Washington’s JJ Guedet enjoying new home with ISU football

NORMAL, Ill. (WMBD/WYZZ) — He feels like he’s home.

Washington High School grad JJ Guedet is closing out his college career at Illinois State. The Minnesota transfer enrolled in classes in January and is going through spring workouts with the Redbirds.

“I wanted to be close to home and that relationship already (was there),” said Guedet.

When Guedet was in high school, he regularly came to the ISU football camps with his Panther teammates. The Redbirds offered the 6-8, 315-pound offensive lineman a scholarship when he was a sophomore.

Guedet eventually chose Minnesota where he spent the past five seasons. He’s a grad school student now at ISU where his high school coach Darrell Crouch was a lineman.

“We’ve known these (ISU) coaches for a long time. Coach Crouch coached with (ISU’s offensive line coach Harold) Etheridge. We know who is here and what kind of people they are.”

Guedet has been taking snaps with the first-team offensive line at left tackle this spring.

“I did not play a ton at Minnesota, that was part of the reason I ended up leaving,” said Guedet. “I do want to play coming in. I want to compete and go out the and play ball.”

ISU is getting ready for its spring game on April 13. With the arrival of cold, wet April weather, the Redbirds have spent the past few days in their new indoor practice facility which was completed late last year.

“It’s definitely a game changer,” said freshman linebacker Tye Niekamp. “It’s huge on a day like today, when it’s 40 (degrees), windy and rainy, it’s a lot nicer than being out there practicing. It’s really nice. We’ve been in here a couple times. It’s definitely nice.”

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