Football

By Kedric Prince - IlliniGuys.com Director of Recruiting 

August 9, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Your Sports Edge)

Illinois' recruiting class for next fall took a big hit this afternoon when defensive tackle Jamarrion Harkless announced he was decommitting from Illinois and re-opening his recruitment.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

August 8, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Welcome to the eighth day of fall preseason football camp for the Illinois program for the 2022 season in the second year of Illini head coach Bret Bielema.

Today marked the first preseason scrimmage work during the fall camp season where players were allowed to tackle to the ground for the first time since camp practice had opened in late July. With less than three weeks before Illinois hosts Wyoming on Aug. 27 (3 p.m. CST, BTN), the coaches used this as one of the eight allowed days in full pads before the season opener.

Mike Farrell, IlliniGuys National Football Recruiting Expert

August 8, 2022

I’ve broken down the offensive and defensive recruits in the 2023 class for Illinois, but the transfer portal could be even more important.

Matt Stevens, IlliniGuys Staff Writer

August 6, 2022

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Welcome to the seventh day of fall preseason football camp for the Illinois program for the 2022 season in the second year of Illini head coach Bret Bielema.

Mike Farrell, IlliniGuys National Football Recruiting Expert

August 6, 2022

North Carolina is known as a very solid recruiting program.

Illinois executes its first commitment flip of the 2023 […]

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

August 5, 2022

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Welcome to the sixth day of fall preseason football camp for the Illinois program for the 2022 season in the second year of Illini head coach Bret Bielema.

It was again simply a 15-minute viewing period (with a quick 5-minute introduction by Bielema) but here’s the quick notes:

Friday morning’s two-hour practice session was a day where the players were in full pads today on the grass practice fields just outside the Smith Family Football Center and it is anticipated the Illini will conduct its first scrimmage at Memorial Stadium. I don’t have details on the scrimmage schedule but I assume it’ll be closed to the public and media.

Mike Farrell, IlliniGuys National Football Recruiting Expert August 5, […]

After leaving Southern California, Sean Snyder has found a […]

After voting to end a proposal in February to […]

Illinois will open the 2022 season in a transfer portal era with two quarterbacks (Syracuse transfer Tommy DeVito and Art Sitkowski) who have over 10 career starts in their college football career.

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

August 3, 2022

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- While winter conditioning drills were being completed, Illinois head coach Bret Bielema sought out an opinion from inside his locker room on his top two quarterbacks.

While walking the halls of the Smith Center facility, Bielema nearly bumped into star wide receiver Isaiah Williams and posed the question immediately about the newly arrived Syracuse transfer Tommy DeVito.

“When Tommy was around him and throwing to him on their own but I don’t think we were yet in spring drills, I bumped into Isaiah and said ‘What do you think of Tommy?,” said Bielema said.

The question makes sense for several reasons - the least of which being Williams had made the transition from quarterback, a position he’d played his whole life up to the spring drills leading into the 2021 season, and the chemistry between QB1 and the leading receiver needs to be there.

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.  

Mike Farrell, IlliniGuys National Football Recruiting Expert August 3, […]

By Zain Bando - IlliniGuys Student Correspondent August 2, […]

By Matt Stevens - IlliniGuys Football Writer/Analyst

August 1, 2022

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Welcome to the third day of fall preseason football camp for the Illinois program for the 2022 season in the second year of Illini head coach Bret Bielema.

It was simply a 15-minute viewing period (with a quick 5-minute introduction by Bielema) but here’s the quick notes:

Monday morning’s two-hour practice session was the first day in shoulder pads or “shells”, as the players and coaches refer to the shoulder pads but no extensive padding lower than the shoulders per the NCAA’s acclimation period rules.