Andre Lovett started on the varsity as a freshman for Eisenhower in the first post-pandemic season.
Afterward, he started emailing college coaches at all levels, from Division III up to smaller Division I programs.
“It actually worked out,” Lovett told the Sun-Times. “Akron offered me in the summer.”
As good of a feeling as that was, it didn’t compare to when Lovett traveled down to Knoxville last season when Tennessee hosted Alabama. That turned out to be maybe the most epic game of the college football season: a 52-49 Tennessee win on a field goal as time ran out.
“The stadium was rocking when he made that field goal,” Lovett said. “You just see thousands of people rushing the field everywhere, tearing down the goal posts.”
It got better: Tennessee gave Lovett his first Power Five offer. “I cried,” Lovett said.
Now Lovett is a 6-2, 170-pounder preparing for his junior season, the most prominent of three D-I prospects for the Cardinals. One of them is his 6-foot, 190-pound cousin Antonio Russell — already the program’s all-time leading receiver — who holds a Western Illinois offer. The third is 6-4, 290-pound lineman Kwan Johnson, a four-sport athlete with an Eastern Illinois offer.
Lovett already has a variety of Power Five offers including Illinois, Iowa, Louisville and Missouri. More could be coming, given his current 247Sports composite rankings: 11th among Illinois juniors and 403rd nationally.
He plans on making an informed choice.
“I do my research,” he said. “See how the roster is. [I don’t] want to be the 15th DB. And coaches can change at any time.”
Lovett also wants “a place that makes me feel at home, where I can get early playing time.”
In the meantime, he’ll keep working. Besides football-specific training, he’s also a sprinter and high jumper.
And there’s also refining the mindset he’s been working on since he began playing football as a 5-year-old. “When I was younger, I always wanted to get the ball and score,” Lovett said. “As I got older, I love to hit.”
Russell, meanwhile, never lost that love for getting the ball and scoring. His football origin story as a 4-year-old: “My big brother, Nashon Johnson, who just graduated [after starring at Eisenhower] — he had a football camp then because he was a quarterback. I went and I was sitting on the sidelines and I was like, ‘Dad, I want to play football.’ And once I got on the field, I’ve never loved anything so much.”
Russell already is the Cardinals’ career leader with 99 catches for 1,421 yards and 27 touchdowns. He also has 500 yards and five TDs rushing.
Now he’s heading into a final prep season with the prospect of a college career looming.
“It’s really crazy,” Russell told the Sun-Times. “Where I come from, people don’t really have the opportunities. This is a great feeling.”
Kwan Johnson also has to remind himself sometimes that he owns an offer to play college football. “You always imagine getting it,” he told the Sun-Times. “But when you first get it, it’s a shock.”
Maybe more so given that he never played the sport before high school, and his first season was that pandemic year. But his athleticism helps. Besides football, Johnson plays basketball and volleyball, as well as throwing the shot.
But his talent was evident early on, and he was on the varsity as a freshman.
“It was a good feeling,” Johnson said. I was scared at first. To me back then, that’s like college football.”
But now he, and his teammates, can look forward to the real thing.
