked back.”

When Del Rio-Wilson reached high school, his father decided to test his son’s talent by enrolling him at McEachern High School in Powder Springs, Georgia, in the Atlanta area. McEachern plays at the 7A level, the highest classification in Georgia, and has produced multiple college and professional athletes in recent years.

Del Rio soon found out that his son possessed the skills needed to become the next great athlete to come from McEachern. Del Rio-Wilson started at quarterback as a freshman, and college coaches started gravitating toward him when he went to college camps with hundreds of players.

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh gave him his first scholarship offer as a freshman. Florida offered him as a sophomore. Del Rio-Wilson and his father visited UF shortly after he was offered, and it was love at first sight. He wanted to commit then, but his father convinced him to calm down and see some other schools before making a decision.

That strategy didn’t last long. He visited some other schools, but the Gators always stuck in his mind. He committed at Florida’s Friday Night Lights event in 2019 prior to his junior year.

Del Rio said he’s not quite sure why his son was so enamored by the Gators but acknowledged that UF did meet a lot of the criteria they were looking for in a college. The Gators play against the best competition in the SEC and have a coach known for developing quarterbacks perhaps better than any other coach in the country. Proximity to home was also an important factor to the father. He was in the military, so he understands what it feels like to be homesick. UF is close enough that he doesn’t envision that becoming an issue for his son.

After a junior season at McEachern that saw him complete 64 percent of his passes for 1,792 yards and 16 touchdowns, he transferred to Grayson High School for his senior year. However, he was deemed ineligible to play due to state transfer rules and instead played for Cartersville High School, the same high school that produced Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence. He completed 66.7 percent of his throws for 1,374 yards and 12 scores.

Cartersville head coach Conor Foster was impressed with Del Rio-Wilson’s leadership. Despite being an established star who had already committed to an SEC program, he didn’t walk into Cartersville like he owned the place. He made helping the team improve and winning games his priorities.

“I think what was important for him was that he came in and served his teammates and that he was willing to compete and not expect a handout and not step into the huddle immediately and tell everybody how things are going to be done,” Foster said. “He worked hard and kept his head down and encouraged people and found ways to serve his teammates, whether it be running some scout team or whatever it was that the team needed to be successful. I think once he kind of earned their respect as a teammate, that allowed him to move forward as a leader and as their quarterback.”

Del Rio-Wilson, the No. 140 prospect in the nation according to the 247Sports Composite, has the measurables you look for in a quarterback. He’s 6-foot-3 and around 215-220 pounds, a figure that should increase once he goes through UF’s offseason strength and conditioning program. He has a strong enough arm to make almost every throw. He’s not an extraordinarily fast runner, but he should be fast enough to run some of Dan Mullen’s option concepts.

“There’s tremendous talent there, but more importantly, what’s going to serve him well is you get a kid that loves the game, a young man that’s a hard-worker that really enjoys the process,” Foster said. “He really impressed me with his eagerness to improve on a daily basis and to work really on his own after practice, before school, whatever it may be, whatever it’s going to take for him to improve. I really think that he enjoys that process, and that speaks volumes to his character and his love for the game.

“I think his ceiling is very high. I think he’s a young man that gets it, and I also think he’s a young man that has the ‘it factor.’ People are drawn to him. He’s got a big smile, a big personality, but he’s also willing to work alongside people and take people under his wing and just work. I think he has all the things that you look for in a quarterback at a high level.”

However, his release can get long at times, and he’s shown inconsistent accuracy at camps. He’ll need to clean those things up before he’s ready to start at Florida.

Del Rio said he’s excited about what his son’s future might hold under Mullen and offensive coordinator Brian Johnson. UF averaged nearly 40 points per game, and Kyle Trask led the nation in passing yards and touchdowns in 2020.

“I know they had a couple of bad games,” Del Rio said. “It’s not about that. I’m watching a guy like Kyle Trask develop, who I think they said didn’t even start in high school, and he’s just developed into this great quarterback. That’s very motivating.”

Winning the starting job at Florida someday will be an uphill battle for Del Rio-Wilson. Emory Jones has three years of eligibility left, while Anthony Richardson has four. He’ll also have to compete with classmate Jalen Kitna and whoever else Mullen brings in over the next couple of years.

Foster believes that Del Rio-Wilson won’t shy away from the competition. In fact, he’ll probably thrive in it.

“What really impressed me was just his competitiveness,” Foster said. “It was infectious every day at practice. There was some jawing back and forth at times during perimeter periods because he’s wanting to make everybody better. He’s wanting to complete every pass that he throws, whether it’s against the first-team defense or scout defense. I enjoyed that about him. Great competitor, somebody that wants to win. When we’re running punt team, he’s out there catching punts and arguing that he can do it better than anybody else. I just enjoyed his enthusiasm for practice every day and really enjoyed his competitive nature. I think it’ll serve him well not only at Florida but just in life in general.”

Ethan Hughes
Ethan was born in Gainesville and has lived in the Starke, Florida, area his entire life. He played basketball for five years and knew he wanted to be a sportswriter when he was in middle school. He’s attended countless Gators athletic events since his early childhood, with baseball being his favorite sport to attend. He’s a proud 2019 graduate of the University of Florida and a 2017 graduate of Santa Fe College. He interned with the University Athletic Association’s communications department for 1 ½ years as a student and also wrote for InsideTheGators.com for two years before joining Gator Country in 2021. He is a long-suffering fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars. You can follow him on Twitter @ethanhughes97.