His time in Champaign was long done, yet Pat Bryant kept hanging around in the rain at Illinois this spring, just wanting to watch some ball.
In January, Mike Neu — once a scout and quarterbacks coach for Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints — took a senior offensive assistant job at Illinois. And he got to know Bryant well enough in snippets, even as the receiver was in the middle of NFL draft prep. He loved football enough, Neu reflected, to come out and hang around spring camp, observing teammates and the next generation of Fighting Illini.