Let's continue our Illinois football position previews, and we feel like this is a pretty good timing on this one, as we're going to preview the tight ends and wide receivers.

Welcome into the Lion & Quarer podcast. It's Jeremy Warner and Joey Wagner.

And Joey, these are the skill positions, and these are two very newsworthy ones right now.

As a tight end, Illinois loses one of its top players at the position, Cole Rusk, out with a season-ending knee injury that he suffered last week, and then a wide receiver, of course. I just wrote a story about Zachari Franklin and the buzz he is building on campus right now since he has arrived in the summer. So good timing on both of these. But for Luke Altmeyer to take a step forward, we know the offensive line has to be better. We know the run game has to be better. But he's got to throw to some people. And Illinois lost Tip Ryman, Isaiah Williams, Casey Washington. So they got a lot of production to replace. Yeah, there's a big shoes to fill there. And especially in the wide receiver room, there would be a lot of excitement building around. I think Brett Bielma said

yesterday at media days that these wide receivers are playing as well as that position room has played

since he's been there, which something, you know, you'd like to see to follow up, given the talent

that he's had in that room during his tenure, but obviously with guys like Pat Bryant,

who's Zachary Franklin,

Malik LZ. We'll get in obviously to some of the guys that are maybe lesser known, that

Canari Wilter, who will have a big role this season. There's talent in that room, Jeremy,

and former coach George McDonald had a heck of a job recruiting talent to that room.

Justin Stepp kept that talent when he got to

Illinois and kind of a heavy transfer portal part of the calendar. So now it's time to see if they can go

out there and help this off and take a step forward. Absolutely. But let's start at tight end,

because the storyline now is, how do you replace Cole Rusk? We don't know what Cole Rusk would have done,

what his production would have been, but he was a big part of what this tight end group was going to

be because he just gave them something they haven't really had here in recent years, which is a 6'5,

250 pound, tall, athletic, dynamic pass catcher who was an FCS All-American last year at Murray State

and really his first year of college experience.

But the Rock Island kid comes home, going to be a big part of replacing Tip Ryman,

and then unfortunately suffers a torn ACL.

So I feel for him, I feel for his family because they were so excited for this.

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