The Illinois football team did some good work in the offseason building out the roster.
Katin Houser has proved to be a solid quarterback for the offense. I love some other pieces that Bret Bielema brought in to fill holes, too.
One area that didn’t get enough attention was the offensive line. We lost four starters after the 2025 season, so depth was already a worry. Well, now the offensive line depth has reached critical mass.
On Monday, during the week three press conference, Bielema announced that Illinois backup center and guard TJ McMillen is out for the season with a fractured foot.
“TJ (McMillen) left in the middle of the fourth. Unfortunately, we did lose him for the year. He unfortunately suffered a fracture in his foot, and the timing of that won’t allow him to return this year.”
This is another big hit to the Illinois offensive line. McMillen was replacing the already injured Brandon Henderson, who was lost last week for two to four weeks with an injury.
Bielema had a plan during the offseason of molding McMillen into more than just the backup center that he had been for the past couple of seasons.
“TJ two weeks ago, three weeks ago, I wanted to give him a chance to be the starting guard.”
With the move of McMillen over to guard and now to the injury list, that leaves an open hole at the backup center role. Bielema explained his plan for that open position, too.
“Three guys have worked in there a lot. Brandon Hansen has worked in there, but Zafir (Stewart) has been handling it really since fall camp. Mike McDonough is a guy who has repped at center as well.”
While the backup center role seems to be buttoned up, the big question still remains. Who is going to be Illinois’ starting right guard entering the Southern Illinois tilt?
“I was looking at our entering fall depth. He (TJ McMillen) was listed as our third overall guard. In reality, we will be down to our fourth and fifth, and sixth and seventh will be backups.”
Bielema continued to lay out the plan for the guard position with so many injuries.
“Eddie (Tuerk) will be in there. Obviously, Brandon Hansen. Dezmond Schuster popped in there and did some good stuff. We will also pop in a little bit of Kai Pritchard, who hasn’t played yet but has been repping at tackle and guard. Also, Champ Smith, we will put him at guard.”
Illinois football has a laundry list of issues to fix, and the offensive line is just adding to the chaos
At this point in the season, I would argue things couldn’t have been worse. I know that sounds like a doom-and-gloom thing to say, but the expectations were high entering the 2026 campaign.
Illinois didn’t look great against UAB, as the defense was shredded. Against Duke, the defense was getting torn apart again until the last few drives. Illinois’ offense then hit the brakes.
The Illini should be 2-0 right now, but we floundered to 1-1. A little salt in the wound is the fact that we are now patching together an offensive line that already had a ton of question marks.
While we have the bodies to play the positions on the offensive line, I am not sure they are Big Ten bodies. This weekend will be good to get reps, but with Ohio State looming just two weeks away, the Illinois offensive line will have to grow up fast.
Add us as a preferred source on Google