One hundred times a day this summer, Alex Pihlstrom would snap a football between his legs to his father, Mike, in his Glen Ellyn, Ill., backyard before running across the grass towards a tree and back for extra conditioning.
This was the life of a former walk-on tight end, converted to scholarship offensive lineman and now starting center with little experience and confidence in the summer months. This was the life of Alex Pihlstrom.
Still, despite never starting a game for Illinois at center in his previous five seasons on the team, Pihlstrom is going to be the starting center when the Illini open the second season under head coach Bret Bielema on Aug. 27 at Memorial Stadium against Wyoming.
Pihlstrom has played all across the line of scrimmage in his time with the Illini. A walk-on tight end in the 2017 season, Pihlstrom didn’t see any game action until his sophomore season in 2019 against Rutgers.
But in the COVID-19 shortened 2020 season, he moved to the offensive line and started a pair of games at left guard and played center in the fourth quarter of the Illini’s final game of the season at Penn State. In 2021, Pihlstrom played in all 12 of the Illini’s games, including five starts. Still, none of them came at center.
But Illinois offensive line coach Bart Miller and Bielema believed that Pihlstrom’s physical makeup, 6-foot-6 and more than 300 pounds, could be converted into a starting center. In the spring, Pihlstrom began practicing exclusively practicing at center, which came with plenty of growing pains.
In the spring game, Pihlstrom was guilty of a few dicey shotgun snaps, and he acknowledged the need for improved play. In an effort to add a player with more experience snapping, Illinois added Furman transfer Dylan Davis to the center position, joining Pihlstrom and redshirt-freshman Josh Kreutz.
“I think last spring, we weren’t quite sure [about Pihlstrom],” Bielema said. “… I mean, we were recruiting a center last spring.”
The one hundred snaps to his dad every day in the backyard, though, has helped Pihlstrom grasp the fundamentals of snapping a ball. Pihlstrom saw steady improvement over the summer months and says he is “happy with where” he’s at with snaps through the first two weeks of Illinois’ training camp.
“I’ve had a couple [bad snaps],” Pihlstrom said. “But it’s definitely vastly improved from the spring and I’m happy with it.”
Pihlstrom said he is thinking less about the process of snapping a football, and that he believes it has contributed to him making fewer mistakes. He won’t refer to himself as a natural, rather, the process of snapping the ball comes more naturally than it did in the spring.
“It has to be second nature to you,” he said. “I think that’s the biggest thing from this summer, being natural with it. I can’t think about it anymore. I just have to think about the IDs now.”
But for as much as the former walk-on needed to improve his consistency snapping the football, his confidence in his ability needed to increase too. Quite natured by trait, Pihlstrom is naturally reserved and can sometimes seem uncomfortable in group settings or interviews.
In an effort to make Pihlstrom more outspoken, Bielema and Miller put him in situations where he had to speak. In 2022, Pihlstrom has served as a host for high school prospects taking recruiting visits, he’s been tasked with coaching younger offensive linemen in the developmental group while Miller and other staff members listen to his instruction.
It’s helping Pihlstrom find his voice on the football field.
“You can do all the right things, but you’re the voice of the o-line,” Pihlstrom said. “You have to make all the calls and do all that stuff. I think the biggest thing for me is the confidence, being more vocal because naturally, I’m not the loudest kid.”
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