Ep. 1020 - Position Preview: Illini QBs and RBs
Illini Inquirer Podcast: An Illinois Fighting Illini athletics podcast
247Sports, Illinois, Illinois Football, Illinois Basketball, Illinois Athletics, College Football, C
4.9 • 575 Ratings
🗓️ 6 August 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Illini Inquirer's Jeremy Werner and Joey Wagner preview Illinois football's quarterbacks and running backs for the 2025 season. The guys discuss QB Luke Altmyer's next steps, the backup battle and long-term outlook at the position. The guys then discuss the potential of healthy RBs Aidan Laughery and Kaden Feagin, the importance of Ca'Lil Valentine's next step and the depth at the position.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome into the Alana Enquirer podcast. It is Jeremy Warner, Joey Wagner, and it is time for our position previews here on the Alana Inquirer podcast. |
| 0:21.2 | If you're a VIP member, it's only 50% off to do so now. |
| 0:24.8 | So save $60 on that or sign up for a month for just $1. |
| 0:28.5 | And this is a great month to do that. |
| 0:31.6 | We had our position primers about a month ago and kind of had time to marinate on that, talk to the coaches a little bit more, |
| 0:39.1 | so we'll have a little bit more in depth, getting to see these guys a little bit in practice. |
| 0:43.4 | Not much open so far. |
| 0:45.1 | We're hoping to get a fully open practice next week when BTN is in town. |
| 0:49.0 | But Brett Bielman gives us a glimpse of these guys in position drills. |
| 0:52.6 | But we figure today is a good time to start the |
| 0:55.1 | position previews and two positions we know a lot about. We don't need to see practice really to know |
| 1:01.0 | a lot about the quarterbacks and the running backs on this roster. And two positions we feel |
| 1:07.3 | should be a strength, Joey, especially with the starters. There are more questions |
| 1:11.9 | behind those starters, but the backfield for Illinois does feel like a strength going into this |
| 1:17.4 | year. Yeah, it does, and help, you're relying on that. Obviously, anytime you're talking |
| 1:22.6 | about a quarterback, no team in college football can lose its quarterback. That one goes without |
| 1:26.5 | saying. And the running backs, I feel like we've talked about it a lot. We kind of tease us a conversation to get into later when we talk about the running backs. They've had injury issues in their past, right? And I think that's a really big storyline coming in. But as we talked about on Monday, what if there aren't? And I think that's something to really dive into a little bit today. |
| 1:44.8 | All right, let's talk about quarterbacks. Let's start this off as Illinois returns one of the |
| 1:49.1 | best quarterbacks in the Big Ten in Luke Altmire. And that was not a given going into last year |
| 1:55.2 | that he would take that leap into that top tier or just after the top tier of Dylan Gabriel, Drew Aller, |
| 2:02.8 | however you want to put it. But he took a huge leap in his second year under Barry Loney |
| 2:08.0 | as the play caller here at Illinois. His efficiency joy went up from 131 to 144. That's the |
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