Brandon Peters named starting quarterback versus Maryland
Bret Bielema said on Monday that super senior quarterback Brandon Peters will start Friday night’s game against Maryland.
“Brandon Peters will be back, we’ll actually go with him as our starting quarterback going into this game,” Bielema said.
Peters started the season opener against Nebraska but injured his left shoulder in the first quarter while being sacked by a Nebraska defensive lineman.
Former Rutgers quarterback Art Sitkowski replaced Peters and led Illinois to a victory against Nebraska and started the Illini’s two losses this season to UTSA and Virginia.
“Had a conversation with Art yesterday, brought him in, talked about where we’re at, what we’re doing. It wasn’t anything he did or didn’t do well. He played extremely well, especially the way he first entered the game going back to the Nebraska game.”
Before exiting the Nebraska game, Peters 3-of-4 passes for 35-yards and no touchdowns or interceptions. Sitkowski, in the three games completed just 56 percent of his 102 pass attempts for 611 yards and six touchdowns to one interception.
“I thought the guys really did a nice job rallying around him and did some good things,” Bielema said of Sitkowski’s play. “But I told him if the roles were reversed and he was the starter and was knocked out of the game and BP came in, we’d do the exact same thing 100 times over. I think honesty’s always the best policy, and that was just being real.”
Due to the timing of Peters’ injury, Illinois hasn’t yet been able to see their offense run as fully planned this season through three games, but with Peters returning the Illini could see their offense close to the level of play the coaching staff was expecting before the season.
“A lot of the things we had seen [from Peters] during fall camp and even back in the spring through fall camp weren’t able to be materialized yet. He obviously has a very live arm, a lot of experience.”
Peters entered the season as the Illini’s starting quarterback for the third consecutive season after transferring to Illinois from Michigan before the 2019 season. Peters also played in eight career games with the Wolverines from 2017-18. Peters does have experience with Illinois, but it is the fifth offensive coordinator he has worked with in his college career.
“Kind of a new offense for him, so he’s kind of seen this evolve now for two games not being on the field, not really being involved in the game prep really hasn’t taken any practice reps with our ones and twos since the preparation for Nebraska,” Bielema said. “The last two weeks he wasn’t really cleared to get through those practice phases, so really Ryan [Johnson] and Art have been taking all those reps.”
Peters hasn’t been able to participate in contact practice the last two weeks, but he has been able to throw because the injury was to his nonthrowing shoulder. During his time away from practice and game competition, he was able to witness the Illini offense and run the scout the offense too.
“He’s witnessed it,” Bielema said. “He’s gone against our defense through scout team and did some things through practice that was non-contact that allowed him to stay involved in the practice plan, but nothing as well as it will be this week.”
Peters returns to an offense that has yet to score in the first quarter of any of the three games this season and has just five total first downs in the first quarter this season. Peters makes his return to the Illini offense on Friday night against Maryland (2-0) at Memorial Stadium for an 8:00 p.m. kickoff on Big Ten Network.