Ep. 481 - 2022 position preview: Illini linebackers and special teams
Illini Inquirer Podcast: An Illinois Fighting Illini athletics podcast
247Sports, Illinois, Illinois Football, Illinois Basketball, Illinois Athletics, College Football, C
4.9 • 577 Ratings
🗓️ 13 August 2022
⏱️ 39 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Illini Inquirer's Jeremy Werner and Joey Wagner break down the 2022 Illinois linebackers and special teams unit. The guys discuss expectations for a full year of Calvin Hart Jr., Tarique Barnes' value and the depth behind the two starters, including an under-the-radar name the staff is excited about. Then the guys discuss how Illinois will replace three specialists, the return game and expectations for Hugh Robertson and Caleb Griffin.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | 300 years of expertise in every twining sleep blend. |
| 0:06.0 | 100 hours of craft in every cup. |
| 0:10.0 | Eight natural ingredients in every sip. |
| 0:14.0 | One night of winding down in every drop. |
| 0:18.0 | Your moment of serenity. |
| 0:23.8 | Brought to you by twining sleep. |
| 0:25.2 | Twinings. |
| 0:27.8 | Alive in every drop. |
| 0:48.8 | Music It's time to wrap up our position previews with the Alina Inquirer podcast we've done all of them except two positions. |
| 0:50.3 | We're going to squeeze two positions in here. |
| 0:53.6 | One, because there's usually only one or two of these guys on the field. |
| 0:54.8 | And then, of course, |
| 0:59.1 | we have to do specialists, but I don't know how many people would listen to Just a Specialist podcast. Though, Joey, I would love to know how many would listen to that. Like, how many are |
| 1:03.9 | hardcore Illinois fans? Is it more than the 17 that Robert Rosenthal says? I think so. But, man, |
| 1:10.7 | a 20-minute breakdown of like the long-snapper battle. I don't know if we could have prolonged it that long. So we're going to combine these two, linebacker and special teams. What do you think? Well, we could throw up the bat signal to get our attention to the long snapper and special teams if we wanted. But yeah, I think combining them is a |
| 1:27.9 | good call. All right, let's start with linebacker, where you return to starting quality |
| 1:33.9 | linebackers, at least from what we've seen and Tariq Barnes, who kind of is an unsung hero of this |
| 1:41.4 | defense. And what he did last year, I think, you know, Andy Boo loves to point this out |
| 1:46.0 | every time I talk with him is I ask him, what was the value of Tarek Barnes? He said, listen, |
| 1:51.3 | you know, Jake, you know, C.J. Hart gets hurt in the first game last year. He comes in and plays |
| 1:55.4 | the will, the weak side linebacker position. Jake Hanson gets hurt, knee injury for the rest of the |
| 2:00.4 | season, out the final seven games. Tarek Barnes switches positions at Mike and plays it well, right? Second on the team in tackles, you know, gets a lot of tackles for loss, just a really solid Big Ten linebacker. So the ability to play both those positions was huge, but now he can kind of settle in it, Mike. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from 247Sports, Illinois, Illinois Football, Illinois Basketball, Illinois Athletics, College Football, C, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of 247Sports, Illinois, Illinois Football, Illinois Basketball, Illinois Athletics, College Football, C and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.