FSU's Dillan Gibbons: A big man with a big heart and even bigger aspirations
If only Dos Equis hadn’t pulled the plug on its, “Most Interesting Man In The World” advertising campaign four years ago, Dillan Gibbons might have been a shoo-in for a college football edition.
The Most Interesting Offensive Lineman in the ACC, at the very least.
Even though he has only been a member of the Florida State football team for about 15 months, you already know so much about him.
How his “Big Man, Big Heart” charity has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to be used for an array of good deeds.
How he has played a pivotal role in transforming Florida State’s offensive line from a unit that was mocked by fans and abused by opponents to one that paved the way for three 100-yard rushers and a 200-yard passer in last Saturday’s season opener.
But there is still so much you don’t know about Dillan Gibbons.
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And so much that seems to make him a walking contradiction.
On the football field, Gibbons is a 6-foot-5, 327-pound bully who cherishes the controlled violence that takes place on every snap in the trenches. “Playing offensive line is a knife fight every single play,” he says with pride. “It’s not a fist fight, it’s a knife fight.” Off the field, he literally started a nationwide trend of college athletes using their Name, Image and Likeness to promote charitable causes.
As a student, he is just a few months away from earning his MBA from Florida State. But instead of using that prestigious advanced degree to begin a career in real estate, his primary focus of study, Gibbons is putting that on hold to pursue his dream of playing in the NFL. “Football’s kind of the cake for me,” he said. “The MBA is the icing.”
He is a guy who wakes up at 4 a.m. and breaks up his day into 15-minute increments to make sure he’s not wasting time or losing focus. Even when he feels the need to take a break, to watch a YouTube video on fly fishing or some other outdoor activity, it’s quickly back to work on school or football. “Not spending too much time on it, but resetting, refocusing, and then getting on to the next task.”
Gibbons also has an old-school fascination with working with his hands. He loves ceramics, earned a minor in studio art from Notre Dame and likes crafting his own fishing poles. He says he picked up a love of whittling from his father and his grandfather.
We could go on and on.
In fact, we shall.
Almost exactly one year ago, shortly after he transferred to Florida State, Gibbons hopped on the business networking site LinkedIn and reached out to a senior executive in Amazon’s corporate office. It was a 2020s version of a cold call, and Gibbons lamented the fact that obtaining summer internships is almost impossible for college football players because of year-round training on campus. And he pitched the idea of an abbreviated internship program for college athletes.
Fast-forward to this summer, and Gibbons got his chance. Amazon brought him to New York City for a one-week internship with the company’s treasury technology team. His office was right down the street from the Empire State Building. “At the end, I got offered a job at Amazon, as either a senior product or senior program manager.”
Some internship!
Flattered by the offer and describing it as an “incredible” opportunity for someone still in school, Gibbons isn’t giving it much thought right now. He is focused on his final season with the Seminoles. He has so much left to accomplish in these next few months.
In one way, it’s unlikely Dillan Gibbons would be in this position. He started his college career at Notre Dame as a member of the 2017 signing class, which means his five-year NCAA clock normally would have expired at the end of last season. He would have played his one year with FSU and been done. But with all college athletes getting an extra year due to COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020, Gibbons took the field last Saturday against Duquesne as one of FSU’s senior captains.
In another way, it all makes perfect sense. Growing up in St. Petersburg, Gibbons always kept a close eye on the Florida State Seminoles. Even when he was playing for the Fighting Irish, he would try to catch FSU games on television. If he couldn’t watch the ‘Noles live, he would make sure to catch replays online.
So once he entered the transfer portal last May, FSU was an obvious favorite. But it wasn’t until Gibbons spoke with offensive line coach Alex Atkins that he knew where he would finish his college career.
While other recruiters promised him starting jobs and other opportunities, Atkins took a much different approach. He told Gibbons he shouldn’t even consider FSU unless he could meet certain requirements. He would need to work overtime to learn the playbook, he would need to earn the trust and respect of his teammates in the locker room, and he would need to establish himself as a leader.
Only then would he have a chance to get on the field.
“I challenged him,” Atkins recalled. “We had a lot of young guys in the room. And if you bring in the wrong older guy, he can influence them in the wrong direction. So my challenge was you’ve got to come in and take a leadership role. And I’m not talking about coming in and giving speeches and doing breakdowns. I’m talking about how you go about your day.
“You need to come in early. You need to watch film. And you need to set an example of what it means to be a college football player.”
It was exactly the pitch Gibbons longed to hear: “I wanted an opportunity. A fair opportunity. And that’s all I needed.”
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As soon as he arrived last summer, Gibbons put Atkins’ plan into motion. Working with a few other veteran offensive linemen, he helped write a document of guiding principles for their position group. It included a number of promises to each other — including vowing to never back down from a fight — and it demanded that the players “self police” each other.
“And we had everybody sign it,” Gibbons said.
FSU’s young offensive line group made obvious progress that season. It was no longer an embarrassment. And now in 2022, with the addition of some more new transfers and talented freshmen, Gibbons wants to help take the group to a higher level.
Even though he can certainly lead with words, perhaps his greatest messages come through example. From getting up at 4 a.m., even during the summer months, to reporting early for treatment at the Moore Athletics Center. Then dividing his day into those aforementioned quarter-hours, alternating between school assignments and film study.
“I spend my whole day at this facility,” Gibbons said weeks before preseason camp started. “I don’t leave. I do all my work here. I hang out here. … I’m living and breathing football. I’m trying to be as available as I can for the younger offensive linemen to bring them through.”
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His example also is visible on the field, in the forms of toughness and effort.
One particular play in FSU’s 47-7 rout of Duquesne generated glee from fans on social media because it showed Gibbons 15 yards downfield shoving a defensive back a good five yards at the end of a screen pass.
Fans aren’t the only ones who appreciate that aspect of Gibbons’ game.
“Dillan’s chippy now,” Atkins said with a laugh. “He goes to the echo of the whistle. He goes to that second or third echo — through the wind — before he stops. And that’s a part of what he brought to us as an older guy. Because you don’t know it unless you see it. And when those younger guys saw it, they kind of bought into it.”
Said Gibbons: “I’m trying to take this guy, bury him in the grass, shove his head in the dirt and keep rolling. That’s how I was raised and that’s just how I play.”
While it might sound strange to hear an MBA candidate and potential white-collar Amazon staffer speaking like that, for Gibbons, there is no other way to play the sport he loves. He recalls learning that mindset while growing up in St. Pete with good friend Griffin Alstott, the son of former Tampa Bay Buccaneers star Mike Alstott.
“I got to see that first-hand,” Gibbons said of the Bucs’ battering ram of a running back. “That head down, get out of my way or we’re both going to suffer the consequences. You make somebody make a business decision.”
At some point when his playing days are done, Gibbons undoubtedly will be making different types of business decisions. And if his efforts with Big Man, Big Heart are any indication, they will be matters of great consequence.
Gibbons’ charity has already raised more than $300,000 over the last year, and he has assembled a staff of interns to help him coordinate various initiatives. Friends, family and board members pitch in as well.
Perhaps the biggest challenge for Gibbons these days is only allowing himself to focus on the charity when he receives weekly updates. That’s not because his passion for the endeavor is waning. To the contrary, he wants to do even more when the time is right.
But during a heart-to-heart with Atkins and head coach Mike Norvell earlier this year, the coaches reminded Gibbons that a successful football career could mean all the difference for his philanthropic pursuits.
“Everything is contingent on football,” Gibbons said. “Helping people is contingent on me having success in football and playing in the NFL. I can help a lot more people if I’m playing in the NFL.”
What Gibbons and FSU’s offensive line do this weekend — and this season — could help project the likelihood of that pro career. When the Seminoles take on LSU on Sunday night in New Orleans, they will face one of the most talented defensive fronts they will see all season. Anchoring that unit will be former five-star recruit Maason Smith, a 6-foot-5, 300-pounder who some rated the No. 1 defensive line recruit in the country two years ago.
Gibbons, who could line up at left guard or center across from Smith, is nothing if not confident.
He knows how much time and effort he has put into preparing for this season. He remembers all the nights he sacrificed in order to wake up at 4 a.m. and get to work.
“It gives me a sense of urgency when I wake up every morning,” he said. “Minutes and seconds can slip by you real fast if you’re not careful. And they add up over a lifetime.”
Those minutes aren’t slipping past Gibbons.
His charity is thriving, his younger teammates are developing nicely, FSU’s offensive line is coming off of what might have been its most dominant performance in years, and the Seminoles have a huge opportunity looming Sunday night in New Orleans.
Florida State’s 2021 season was not as successful as Gibbons hoped, but he insists his overall experience in Tallahassee has been everything he could have asked for … and then some.
The master of business administration. The legacy of giving back. The toughness he has helped instill. The improvement on the field, for both himself and his team.
And he has done it all … 15 minutes at a time.
“It gives me an opportunity to be the most compartmentalized and most efficient offensive lineman in all of college football,” Gibbons said.
Maybe also the most interesting.
Talk about this story with other die-hard FSU football fans on the Tribal Council.
