Top 5 Illinois football transfer quarterbacks of all time

Illinois football hasn't had tremendous quarterback success in the history of the program, but the transfer portal has been good to us.

By Rees Woodcock | Feb 28, 2024, 7:31 AM CST

CHAMPAIGN, IL - NOVEMBER 05: Tommy DeVito #3 of the Illinois Fighting Illini catches the hiked ball during the first half against the Michigan State Spartans at Memorial Stadium on November 5, 2022 in Champaign, Illinois. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images) /

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No. 5 Wes Lunt

Finally, we arrive at the Illinois football top five transfer quarterbacks of all time. First up on the list, checking in at No. 5, is Wes Lunt.

A trend that you may notice is that the four-star quarterbacks start elsewhere but eventually end up at Illinois. This was the case with Lunt as well. He was a four-star coming out of Rochester High School in Illinois.

With so much turmoil going on with the firing of Ron Zook, Lunt would head to Oklahoma State in 2012. He would spend one season with the Cowboys before deciding to enter the transfer portal.

Then-Illinois head coach Tim Beckman was able to land the former Illinois high school football star. Lunt would sit out the 2013 campaign due to transfer rules and would suit up starting in 2014.

Lunt would help Illinois get to one bowl game, the 2014 Heart of Dallas Bowl, where we would fall short against Louisiana Tech. A big reason we got to that bowl game was on the back of some great end-of-season play by Reilly O’Toole, though.

A reason Lunt made the top five was the fact he had a decent touchdown-to-interception ratio of 3.00, which was second among all Illinois transfer quarterbacks. His 57.7% completion percentage and 37.8% winning percentage were third-worst among all Illinois transfer quarterbacks, though.

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