Citrus Bowl VIII: 2025 Depth Chart
I'm still down here in Florida so these are technically Citrus Bowl posts. Well, not the basketball articles, but if it's a football post, until I leave sunny Florida for snowy Illinois, it's gonna get the "Citrus Bowl + Roman numeral" treatment.
With all of the roster moves the last few days – the brothers from West Virginia transferring, our left tackle coming back for one more year – I figured it was a good time to do a post-bowl depth chart for next year. Well, this year. For 2025.
Keep in mind that there will still be a lot of roster moves between now and August 30th. I'm simply basing this on players with eligibility remaining. There are players listed below who walked on Senior Day (like OLB Alec Bryant) and might not return. But he has a year of eligibility remaining, so I'm including him until it's officially announced that he's gonna give the NFL Draft a shot.
I'm also changing the eligibility for all junior college players to reflect this new (weird) "junior college seasons don't count against your eligibility" waiver. The NCAA is appealing that ruling, so this might only be a one-time thing for 2025, but for now, a player like Daniel Brown, who played two seasons at Hutchinson CC and then played in only two games this fall due to injury (making him eligible for a redshirt), will enter his fourth season of college football next fall... as a redshirt freshman with four years remaining. WR Alex Capka-Jones who played two years at juco, then redshirted at Illinois in 2023, then played this fall? Enters next fall as a redshirt sophomore. Offensive lineman Dez Schuster? Suddenly just a sophomore and not a senior.
That's why our left tackle is coming back. JC Davis spent a year at juco before two seasons at New Mexico and then his "final" season at Illinois. But with that year at junior college now off the books, our Third Team All Big Ten left tackle gets one more year in Champaign. Starting cornerback Kaleb Patterson? Now a junior next fall instead of a senior. Wide receiver Mario Sanders (who was redshirting in 2024)? Now a redshirt freshman next fall instead of a redshirt junior.
Like I said, it's weird. But for a team with a fair number of junior college recruits, it's a big deal. Three of the offensive linemen we had out there in the Barge Package on Tuesday (JC Davis, Zy Crisler, and Dez Schuster) all just got more eligibility. Crisler has entered the portal and will use it elsewhere (he lost his starting spot to Brandon Henderson after the Penn State game in September), but Davis and Schuster will use it at Illinois. And another missed-the-season-due-to-injury guy (offensive lineman Kellen Francis) will ALSO just be a redshirt freshman next fall.
OK, let's get to the three-deep. And then we can talk about it.