Illinois State redshirt freshman quarterback Beckham Pellant took every snap this spring for the Redbirds as the team’s lone healthy quarterback. (Photo by Barry Bottino, PrairieStatePigskin.com)
By Barry Bottino
NORMAL – During his first season in an Illinois State uniform, quarterback Beckham Pellant learned plenty about offensive football, but not how you might think.
“Last season, running the scout team for most of it, I didn’t get to run our plays,” he told Prairie State Pigskin.
That changed drastically for Pellant this spring, which concluded Saturday with the team’s annual scrimmage. The redshirt freshman took every snap as the team’s only healthy quarterback during spring practices and led both offenses in Saturday’s annual scrimmage, a 10-0 win for the Red team against the White squad.
For his efforts, Pellant earned rave reviews.
“Beckham’s a workhorse,” senior guard Landon Woodard said. “Him doing that brought everyone up to another level. That brought a lot of pride to the offensive line. He’s out there busting his butt, so we want to do our job at the highest level for him. We don’t want to let him down.”
“He did a phenomenal job,” said ISU’s starting QB, Tommy Rittenhouse, who sat out the spring after sports hernia surgery. “I was glad he got the experience. He’s a great kid. He’s got all the intangibles, great confidence.”
Pellant was 33-for-47 passing for 258 yards Saturday at Hancock Stadium while showing off his ability to run as well.
“It was great to be able to take all those reps at such a young age and learn the playbook faster than I would have if we had a few more guys on the roster,” Pellant said.
“He’s ahead of the game in a lot of areas,” Rittenhouse said.
Spring challenges
Pellant’s workload didn’t just include running hundreds of plays. He had to prepare himself physically before practices ever started and do maintenance work throughout the spring with both the athletic training and strength and conditioning staffs.
“It was definitely a toil on the body,” he said. “I had to do a lot of treatment on the shoulder and the elbow.”
Pellant said athletic trainers put together “pre-throwing and post-throwing” treatments, which included electrical stimulation and needling, the process of inserting needles into the skin and muscles to relieve pain, improve range of motion and stimulate muscles, according to ClevelandClinic.org.
The strength staff focused on pre-spring workouts to strengthen his right shoulder. “We did a lot of kettlebell stuff, which I love, to get me prepared,” he said. “I was building up my shoulder strength leading up to spring ball.”
Though he embraced the opportunity, Pellant said he was slightly concerned.
“I definitely had thoughts in the back of my mind of, ‘What if my shoulder starts hurting halfway through?’” he said. “But I got through it.”
Rittenhouse’s role
Being on the sideline was unique for Rittenhouse, who produced the best season for an Illinois State QB in a decade in 2024.
Now six weeks post-surgery, Rittenhouse said he’s “feeling great. I’ve been running, throwing. I still don’t want to push anything. I feel almost 100%.”
The injury first surfaced, according to Rittenhouse, around the team’s bye week in late October. “I had slower mobility, slower movements,” he said. “I was able to wrap it and take some ibuprofen and feel good throughout the game.”
In the six games after the bye week, the fleet-footed Rittenhouse had 31 rushing attempts for 105 yards and a touchdown. In the eight previous games, he rushed 47 times for 375 yards and six touchdowns.
Despite being slowed physically this spring, Rittenhouse worked through plenty of game situations and helped guide Pellant.
“Taking mental reps is always good for me,” said Rittenhouse, who credited Pallant for enhancing his knowledge of “protection calls, route conversions, all that technical stuff. It’s hard to learn as a freshman. I didn’t do the best job until year two. Since the start of spring, I’ve felt more confident in what he was doing out there.”
Pellant said his own confidence “increased 10-fold. It’s great to run with every player on the team and build that rapport with them and get to know them better.”
He also credited Rittenhouse for providing a watchful eye and a ready ear.
“He was incredible,” Pellant said. “He was always there, every practice. If I had a play that I thought was shaky, I’d go over to him and he’d tell me what he saw. He really helped me walk through a lot of things.
“That was great for me to start to understand (the offense),” he said.
Barry Bottino is a co-founder of Prairie State Pigskin and a 19-year veteran of three Illinois newspapers. He has covered college athletics since 1995.
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