Cal Football: Freshman Derek Wilkins Treasures Benefits of Having a 24-Year Old Teammate

Wilkins was in the seventh grade when Luc Bequette arrived at Cal in the fall of 2015.

Cal freshman defensive lineman Derek Wilkins celebrated his 18th birthday just two weeks ago.

Fellow D-lineman Luc Bequette turned 24 a month earlier.

“We were talking about this the other day, that he was 7 years older than me at a point,” Wilkins said. “That is so crazy.”

The two are actually six years and a month apart in age, but the gap is considerable for college teammates. Consider that Wilkins was a seventh grader at South Lake Middle School in Irvine in the fall of 2015 when Bequette arrived in Berkeley from Little Rock, Arkansas, for his freshman season at Cal.

Wilkins, who played the past three seasons at Santa Margarita Catholic High in Orange County, considers himself fortunate to have such a wise old voice in the defensive line room.

After all, this will be Bequette’s seventh season of college football — the first five at Cal, then a detour to Boston College for last season before returning to the Bay Area for one last run.

The Bears’ opener on Sept. 4 against Nevada will be Wilkins’ first college game. It will be No. 50 for Bequette.

“He’s been a great mentor. We sit right next to each other in the meeting room and he’s always giving me pointers, along with coach (Andrew Browning),” Wilkins said. “It’s really nice to have someone who’s been here, had success here, for so long, basically taking you under their wing.

“I have a pretty good relationship with him and I’m just really appreciative of all he’s done for me so far.”

The age difference never comes up once practice starts. “You really don’t think about it because once you’re all playing together everyone’s like the same, almost,” Wilkins said. “Then you sit back and think about it and it’s like, `Wow.’ “

Wilkins had a "wow" moment in practice a week ago when he dropped back off the line and made an impressive one-handed interception. He believes it’s the first time he’s touched the football in live action since intercepting a screen pass in practice as a high school junior two years ago.

“I was kind of surprised,” he said in the video above of his pick last week. “I didn’t really know what to do with the ball.”

Wilkins actually played wide receiver as a freshman at Woodbridge High in Irvine. He was about 6-foot-2 1/2, 200 pounds at the time, good size for a freshman. Now he goes 6-5, 285.

When he transferred to Santa Margarita Catholic the next year, he was moved to the defensive line. His pass-catching days were over, and Wilkins says he’s 100 percent happy about it.

“After looking back, I don’t understand how I could play receiver any more,” he said. “I like being the one distributing the hits, not the one taking them.”

That was a long time ago, way back in 2017. Luc Bequette was only in his third Cal season at the time.

Cover photo of Derek Wilkins

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo