Illinois Football: Illini looking to add to a deep quarterback room

Illinois football is now eyeing a potential quarterback for the future.

What Bret Bielema has done with the Illini quarterback room is impressive. We went from having very little production from the quarterback position to having one of the best quarterbacks we have seen in a long time in Tommy DeVito.

DeVito is now gone, and Bielema brought in a couple of solid transfer players who will help the team from day one. But the program is also thinking about the future. We will need more quarterback depth in the future, and that is where Locklan Hewlett comes into play.

On Tuesday afternoon, Hewlett took to social media to announce that Illinois had offered him a scholarship. The Illini now joins a slew of other programs that see the potential in this talented passer.

Locklan Hewlett would add to a stacked Illinois football quarterback room

Hewlett is a 6-foot-1, 175-pound quarterback from St. Augustine High School in Florida. He is rated as a three-star recruit and ranked as the No. 36 quarterback in the class of 2025. He is also the No. 55 player coming out of Florida.

The class of 2025 is still a ways away, so the rating and rankings are not set in stone by any means. I would assume Hewlett ends up ranked in the top 500 purely because he already has roughly 21 scholarship offers on the table.

I believe the quarterback room is pretty set right now for the Illini. This season, Luke Altmyer should be the starter, and it will likely be that way for the next three years. He is only a sophomore after transferring from Ole Miss.

So, during Hewlett’s freshman campaign, Altmyer would be a senior. This would give him plenty of time to redshirt and learn behind Altmyer.

Illinois also has Donovan Leary, currently a redshirt freshman, and incoming freshman Cal Swanson in the quarterback room. I love both of these players and think they could be future starters for the Orange and Blue.

The Illini have the most depth at quarterback that I have ever seen in Champaign. Bringing in another talented passer in Hewlett in 2025 would make us stronger.