If you've spent time around the Hamilton Tiger-Cats the past decade or so, you'd recognize the body size and shape. It's similar to that of the guy Jesse Gibbon most admired as a player.

"In some of the meetings here, they were saying you do remind me of Peter Dyakowski," the former Sherwood Secondary School Saints was saying at the CFL Combine in Toronto over the weekend. "He was a guy I looked up to."

Like Dyakowski, Gibbon wants to play in the CFL, and the former Sherwood Saint will most certainly get at least the chance. Although he wasn't included on the most recent (December) Top 20 draft-prospect list, the fourth-year Waterloo Warriors offensive lineman fared very well at the combine. A few league personnel types suggested he would go somewhere in the second round of May's draft, or maybe a bit higher.

"I'd like to go between the first and third rounds," says Gibbon, listed by the CFL as the only Hamilton player to qualify for the combine. "I think I did pretty well here."

Among the 12 draft-eligible offensive linemen tested in Toronto, the six-foot-four, 300-pounder ranked fastest in the 40-yard dash and second in the bench press, broad jump and shuttle and three-cone drills. At last May's U Sports East-West Bowl in Quebec City, the left tackle was assigned to block the consensus best talent in this year's draft, Laval's Mathieu Betts, and held his own.

Destined for guard or centre work as a pro, Gibbon doesn't care which team drafts him, although he'd "be pretty happy if it was Hamilton. I'm a Ticats fan."

Growing up he didn't see as many Tiger-Cats games as he did Bulldogs games because his interests were more at the rink than on the gridiron. He played rep hockey for Glanbrook before taking up football at high school and with the Hamilton Ironmen when he was in Grade 10. By Grade 12, he realized that was his true athletic calling.

"I was an aggressive hockey player," he explained. "I started to get really big - I was 280 pounds in Grade 12, and was almost as tall as I am now - so I felt like it was a natural transition."

At Sherwood didn't receive any NCAA attention and had serious Canadian interest from only Waterloo, Guelph and Calgary, but went on to start every game in his four university years and become a 2018 second-team all-Canadian.

"I wanted to go to university out of Grade 12, not do a victory lap," Gibbon said. "I feel like maybe if I'd had that extra year of playing I might have had more interest in me. I was pretty underexposed coming out of high school."

Have a good combine, as Gibbon did, and you no longer have to be concerned about lack of exposure.

smilton@thespec.com

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