Stills eager to prove himself to NFL with WVU return
Dante Stills shouldn’t be in Morgantown right now.
If you asked him this time last year, he’d probably say he was fresh off a showing at the NFL Combine and gearing up for next month’s draft at this point. Instead, he’s back at WVU for his sixth season, preparing for another year as the focal point of the Mountaineers’ experienced defensive line.
“The beginning of my senior year, I wanted to leave,” Stills said. “That was the whole deal, but things change. Coming back, I’m having fun with my guys, having a great time during spring ball, joking, clowning each other, stuff like that. That’s just part of it.”
It makes sense that Stills was eyeing his next steps following a junior season that saw him lead the team’s defensive line in tackles for loss. He followed that season up with one last fall where he led the team in sacks but, much like his brother Darius the year before, he was plagued by opposing double teams.
Stills ended the 2021 campaign ranking fourth in the conference in tackles for loss, but having the opportunity to take an extra year, he jumped at the opportunity to continue his growth.
“I had a meeting with my mom, my dad and coach (Neal) Brown and (Matt) Jansen, the scouting person,” Stills said. “What we went over is projections, notes that scouts say about me and stuff like that. All that took into consideration but, at the end of the day, they wanted me to do what I wanted to do — they trusted me no matter what. Just hearing the feedback, watching the film I felt like I needed to come back and prove myself.”
“What I try to do is, I stay out of it,” Brown said. “All I try to do is present data. [...] We know enough people attached to the all-star games and in the national football league to give a pretty good representation of where we think he could potentially go. So, we had that discussion with Dante and his family and presented information. [...] Some of his play was at a really high level, I think he feels like he has room to improve and have better video and I think that was some of the thought process.”
Stills, having seen his brother go through the process years earlier, thought long and hard about the decision, even going off the grid for a few days to come to his decision.
“The whole process, I just wanted to be smart with it,” Stills said. “I got the data from the coaches and I personally went back and watched my own film — all the games — and I did my own self-evaluation on myself and I was like ‘I could’ve done stuff better here, here, here and here.’ What scouts were telling me was matching up to what I watched.
“I just need to be more consistent, run to the ball every play — which I wasn’t doing, and I need to do that,” Stills continued. “People always see the sacks, (tackles for loss) and stuff like that, they think he’s good enough, but there’s a lot more stats in the game that they want that I didn’t show. This year is all about that.”
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