Winston gives the Wolverines a heat-seeking missile in the secondary.
Recruiting often comes in waves for college football teams and the same is true for the Michigan Wolverines . Once left for dead by rival fanbases for not winning the heated June recruiting battle, the Wolverines are now back in the mix with a handful of 2025 commitments and one 2026 commitment.
Of the 2025 players, last week we explored Jaylen Williams , the physical freak defensive lineman from Illinois. This week, let’s take a look at another physically impressive recruit, safety Kainoa Winston.
Background
Kainoa Winston is a composite four-star player from Washington D.C. Winston is the No. 1 player from the D.C. area and is currently the top-rated recruit in Michigan’s entire 2025 class. Nationally, Winson is rated as the No. 88 player in the class and the No. 9 safety per composite rankings.
Winston’s cousin, Kevin Winston Jr., plays safety for Penn State and earned All-Big Ten Honorable Mention honors last season. For Kainoa, it came down to Michigan and Penn State in his recruiting with the Wolverines coming out on top .
Measurables
Listed at 5-foot-10, 185 pounds on 247Sports , Winston is a dense ball of muscle with room to grow.
A two-sport star at Gonzaga High School (same high school as Caleb Williams and Michigan’s Evan Link) which competes in one of the hardest prep conferences in the country, Winston is one of the fastest prospects in the 2025 class. With personal bests in the 100 meters (10.66) and 200 meters (21.58), Winston is a blazer who should only get faster as a senior.
Per the MileSplit conversion calculator , Winston’s 100 roughly converts to a 4.44 forty as a high school junior. By the time he takes the field for the Wolverines, he could be a sub-4.4 guy.
High School Tape
Take all of this with a massive grain of salt. This evaluation came from several different highlight tapes of Winston as a high school freshman, sophomore, and junior.
Gonzaga plays a lot of Cover 4 and Cover 3 with Winston patrolling the middle of the field, but he does not allow this to take him out of many plays. As a well-rounded safety, Winston is a downhill player who accelerates through contact aiming to make every hit serve as a reminder not to try him .
In the running game, Winston fills lanes with a vengeance but is heady enough not to let his speed work against him by getting him out of position due to over-pursuit. Especially in space, Winston shows a knack for decelerating and squaring up with the ball carrier to secure the tackle. A skill that is usually not developed this early from high-profile, high-flying prep players.
In coverage, Winston thrives in his role and reads the opposing quarterback’s eyes like the newspaper. Once the ball is in the air, Winston closes exceptionally fast and has excellent ball skills allowing him to either force an incompletion or make an interception.
On special teams, Winston is explosive off the line of scrimmage and seems to relish this part of the game. An exact number is hard to find, but Winston has blocked a handful of punts and field goals through his first three years of high school.
What holds Winston back from being a five-star is his lack of man-to-man coverage skills. Now, the skills could be there, but he is rarely asked to cover in that capacity. If Winston starts repping even 20 percent of his snaps in some variation of man-to-man, there’s a chance that Winston could be a five-star before the recruiting cycle is over.
I have seen a lot of comps thrown out for Winston from Bob Sanders to Rod Moore to Mike Sainristil to Dax Hill. But to me, I see more shades of Earl Thomas. Thomas was 5’10, 202 pounds, and ran a 4.43 40-yard dash at the 2010 NFL Combine . But beyond the similar height, weight, and speed, both play a similar hard-hitting downhill style and show proficiency for playing the middle safety in a Cover 3.
Expectations at Michigan
Kainoa Winston is going to get on the field early and often at Michigan. Whether that be on special teams or defense, as a safety or a nickel, Winston is too fast and impactful to be relegated to waiting.
Some projections have Winston moving into the nickel position, but with the lack of man-to-man experience, and questions about the hip fluidity required of that position at the college level, I think Winston is better suited at either safety.
With his aggressive nature and sure-tackling, Winston could easily line up as a strong safety in the box and make plays on either side of the line of scrimmage. As a free safety, there are hours of footage to suggest that Winston is ready to play right now. However, Winston will have to develop and/or display some high-level man-to-man skills to expedite his path to becoming a playmaker for the Wolverines.