Watch Illinois athletic director catch rockets out of a JUGS machine

Published Nov. 15, 2016 3:49 p.m. ET

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Aaron Torres

In a sentence that has virtually never been stated at any point in recent history (minus a few Juice Williams-fueled years a decade ago), it’s a great time to be an Illinois Fighting Illini football fan! After hiring Lovie Smith in the offseason, the program is on the rise. And while the Illini are still light years away from competing with the Ohio States and Michigans of the world, it seems conceivable that with Lovie in the fold, they could be competing with the likes of Iowa and Wisconsin for Big Ten West supremacy in the near future.

At the same time, so much of the credit for the overall excitement around the program has to go to new AD Josh Whitman. Whitman is the man who pulled off the whole Lovie-to-Champaign coup, making the bold move of firing Bill Cubit on the same day he was hired as AD of the school, and bringing in Lovie as the man to replace him.

So yeah, Whitman isn’t like most ADs: He’s young, he’s aggressive and he isn’t afraid to put himself in uncomfortable situations. And we learned that again Friday, when Whitman stepped in front of a JUGS machine, and caught passes that were rocketed out at him.

Check out the video from Illini football posted below.

Simply put, Whitman is a baaaaaaaaaad dude, but at the same time, the JUGS machine deal shouldn’t be all that surprising. After all, Whitman is a former Illini tight end who played briefly in the NFL, so it’s not as if he’s the typical, stodgy, old AD that we so often see across college sports.

At the same time -- do you see how fast those balls are coming out of the machine?

I don’t care if Whitman did play major college football.

It’s been a long time since he traded in his cleats for a three-piece suit, but it’s pretty clear he’s still got it.

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