Illinois Football: How the Illini will look for the 2023 season
By Collin Allen
The Illinois football team just concluded its best season since the 2007 campaign, so what lies ahead for the Orange and Blue?
Illini head coach Bret Bielema expressed his confidence in the direction of the program in his message to the team after falling short to Mississippi State in the ReliaQuest Bowl on Monday.
"“Think about where you truly want to be. Do you want to just talk about winning games or get to championship expectations? I think if we’re disappointed in an eight-win season, we’ve taken a step in the right direction,” Bret Bielema said after the game."
He couldn’t have been any more right. The program has made exponential progress since the new era of Illinois football began when Bielema took over as head coach in late 2020.
Bielema inherited a 2-6 team, took them to 5-7 the following year, and now has them at 8-5 – fresh off a respectable bowl appearance. Not to mention a lot of these players aren’t even his recruits.
With all of that said, here is how the Illinois football team will look for the 2023 season.
Key Illini departures
Let’s start with the unfortunate, as the Illini will be losing some very notable names this offseason.
- RB Chase Brown (1,643 rush YDS, 10 TD, One of the GOATs)
- CB Devon Witherspoon (41 TKL, 3 INT, 17 PD, Consensus First-Team All-American)
- S Sydney Brown (59 TKL, 6 INT, 1 FF, 1 FR, 2 TD)
- QB Tommy DeVito (15 TD, 2650 YDS, 4 INT)
- OL Alex Palczewski (64 career starts, All-Big Ten second team)
- OL Alex Pihlstrom (Campbell Trophy semi-finalist, All-Big Ten second team)
- DC Ryan Walters
The offense will be losing a ton of talent and experience, especially with the loss of Heisman Trophy candidate Chase Brown, the nation’s fourth-leading rusher. The offensive line will be losing two of its senior leaders in Alex Palczewski and Alex Pihlstrom, who both made Big Ten honors this season.
The secondary will be taking a huge hit with the losses of consensus All-American Devon Witherspoon and safety Sydney Brown, both of who will be drafted in this coming NFL Draft.
Losing Tommy DeVito – arguably the program’s best quarterback since Nathan Scheelhaase – may not be as much of a gut punch, but I’ll get to that shortly.