Trey Peters will make his football dreams come true.
Mahomet Seymour senior wide receiver was committed to the Illinois State football team Sunday afternoon.
“I am excited to announce my decision to continue my academic and athletic career at the University of Illinois,” Peters wrote on social media. “I would like to thank my family, coaches, friends, and teammates for supporting me along the way. I am grateful for this opportunity.”
More about Peters’ story
MAHOMETT — Trey Peters stood near Mahomet Seymour’s football practice field Wednesday night.
The 6-foot-5, 220-pound senior wide receiver struggled to pick up his pace at the start of practice with his teammates. But while the Bulldogs were working on catching high punts from the JUGS machines, he was helping out by catching passes and throwing them back.
Benson Boone’s single “Beautiful Things” played over the speakers during the Bulldogs’ training ahead of Friday night’s Apollo Conference game at Mount Zion.
The opening lyrics probably sum up the past three weeks for Peters.
“It’s been tough for a while,” Boone begins the song in a hoarse voice. “But lately it’s gotten a lot better.”
On Thursday afternoon, Peters and his parents were sitting in Bret Bielema’s office in the Smith Center on the University of Illinois campus. When they left, Peters achieved a lifelong dream. It was to earn scholarship offers from Big Ten programs and the nearby Illini, which he grew up rooting for.
“It was a great experience to sit down and meet Coach Bielema,” Peters told the News-Gazette on Thursday afternoon. “I have been a lifelong Illini fan and am very excited to have the opportunity to join the football program.”
Peters won’t have a chance to suit up again until he decides on a college home. In addition to his offer from Illinois, he also had offers from Eastern Illinois and Western Illinois this summer.
That’s because his senior season with the Bulldogs was cut short on the night of September 13th, even though he got off to an incredible start with high receptions, receiving yards and touchdowns in the first three games.
In the second quarter of the Bulldogs’ home game against the Sycamores at Frank Dutton Field, Peters went up for more yards after making the catch on a third-long play from MS senior QB Luke Dyer. The field was cut.
Then his life changed.
“I saw one of the receivers coming in trying to block, so I tried to cut him out who was really quick and had a stiff arm,” Peters said Wednesday night. “My knees are starting to hurt.”
He did not play the rest of the game, and an MRI scan the next day early Saturday morning revealed a grim prognosis for his right knee. In addition to the ACL tear, it was accompanied by MCL and LCL strains.
“Honestly, when it happened, I didn’t think it was anything bad,” MS coach John Adkins said. “I thought he was going to be okay. Maybe he twisted his ankle or something. I went out and talked to him and he said it was his knee, so I got a little worried. ”
Concerns grew even more late in the first half when Peters got up from the bench where he had been sitting along the MS sideline and began heading to the Bulldogs’ locker room at halftime.
“He couldn’t focus on it,” Adkins said. “I knew right then and there that this was not good news.”
Surgery is currently scheduled for October 24th. Peters will also miss MS’s upcoming men’s basketball season, but football is his passion. It’s easy to see why, as he had 22 catches for 573 yards and seven touchdowns in essentially 10 quarters of football this season.
That included a performance in which he had a single-game record of 11 catches for 344 yards and five touchdowns in the Bulldogs’ 69-37 home win against Morton on Aug. 30. Included.
“I almost needed a bag of popcorn and a chair just to watch,” MS senior wide receiver Mason Orton joked. “It was really impressive and really fun to watch.”
What Adkins was even more impressed with was how Peters handled the aftermath of the season-ending injury. Better than the sixth-year Bulldogs coach admitted with three weeks left.
“He’s still a great leader for our team,” Adkins said. “You’ll never know he’s not going to be able to do all the things he continues to do for our program. He speaks in meetings, he helps wide receivers practice. He’s a motivator on the sideline. Honestly, he’s handling it much better than me.”
I am also learning to drive with my left foot.
“It was a learning curve,” Peters said with a laugh. “I feel better for the first time in a while.”
Dyer guarantees that.
“We travel to Chipotle several times a week,” Dyer said. “I trust him. He did perfectly fine.”
This statement can sum up how Peters is currently approaching his downfall. Not what he wanted or expected. But he’s adapting to it every day.
“It’s definitely tough to work all four years and wait to play your senior year and then be out with an injury,” Peters said. “I have a lot of good people supporting me and I have a good plan for recovery, which is very helpful.”
So is the fact that the Bulldogs (3-2, 2-0 Apollo) have won their last two games since a 21-13 loss to Sycamore. A fourth consecutive Apollo title is a solid possibility for MS, which has relied on junior running back Cade Ashby and senior fullback Brock Vandevere in the run game. Orton, a DI recruit himself who has committed to play baseball at Northern Illinois University, especially senior Gavin Hammerschmidt and junior Owen Seymour, are options for Dyer to target more often in the passing game. It becomes.
“The biggest adjustment was Trey playing two positions for us: wide receiver and tight end,” Dyer said. “We’ve been adding HR groups, removing HR groups, and mixing people up. What’s changed for me is that every new employee in a new position is making sure their position is I just wanted to be able to figure it out, because I essentially lost two positions.” Game plan-wise, obviously things are going to be different without him, but it’s week-to-week. There were two games where we ran the ball more because the box was lighter and because of the weather. If so, we’ll happily keep hitting the ball. ”
Peters is watching everything unfold from a new vantage point on the sideline.
“Probably the worst thing is not being able to go out on a Friday night,” he said. “But I’m just there and supporting the team the best I can.”
He has an Illinois offer next to his name. The doubts and uncertainty about whether his college coach wanted him to play football that crept into Peters’ mind hours after he learned he would miss the remainder of his senior season now being pushed aside.
“With his desire to play at the DI level, I think he’ll accomplish that,” Orton said, “and I think it’s great that college coaches are still supporting him. ”
Adkins, who spoke with Bielema Thursday afternoon before the Illini coach met with Peters, echoed similar sentiments.
“After 18 years of hard work and effort, when it comes to fruition, it’s a dream come true and you feel a sense of relief,” Adkins said. “He had a serious injury and there were a lot of unknowns. It was like, ‘Do any teams still want me?’ He is thrilled to have received an offer from a place so special to him. ”
