Devon Witherspoon (born December 11, 2000) is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such offensive running plays as sweeps and reverses. They create tur ...

for the

Illinois Fighting Illini The Illinois Fighting Illini () are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The university offers 10 men's and 11 women's varsity sports. The University operates a number of athletic faci ...

. He was a consensus All-American and was named the

Tatum–Woodson Defensive Back of the Year Coaches and media of the Big Ten Conference award the following individual honors at the end of each football season. In addition, the '' Chicago Tribune'' awards the Chicago Tribune Silver Football to the most valuable football player of the conf ...

in 2022.

High school career

Witherspoon attended

Pine Forest High School Pine Forest High School is a high school in Pensacola, Florida. It was opened in 1975, with the first day of class being 10 November '75. Pine Forest High is located on Longleaf Drive in a cluster of education buildings. Athletics Pine Fores ...

Pensacola, Florida Pensacola () is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle, and the county seat and only incorporated city of Escambia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 54,312. Pensacola is the principal c ...

. He did not start playing football until his junior year of high school. As a senior in 2018, he was the ''

Pensacola News Journal The '' Pensacola News Journal'' is a daily morning newspaper serving Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida. It is Northwest Florida's most widely read daily. The ''News Journal'' is owned by Gannett, a national media holding company th ...

'' Defensive Player of the Year after recording 74 tackles, seven

interceptions In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team b ...

and two

touchdowns A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether Rush (gridiron football), running, Forward pass, passing, returning a Kickoff (gridiron football), kickoff or Punt (gridiron football), punt, or recovering a Turno ...

. He committed to the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

to play college football.

College career

As a true freshman at Illinois in 2019, Witherspoon played in all 13 games with three starts and had 33 tackles. As a sophomore in 2020, he played in all seven games he played in, recording 33 tackles and two interceptions. He played and started 10 games his junior year in 2021, finishing with 52 tackles and one sack. Witherspoon returned to Illinois his junior year in 2022.

References

External links

Illinois Fighting Illini bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Witherspoon, Devon Living people 2000 births All-American college football players American football cornerbacks Illinois Fighting Illini football players Players of American football from Florida