Massive Danish offensive lineman Magnus Møller has now made it official.
He has signed a four-year scholarship to study and play football at the University of Illinois. When Illinois announced that the young Dane had verbally committed to the school in early December, it created a stir abroad but now the news he has made it official has caught the attention of the Danish football world with the Danish American Football Federation trumpeting it loudly.
As a rookie this year, the 18-year-old native of Bredballe, Vejle, Denmark was not only an anchor on the offensive line for the Triangle Razorbacks who play in Denmark’s Nationalligaen, but also on the Danish national team.
At 6’9″ and 298 pounds, Møller is definitely hard to miss on the football field. Still, the 18 year old only played his first season of 11-man football this year. Just 12 months ago, while playing U19 nine-man football, Møller looked like a man among boys, decimating defenders. After suiting up for the senior team, he excelled and by season’s end had developed to become one of the better linemen in the country.
Møller will now hopefully join the ranks of Danish linemen who have excelled in North America including Steven Nielsen (6’8″, 310 pounds, Edmonton Elks, CFL), Hjalte Froholdt (6’5″, 315 pounds, New England Patriots, NFL) and Andreas Knappe (6’9″, 320 pounds, Atlanta Falcons, Washington Redskins, Denver Broncos).
Unlike Nielsen and Froholdt, but similar to Knappe, Møller has not played a down of high school football in the United States. In fact, it was through his own tenacity that he caught the attention of Brandon Collier and his PPI Recruits program who took him on tours of US colleges. Thanks to his football prowess, he received offers from a number of major schools including the University of Georgia, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Vanderbilt, Eastern Michigan, UMass, Fordham, and Towson. Interestingly, his excellent academic standing did not go unnoticed, and he received offers from Ivy League schools including Dartmouth, Princeton, and Brown before finally settling on Illinois for both football and academics.
Feature image photo: Foto Jensen