Illinois Football Offers Florida Quarterback And Texas Linebacker – What It Means

The transportation portal is closed (except for nationalist title crippled combatants Indiana and Miami), and Bret Bielema and nan Illinois shot unit person turned their recruiting attraction to precocious schoolhouse underclassmen pinch an connection to sophomore backmost Brycen Marbrey, of Florida, and inferior linebacker Anthony James, of Texas, connected Wednesday.

Brycen Marbrey, quarterback

Marbrey is simply a sophomore astatine Lake Howell (Winter Park, Florida) who led nan Silverhawks to a 6-4 grounds aft passing for 2,087 yards and 26 touchdowns successful 2025. The 6-foot-2, 180-pound Marbrey threw conscionable 4 picks and has a big, large arm.

Already 1 of nan champion quarterbacks successful Florida, Marbrey has a chance to asseverate himself arsenic nan apical backmost successful nan authorities by his elder year. His limb spot instantly stands retired connected tape, arsenic does his deep-ball accuracy. He is comfortable throwing connected nan move but is astatine his champion operating from nan pocket. He is comfortable throwing from different limb angles, but he gets nan champion results throwing connected clip and from a accepted limb slot.

Marbrey isn't overmuch of a runner, but if he tin get faster and go much agile, he could climb into four-star-recruit territory successful nan adjacent twelvemonth aliases two. Over time, he will besides request to amended his completion percent (53 percent).

With 9 Division I offers already – including 3 retired of nan Big Ten (Rutgers and Purdue, successful summation nan Illini) – Marbrey appears to person a agleam future. Illinois has done beautiful good wooing players retired of nan Sunshine State, and Marbrey could beryllium 1 nan Illini prosecute difficult complete nan adjacent 2 years.

Anthony James, linebacker

James is simply a inferior linebacker astatine La Marque (Texas) who has frankincense acold received 4 Division I offers, each of which came wrong nan past 10 days. James is a small undersized (200 pounds) for a emblematic Big Ten wrong linebacker, but astatine 6-foot-3, he has nan framework to turn into nan position. If that doesn't cookware out, he could beryllium considered astatine safety.

James has an innate expertise to way nan ball, and he has nan stats to backmost it up: 134 tackles, 24 tackles for loss, 3 sacks and 1 forced fumble. He is astatine his champion moving against nan run, and does a really bully occupation of picking nan correct spread to plug. James will request to amended his lateral quickness and walk defense astatine nan 2nd level successful bid to support piling up Power 4 offers.