Seniors Leave Lasting Impact on Program, Future Expectations
December 20, 2022 | Football
NEWS
When many members of the 2022 senior class first arrived at Illinois as freshmen, they entered a program that ranked in the bottom half of the Big Ten West and approached games hoping to win. The ReliaQuest Bowl may be their final games donning the Orange and Blue, but they have helped turn the program around in their last seasons in Champaign.
The team expects to win now, a standard the coaching staff sets and the players embrace.
"Back then, we would go into the game and even if we were up on a quality opponent, we were like, 'Oh, wow, this is kind of crazy,' said Michael Marchese. "Now, we know we're a good team. We can play with anyone. When we get up on a team, or even if we're down, we're like, 'They can't really hang with us.' Some games this year haven't gone our way, and it's unfortunate. You can kinda see, even in losses, it hurts a lot more than what it did in the past. In the past, we didn't really expect to win, but now we do, so it hurts more."
Marchese walked onto the team in 2017 as a defensive player. After making the transition to tight end ahead of the 2021 season, Marchese made his first-career touchdown reception against Virginia on Sept. 10. With seven catches, 132 receiving yards, and two touchdowns to his name in his final season in Champaign, Marchese is excited and nostalgic to close his college career with a bowl game in Florida
"The bar gets raised every year that we do something well," Marchese said. "Next year, the expectation isn't gonna be 8-4. It's gonna be a lot greater than that. Just kind of enforcing that with the younger guys, even though we're not gonna be here. I think the staff backs us, too, but it means more when it comes from us. I think the younger guys understand that and understand that we really could have been better this year. That should add some fuel to the fire for next year."
The ReliaQuest Bowl will also mark the end of Tailon Leitzsey's time with the Illini. Leitzsey also walked onto the team, though he arrived on campus one year later than Marchese, serving as one of the best special teams player in the Big Ten. He says the team culture has made a complete 180-degree turn from where it was when he joined the Illini in 2018, a testament to the coaching staff.
"It's a family atmosphere, for sure," Leitzsey said. "The players, we hold each other accountable. There's a lot more accountability. I think it partly comes from the coaching staff making the effort to push the importance of togetherness. When you see them, they're always together. They do stuff outside of here together. They made sure when they came here, when we would go through fall camp or spring ball, that we still did team-bonding events.
"In the locker room, the guys started buying into the plan that they set for us and the standards that they set for us. We bought into it. Us being older guys, we kind of took it in. We were like, 'We want to change the narrative. We don't want to continue losing.' We kind of embraced that standard, and then we upheld it as players. From there on, since Coach B's gotten here and his staff's gotten here, there's been a dramatic shift."
In Leitzsey's first year at Illinois, the team went 4-8, won two conference games, and finish at the bottom of the Big Ten West. In his final year with the program, the Illini are heading to a bowl game with an 8-4 record and barely missed out on a trip to the conference championship.
Leitzsey is proud of everything the team has accomplished thus far, but they are not satisfied just yet.
"I have high expectations. We still gotta win," Leitzsey said. "I want to end my career on a win. We gotta go handle our business in Tampa."
In his sixth season with the Orange and Blue, Kendall Smith has taken advantage of his opportunities in his first full campaign playing primarily on defense. He recorded the first interception of his career at Indiana on Sept. 2, and he did not slow down. Smith made four interceptions during the regular season, which ranks second on the Illini and tied for third in the Big Ten.
This year has been both his personal-best season and the team's best year since he joined the team in 2017, and he is content with leaving the football program better than he found it.
"It feels good to be able to go out with success," Smith said. "Hopefully that translates into the bowl game, but at the end of the day, we had a successful year. We did a lot of things that hadn't been done here before, and at the end of the day, this year is gonna be part of Illinois' history. Wherever we go from here, up or down, this team will always be remembered."
With high expectations now set for the program moving forward, Smith wants to leave his mark on the Illini underclassmen for years to come.
"I can't do much for them now, but hopefully we showed them where this place expects to be now," Smith said. "Eight wins and a bowl game should be the low point from now on. That should be the floor, not the ceiling. Hopefully they rise up to those expectations and they beat them every year."
