{"id":772856,"date":"2026-02-24T09:09:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T09:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/772856\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T09:09:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T09:09:17","slug":"former-illinois-football-star-calling-plays-for-future-nfl-hall-of-famer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/772856\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Illinois football star calling plays for future NFL Hall of Famer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There have been plenty of great players come through the Illinois football program, and one is going to be guiding a future Hall of Famer next season.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday afternoon, it was made official that former <a href=\"https:\/\/writingillini.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Illini;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Illini <\/a>quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase is going to be the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.therams.com\/team\/coaches-roster\/nate-scheelhaase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Rams<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Scheelhaase, a four-star recruit coming out of high school, picked the Orange and Blue for his playing career in the college ranks. He set some <a href=\"https:\/\/writingillini.com\/posts\/top-10-illinois-football-quarterbacks-of-all-time-01j3qtvada51\/1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:big-time marks in Champaign;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">big-time marks in Champaign<\/a>, which include the most offensive yardage by a player at <a href=\"https:\/\/fightingillini.com\/documents\/2025\/8\/21\/2025_FB_Record_Book_Records.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:10,634 yards for his career;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">10,634 yards for his career<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The talented passer then went into the coaching ranks with stops at numerous programs, including Illinois and Iowa State. He then took his talents to the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>Scheelhaase is now heading into his third season with the Rams. He was an offensive assistant in year one. Last season, he became the passing game coordinator. Now, the rising coach is the offensive coordinator for future Hall of Fame quarterback Matthew Stafford.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>There is an NFL head coaching job on the horizon for Nathan Scheelhaase<\/p>\n<p>This promotion by the Rams doesn&#8217;t come as a surprise. Scheelhaase was a hot name in the coaching ranks as soon as the offseason started.<\/p>\n<p>Scheelhaase received a handful of head coaching interviews. I believe he was pretty close to a few of those jobs, with the closest being the Cleveland Browns head man.<\/p>\n<p>There is no doubt that a head coaching position is going to be the next step in Scheelhaase&#8217;s career. Give him a year or two as an offensive coordinator, and he will end up being the hottest name in the coaching cycle in 2027 and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on www.writingillini.com as <a href=\"https:\/\/writingillini.com\/former-illinois-football-star-calling-plays-for-future-nfl-hall-of-famer?utm_source=RSS\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Former Illinois football star calling plays for future NFL Hall of Famer;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Former Illinois football star calling plays for future NFL Hall of Famer<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There have been plenty of great players come through the Illinois football program, and one is going to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,7,4728,6691,58,32,97553,6,12611,2123,2743,109641],"class_list":{"0":"post-772856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-cleveland-browns","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-illinois-fighting-illini","11":"tag-iowa-state","12":"tag-los-angeles-rams","13":"tag-matthew-stafford","14":"tag-nathan-scheelhaase","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-offensive-coordinator","17":"tag-pa","18":"tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","19":"tag-university-park"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116124828787405552","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}