Illinois Football: Breakout Players Who Could Shine in 2025
Most years, the Illini are fighting to get noticed. Now they're ranked, the spotlight is on, and a few players will be national breakout stars.
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Illini Football 2025
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Luke very much in control of everything right now
Because we're very used to living in the "but we're Illinois" mold, the value of a third year starting QB who leads the nation in 4Qtr and OT comebacks, and who has his entire OL returning, is recognized more by the national media than by many of our Illini faithful. We'll all get there by about game 6. Luke's gonna eat 'em up.
Feels like Kaleb Patterson is pretty undisputed as team's top corner.
It's always nice to have someone come here and admonish our fan base. Does it make you feel good?
Can you name one person who feels the way you claim our fans do?
In my 40 plus years of watching Illini football this is the most excitement and confidence I've seen in the fan base since perhaps '85.
If Bret does bring us a Natty, he would want to stay and become Illini royalty. I doubt he would leave for any job if that happened.
There is no doubt that our DB room can be a repeat of the 22 season. If we can get any pressure. On the QB, we will create turnovers and a lot of 3 and outs. With Patterson, Bailey, Scott, Scott and Cox, we should see more blitzes and a lot more coverage sacks this year.
I think this is one of the many disadvantages of the Terrence Brooks deal. We don't really have a real star corner, and if he would've been what we thought, you would've had a true All BIG caliber CB1 (he had two years of eligibility). The expectation last season for Brooks was much higher than the expectation this season for Patterson.
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Patterson is the biggest "good to great" breakout hopeful for me. And also probably Dixon.
I'd sure take Patterson and Cox over Tyler Strain and Zach Tobe from just two years ago
. If you think corner is the concerning weakness you simply do not have enough things to put on the worry chart (which is a good thing).
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blackdog
- Champaign
A true All B1G caliber CB like first team All B1G corner Xavier Scott who is back for his senior year?
Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
I love our starters. but I also love our backups. never want to see a starter go down, but there isn't nearly as big of a gap as there was a short time ago.
and you're 100% correct: our DB corps is gonna give Henry more degrees of freedom to get creative. guessing he'll do just that
biglug58
- Chicago, IL
Lowered the shoulder! Nice.
Chuck Nuggets
Dip your nuggets in my staff source sauce.
Only 12 days until Illinois football.
SampsonRelpenk
- Edwardsville, IL
Right?? The last page of posts had my head spinning.
He plays the STAR spot. (Nickel) mostly plays inside on the slot. You’ll have Clarke, Patterson and Cox on the outside.
blackdog
- Champaign
True but by most standards he is still considered a corner which was what the original post was about.
On the outside Patterson definitely has all the tools to be a shutdown guy if he takes that next step.
Back before barley was determined to be doing bad things to my body, Yuengling Black & Tan was my goto.Huh? I can be a beer snob (other than IPA's,) but there's nothing wrong with Yuengling. It may not be Rigg's but it's far better than Bud or Bud light.
He isn't a corner. The * spot is vastly different. Either way, the post was referring to the two outside guys.
It's interesting because Quan played the exact same role and was always labeled as a safety.
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He's good in run support, but not athletic enough and therefore gives up a lot of receptions. Don't think physically he's ever a shutdown guy.
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Random/useless trivia, but I wanted to see what fan base has "had it best" overall in football and basketball combined in the past few years within the Big Ten. To do this, since there are many more basketball games than football games, I looked at winning percentages as "points." In other words, if you go 9-3 (.750) in football and 27-9 (.750) in basketball, that would be 750 points for each. Not a perfect comparison by any means, but I thought it would be interesting. I also chose to start with the 2021-22 school year and excluded the Pac-12 additions since they weren't here for the duration.
Football Winning Percentage
Michigan - .857
Ohio State - .855
Penn State - .745
Iowa - .667
Minnesota - .615
Illinois - .560
Wisconsin - .549
Maryland - .529
Michigan State - .510
Rutgers - .451
Purdue - .431
Indiana - .408
Nebraska - .388
Northwestern - .327
If you would have told me in the fall of 2021 that we would be above Wisconsin, MSU, Nebraska, etc., trending to pass Iowa/Minnesota and in line to be fourth behind Michigan, OSU and PSU?! I would have been so pumped, lol.
Basketball Winning Percentage
Purdue - .789
Illinois - .676
Wisconsin - .667
Michigan State - .662
Indiana - .607
Iowa - .596
Maryland - .588
Northwestern - .576
Ohio State - .556
Michigan - .526
Nebraska - .526
Penn State - .523
Rutgers - .515
Minnesota - .441
Combined Total "Points"
Ohio State - 5,637
Michigan - 5,469
Penn State - 5,041
Iowa - 5,030
Illinois - 4,913
Wisconsin - 4,855
Purdue - 4,831
Michigan State - 4,652
Maryland - 4,434
Minnesota - 4,212
Indiana - 4,023
Rutgers - 3,854
Nebraska - 3,627
Northwestern - 3,574
Obviously this is just for fun and misses a ton of stuff like championships and postseason results, plus it is skewed toward "good" football teams often having higher winning percentages than "good" basketball teams. However, I think it shows that we have truly emerged from our past as a "basketball (only) school" ... and I think that is great. Every single team above us has had WAY worse basketball seasons than us during that timeframe, too ... so point is, we've had it pretty darn good lately!
Football Winning Percentage
Michigan - .857
Ohio State - .855
Penn State - .745
Iowa - .667
Minnesota - .615
Illinois - .560
Wisconsin - .549
Maryland - .529
Michigan State - .510
Rutgers - .451
Purdue - .431
Indiana - .408
Nebraska - .388
Northwestern - .327
If you would have told me in the fall of 2021 that we would be above Wisconsin, MSU, Nebraska, etc., trending to pass Iowa/Minnesota and in line to be fourth behind Michigan, OSU and PSU?! I would have been so pumped, lol.
Basketball Winning Percentage
Purdue - .789
Illinois - .676
Wisconsin - .667
Michigan State - .662
Indiana - .607
Iowa - .596
Maryland - .588
Northwestern - .576
Ohio State - .556
Michigan - .526
Nebraska - .526
Penn State - .523
Rutgers - .515
Minnesota - .441
Combined Total "Points"
Ohio State - 5,637
Michigan - 5,469
Penn State - 5,041
Iowa - 5,030
Illinois - 4,913
Wisconsin - 4,855
Purdue - 4,831
Michigan State - 4,652
Maryland - 4,434
Minnesota - 4,212
Indiana - 4,023
Rutgers - 3,854
Nebraska - 3,627
Northwestern - 3,574
Obviously this is just for fun and misses a ton of stuff like championships and postseason results, plus it is skewed toward "good" football teams often having higher winning percentages than "good" basketball teams. However, I think it shows that we have truly emerged from our past as a "basketball (only) school" ... and I think that is great. Every single team above us has had WAY worse basketball seasons than us during that timeframe, too ... so point is, we've had it pretty darn good lately!
Illinicpa14
- Chicago
If I had to rank what teams season would have been best as a fan, id go:
1. Michigan (NC in football and multiple playoffs, E8 and S16 basketball)
2. Ohio state (NC in football and multiple playoffs)
3. Purdue - Final 4 and NC game appearance , 2x NPOY to root for, and sneakily would have gotten to go to a big ten title game in 2022
Drop off
4. Penn State - Football appearances and NC title game
Drop Off
Us
transparently, if the 2021 basketball team made the F4 I’d move us up to tie with penn state, but we didn’t.
Where I think we’d be #1 with maybe a Wisconsin is how many games were “worth watching”. I’d argue the last 5 years both teams have produced teams worth paying attention to the entire season. Michigan on the other hand had a basketball season that was over by Jan1 2 years ago and would imagine being an OSU basketball fan has been maddening the past 5 years.
illini80
- Forgottonia
Ponied up and bought some expensive tickets for O$U game. I’m pretty excited about what this team could do! I also figure by then they should have crowd and stadium management figured out for sold out crowds. Bringing my 5 yo granddaughter along and hoping for a great day. It’s never to early to get her indoctrinated! 
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