While Illinois players bob their heads to music before a game, offensive lineman Ted Karras takes a different approach: He pours two large bottles of water over his head and then yells like a Viking who just reached the shoreline.
This is the mellower, more relaxed Karras. Seriously.
“I’m definitely calmer now,” Karras said, without a hint of irony. “I would get so amped up before, I would get so nervous, and I wouldn’t perform as well in the first quarter. I’d just come out and try to kill someone on a block and completely miss.