Will Holmes spent years proving himself in baseball before football ever became his real path, and now the Illinois junior defensive lineman is starting to look like he belongs on a Big Ten stage.
Holmes was a fifth-round MLB Draft pick of the Los Angeles Angels in 2018 and played four years in the minors as a two-way player, working both as a pitcher and an outfielder. Football came much later. He never played youth football or high school football, and he only took up the sport three years ago after baseball didn’t work out.
That leap has already taken him a long way. Holmes walked on at Utah State and produced 51 tackles, 8.0 tackles for loss and 3.5 sacks across two seasons with the Aggies. That performance drew Power Four interest in the transfer portal, and he landed at Illinois last winter to see what he could do at college football’s highest level.
The adjustment has not been small. Holmes moved from a stand-up linebacker role to a hand-in-the-ground defensive lineman, all while making the jump to the Big Ten. Even so, he said the biggest shift in how he saw himself as a football player came this spring.
“I think this year, man,” Holmes answered after a few seconds of reflection. “Kind of in spring ball and fall camp, I was doing really well.
Just every day was getting me more and more confident that I could really do this. My first time ever playing football my entire life was 2024 at Utah State when I walked on.
I've come a long way. Just to see it really starting to go in that upward trend, I'm excited.
I'm excited.”
On Thursday, in his Illinois debut, Holmes looked every bit like a Big Ten defender - and then some.
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