The Texas Longhorn’s Sophomore Cornerback and former 4-Star recruit, Terrance Brooks, entered the Transfer Portal on April 23, 2024. This felt like a pretty shocking move for the Texas native. Brooks started in 13 games as a true soph and tallied 20 tackles, 3 INTs, and 6 PDs. That all on top of helping Texas make their way into the College Football Playoffs before losing a last minute thriller to the Washington Huskies.
Brooks, not long after leaving, has found his new home. Brooks will be heading to Illinois to play for Bret Bielema. It may be hard to understand why a player of Brooks’ caliber decided to go from CFP Contender Texas to a team who struggles to win in their own conference. Not to mention the Big 10 has added PAC-12 powerhouses Oregon, USC, Washington, and UCLA to the conference. The Fighting Illini under Coach Bielema are 18-19 with their best season being 8-5 in 2022.
Without truly understanding why Brooks left in the first place, we speculate it may be a development factor. The Longhorns in recent memory have a history of sending safeties to the league, although cornerbacks not so much. Cornerbacks have definitely not been their bread and butter. Brooks is heading to program who has multiple draftees/starters in the NFL under Bielema:
- Kerby Joseph- 2022 3rd round
- Nate Hobbs- 2021 5th Round
- Tony Adams- 2022 UDFA
- Sydney Brown- 2023 3rd Round
- Devon Witherspoon- 2023 1st Round
- Quan Martin- 2023 2nd Round
Similar to Texas, this list is Safety heavier although Witherspoon and Hobbs are both far and beyond better than any CB Texas has sent to the league recently.
Brooks, heading into his Junior and draft eligible season, could be looking more to up his stock through Illinois’ DB development than chase a Championship or money(although we are sure he probably got a good NIL deal).