Illini OLB Coach ‘Fired Up’ For Breakout 2022 Season For Seth Coleman
Why Illinois outside linebacker coach Kevin Kane thinks Seth Coleman emerging early in 2021 but then finding the bench late will translate to an exciting 2022 campaign for the Illini pass rusher.
By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst
August 3, 2022
(Cover photo courtesy Nikos Frazier/Journal & Courier)
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- In eyes of his position coach, the best thing that happened to Seth Coleman last season was experiencing the joy success and then low feeling of being benched.
As an inexperienced 235-pound pass rusher trying to make the transition from an undersized defensive end in Lovie Smith’s 4-3 scheme to a perfect body type at stand-up, outside linebacker for new Illinois defensive coordinator Ryan Walters’ odd-man front system, Coleman found a way to make an instant impact in 2021.
With the graduation departure of two senior starters (Owen Carney Jr. and Isaiah Gay), it is Coleman, a redshirt sophomore entering his fourth season of college football, who instantly finds himself inheriting a leadership role in the meeting room of outside linebacker coach Kevin Kane. It is the outside linebacker spot that arguably has the most questions entering a 2022 campaign where the Illini return all but three starters from last year’s season-finale victory over Northwestern.