Trevor Gibbs’ love for football can be credited to an entirely different sport.
The recent IU commit started playing football in second grade, but it wasn’t his first athletic endeavor. Gibbs’ youth baseball coaches also coached a football team, and their gridiron squad was short one player. So they asked if Gibbs would play football, and his dad signed him up.
The Crown Point, Ind. native quickly discovered he’d made a good choice.
“I liked it more than baseball right away,” Gibbs told The Daily Hoosier in a phone interview.
He took off from there, launching a football career that led him to become the eighth commitment in Indiana’s class of 2026 on Tuesday.
Gibbs, standing 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds, played both tight end and linebacker at Crown Point High. He said IU’s interest seemed primarily defense-focused, with a little tight end thrown in — but he knows things can change. Gibbs added that he has no preference between the positions; he’s willing to play anywhere to be able to get on the field.
That’s the same mentality he carried throughout his high school career, and how he became a two-way threat.
“I think it’s just what our coach molded me to be. They needed me on defense a little bit,” Gibbs said. “Whatever coach says, I’ll do. I’ll never tell him no.”
On the field, Gibbs feels his biggest strengths are his hands as a tight end and his play-recognition as a linebacker. He said he wants to keep working on his overall understanding of the game, including a better grasp of his teammates’ strengths and weaknesses.
Gibbs didn’t grow up an IU fan. He didn’t have a favorite college team as a kid — he didn’t even watch full college football games until a year ago. He just never got into the college game like that. He’d watch some NFL games, especially his favorite team, the Seattle Seahawks, who he roots for because his dad is also a Seahawks fan. But until last year, he mostly watched shorter clips from college games.
He said his current favorite Seahawks are Riq Woolen and Kenneth Walker, but his favorite players to watch film of are Micah Parsons and Kam Chancellor. He’s drawn to Parsons and Chancellor’s intangibles.
“I’d just say the intensity and the mentality they play with,” Gibbs said.
Indiana first contacted Gibbs after his sophomore season at Crown Point, with defensive ends coach Buddha Williams leading the recruiting effort.
“It started when Coach Buddha came to my school just to see me. And then I went out for a spring practice, and he told me to come out for a camp, and if I dominate, he’ll give me an offer. So I came out for a camp, and then I did my thing, and then got the ‘O’ (offer).”
Gibbs liked Williams’ energy as a coach, and he appreciated head coach Curt Cignetti’s directness with players. He felt Cignetti is a coach who means what he says.
When the Hoosiers started recruiting Gibbs, and when they offered him a scholarship, they had not yet played a real game under Cignetti. So he watched IU’s historic 2024 season from a different perspective, as a recruit evaluating which program to play for, himself.
Seeing the team he watched in spring camp deliver the success it enjoyed last year inspired Gibbs.
“It made me want to work harder,” Gibbs said. “Just the grind, always. it’s like adding fuel to the pot. You see all these things at camp, and you just want more.”
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