Saturday is game day for Illinois football, and no one’s more excited than Reilly O’Toole. Illinois released a spoof of the popular Geico “hump day” commercial Friday morning, starring the Illini’s backup quarterback.

In the video, O’Toole imitates the camel that became so popular after the commercial’s release this summer, walking around the Illinois football facilities in his blue No. 4 jersey interrupting coaches at their desks to ask what day it is.

Eventually, tight ends coach and recruiting coordinator Alex Golesh mutters, “It’s game day, Reilly.” 

At which point O’Toole breaks into whoops and hollers.

The 49-second video costars offensive coordinator Bill Cubit with a superb roll of the eyes.

At one point O’Toole bursts into head coach Tim Beckman’s office and says, “Beck-Beck-Beck-Beck-Beck-Beck-Beck. Guess what day it is?” similar to how the camel calls for Mike at his cubicle in the commercial.

With training camp finally at its end, it was an amusing way for the Illini to have a little fun before heading into its first game week.

“We’re with these kids for like 18 hours a day (during camp) sometimes,” Cubit said. “You’ve got to have a little fun every once in a while.” 

The video was the creation of graduate assistant Nubis Padhye. After seeing the commercial so often during the summer, Padhye came up with a plan to make his own spoof of it.

Quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase directed Padhye to O’Toole, who Scheelhaase thought would be a good candidate for the role. O’Toole agreed and on Thursday they filmed the video an hour before an afternoon meeting.

The video was edited that day, and the Illini watched it at a team meeting Thursday night. It was an instant hit. 

“(Padhye) just told me when and where to show up,” O’Toole said. “They had it all planned out. I just showed up and tried to be as serious as possible.”

O’Toole said the only problem he had filming was trying to keep a straight face. His only previous acting experience was his eighth-grade play, in which he had one line.

The video was posted Friday morning and had more than 13,000 views within the first day.

Scheelhaase thinks the video could get as many as a million views or more on the internet. 

“I was out there on the field during stretches,” Beckman said after practice Friday. “There was a lot of Beck-Beck-Beck going on.” 

At the end of the video, director of player personnel Matt Sinclair is standing by the Grange Rock outside the tunnel to the Illinois locker room when he turns to Padhye and says, “How happy are Illini fans that college football’s back?”

“Happier than Reilly O’Toole on game day,” Padhye says.

Then O’Toole comes out of the tunnel and yells, “GAME DAY! YEAH!” as he pulls his helmet over his head.

When game day finally does arrive Saturday, there is bound to be a chorus of “GAME DAY!” coming from the Illinois locker room.

Sean can be reached at [email protected] and @sean_hammond.