Grad-transfer QB AJ Bush to #illini: "What really stood out for me on the visit was the embrace from the coaching staff and basically the vibe, camaraderie and culture they have there. It's really special."EXCLUSIVE STORY: https://t.co/8cIsqYT318 pic.twitter.com/GlrAXCIIkU— Jeremy Werner (@JWerner247) March 13, 2018
The Illini apparently only have one scholarship QB at the moment who is a converted RB, so AJ will be brought in for some depth.
Hopefully he can get some meaningful play time there. Must be hard to try and play at four different schools.
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excited to hopefully see that young man play. hes def a playmaker hopefully it all comes together for him and he can be the 2nd coming of juice Williams.
Hell of an athlete. Hopefully he sees the field in Champagne. Best of luck AJ!
Illini confirmed big fans of our transfer QB's
Would love to see him to win starter and kill it. Good luck AJ
Nothing but good thoughts / vibes his way. Kill it in the big-10 er 12 er BIG.
But will Lawson transfer now?! that is the question
You're TKP'ing too hard.
Technically, it's a legit question. DL was supposed to leave Garden City CC and enroll at Illinois last fall, but didn't. No idea where he's transferred to.
I hadn't realized that he didn't make it to Illinois and was wondering why the OP said they only had one QB that obviously wasn't him.
Lawson has to be 30 years old by now
If Lawson is 30 then Drew Harris is in a retirement home.
Update: he didn't ageademically qualify
Wish him well & hope for the best (just not better than us).
Who cares if Illinois has a better season than us? Ignoring the implausibility of that, I doubt we'd play them in a bowl game anyway.
And it's Illinois. No offense to the Illini, but if they have a better season than us, we probably had a pretty shitty year. They'd just be one of the ~60 teams that were better.
If Illinois has a good season to the detriment of the rest of the Big Ten, I'm all for it.
Every year i forget they are in a P5 conference. I'll a score at the bottom of the TV like "OSU - 50 , Illinois 3" and think, huh that's neat.
Hey, we all got different things that grind our gears. One of mine is if a former player goes to a different program, and that program does/is better than us. I feel like that makes us look bad. But that could be just me.
Or it could mean that you just need to keep an eye on your transmission fluid.
It's like we traded the Illinois-native QP and AJB straight up.
Lovie Smith will always find a way to get the best out of the talent at his disposal /s
AJ thanks for hanging out. Would like to have seen a bit more of you. BE THE STARTER! Catch you on the BIG.
When he got in vs. ECU and almost turned the corner on a keeper...it was at that point that I wanted him to start at QB for the rest of the season. Gifted athlete. Wish we found a way to utilize him. He was good enough to have a positive impact on our team.
You wanted him to start at quarterback because he almost made a play with his legs? I must be missing something because that seems silly
Agreed, but I do wish we would have found a way to get him on the field more.
By adding a 12th position?
TE?
Deep QB.
On the play I'm referencing, AJ Bush demonstrated enough athleticism to suggest that he could be a substantial threat as a running QB. While JJ had performed well, statistically speaking, up to that point in the season, his lack of arm strength and running ability were starting to make me think "this is fun now...but I'm really worried to see how we look against Clemson/Miami/etc." I'm not saying "called it... he was totally underwhelming in ACC play" or anything, I just figured his play would drop off to an extent in ACC play once we started playing more competitive opponents and that AJ Bush's athletic ability would be able to bail us out of broken plays a bit more like Jerod was able to do. From a passing standpoint, I'm sure AJ was good enough to keep drives alive...Paxton Lynch/Jerod Evans have all done well in Fuente's offense and clearly have no business in the NFL. Fuente, like most coaches, stuck to his guns...I would've liked to have seen AJ get used more.
Eh. I can't say you're wrong but I think there's a reason why he hasn't really won the job at any of the big programs. I think he's an ok runner and a below average passer. I take Motley over Bush, but I would love to be wrong and see him do big things in UC
Is there anything that supports this? By all accounts, this was exactly the reason he wasn't the starter.
Yeah, it was the fact he was 7/11 with a TD when he did get to throw the ball.
He threw passes in three games - ECU, ODU and UNC - which we won a combined score of 161-24. Not only was this against subpar competition, it was in garbage time after the game was sealed. FWIW, JJ was 54 of 81 those games, a slightly higher completion percentage. I just don't understand the love for the second string QB...
Ask the Bills
ALMOST made a play against one of the WORST defenses in the country running on FUMES....
When Jackson broke WVU's heart with that QB keeper up the middle..it was at that point that I wanted him to start for the rest of the season.
Yyyyyyeah, and it never got that good again.
I was super hyped for our 2017 running game after that play, too. Did you end up feeling fulfilled? Because I didn't. And I don't get the impression that CJF did either.
EDIT: JJ may have been our best option - but that doesn't make it "good".
I didn't even realize what had happened, and neither did anyone else in my section. We all watched whoever the running back was that he faked it to. Then the fans with a better view were going ballistic, and I looked at the big screen to see that Josh was 30 yards upfield.