College Achievers: Willowbrook’s Cruz working for a shot at the NFL Combine

Between his junior year at Willowbrook High School and his redshirt senior football season this fall at the University of Kansas, Enrique Cruz Jr. estimated he added 100 pounds of mass.

A 2025 all-Big 12 Conference honorable mention selection at offensive tackle, Cruz said gains like that are what it takes to compete in college football at his position.

“To play at the college level you need to be at least 300 at the position I was playing, at least,” said Cruz, 6-foot-6 and 320 pounds, prototype size for a tackle.

Starting all 12 games this season for the Jayhawks, he generally played right tackle and also took reps at left tackle.

“Working out intensely, building muscle, and eating a lot so I could get a chance to play” got him to his present weight, Cruz said.

He’s doing all that and more in an effort to earn an invite to the NFL Scouting Combine in late February in Indianapolis.

Cruz is now living and training in Holly Springs, Ga., after earning an academic certificate this past semester in project management from Kansas.

He transferred to Kansas from Syracuse, where he’d started 13 games in 2023 without allowing a sack, but saw his playing time diminish in 2024. Cruz got his bachelor’s degree from Syracuse in communications with a minor in sociology.

“I think I revived myself at Kansas,” said Cruz, a native Chicagoan before he moved to Villa Park.

“I really enjoyed everything in my season at Kansas. I enjoyed my coaches, I enjoyed my teammates.

“Kansas is a very nice area. I wouldn’t expect Kansas to be as nice as it was. I was expecting it to be cornfields and stuff, but Lawrence was very nice.

“It was just different from my previous school, a lot more slower life, and I could focus a lot more on football,” Cruz said.

He could see himself as a podcaster — “somewhere where I can talk,” he said — but right now his job is to prepare for his next opportunity on the football field.

Cruz will be playing in the American Bowl, Jan. 22 in Lakeland, Fla., near Orlando, hoping to improve his chances for a bid to the Combine. The American Bowl will be broadcast at 7 p.m. Thursday on the NFL Network.

“I’m really a high-motor effort guy, so even if I don’t do anything good I’m going to find a way to fix it,” Cruz said.

“I’m pretty good in pass protection, but my effort is always going to carry me in the right direction.”

Cruz will be joining other players aiming to improve their stock such as former Rutgers quarterback and two-time team captain Athan Kaliakmanis (Antioch), who this past season passed for 3,124 yards and 20 touchdowns. Kaliakmanis also played in the Hula Bowl on Jan. 10.

Cruz first put on the pads as a freshman at Willowbrook. He said his time there, and playing in the football program under Warriors coach Nick Hildreth, helped him learn discipline. Cruz also wrestled and was an all-state shot putter as a senior.

“At first I wasn’t the best student,” he said. “They helped me to be accountable, helped me to be a better person. I’m just really thankful for those coaches at Willowbrook and for what they did for me.”

He’s enlisted an agent in Georgia who handles all his outside communications with the football world.

Cruz’s job, which takes up most of his waking hours, is to prepare himself physically and mentally for a hopeful Combine invitation through strength training, position training and increasing his “football IQ,” he said.

“I’m really just focusing on being the best version of myself as a football player.”

Landmark

It came in a 69-61 loss Jan. 13 to the University of Illinois-Chicago, but with a season-high 17 points Northern Iowa senior guard-forward Ben Schwieger (Waubonsie Valley) eclipsed the 500-point mark for the Panthers. Entering Saturday’s game at Valparaiso, Schwieger’s 501 points made him the 116th player in program history to reach 500. Initially at Loyola for three seasons, including a redshirt year as a freshman, in his second year at Northern Iowa Schwieger is averaging 9.6 points, 4.9 rebounds, and is second on the team in steals.