Illinois Football Recruiting Thread
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MDchicago
- Lake Norman NC
illinidarrin
- from parts unknown
This really is going to be a different team next year.
Probably could say that about every program now. Will the difference be in a good way or not so good?
The new norm
Yeah, wow. That BB quote sure sounded like, "If you are on the 2 deep you can come back, if not, bye bye"
40 players... Roughly half of a travel roster... hopefully a great portion are players from that 75-105 range... Or at least not in the two deep lol.
Probably going back to UGA so they drop the lawsuit
Really? It wasn't last year. I'm thrilled we're responding to the circumstances so aggressively. But the norm should not be this much turnover in the future. Not sure what the ideal is but I doubt our situation is ideal.
These cycles will happen for programs like b ours so I'm not bothered. But I don't want this to be the norm.
illinidarrin
- from parts unknown
https://www.on3.com/college/illinois-fighting-illini/football/2026/transfers/ A list of players that are in and out.
It wasn't for us, because we believed in player retention. Still do, but a lot of the players retained have no eligibility. Lots of teams churned through their rosters last off-season.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
This is a flawed narrative. For one, we do not know what we spent for our backup OL, but we certainly need depth there. $400,000 is a lot of our budget solely on a kicker...there is a reason only a small handful of schools would pay that amount, and they likely have much deeper pockets than us.
What good is spending a lot of money on an Elite kicker if you shirk spending in other areas of need on the offense? It is likely that you would not be in position to kick the ball anyway. I love Olano, and appreciate everything he accomplished here, but I trust Coach B and staff to spend the dollars efficiently...so if they passed on Olano, I completely trust their assessment.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
I don’t understand why people hate the transfer portal and NIL so much. Sure there’s constant roster churn, but before this period, Illinois was essentially an afterthought for most high caliber recruits. But now we’re getting quality players like never before in both football and basketball and that shows in our record.
Eh, on the flip side the top 10 included teams like LSU (#1), FSU (#6), Mizzou (#7), Auburn (#8), UNC (#9), and Kentucky (#10).Looking at last year the transfer portal rankings were a decent indicator of a team being good. 10 of the CFP teams were in the top 25
2025 Transfer Football Team Rankings
In order to create the most comprehensive Team Recruiting Ranking without any notion of bias, 247Sports Team Recruiting Ranking is solely based on the 247Sports Composite Rating.247sports.com
Imagine Fleck courting this guy on the official visit and Bielema drops by and goes "you're with me, Kleather"
part of the fun of cfb was watching guys develop from a boy at 18 to a man at 22. a 4 - 5 year journey
I just dont think many of us like this new norm of only having 2/3 of our roster for 1-2 years .
thats all . at least for me.
and once August gets here, Im all in again for 5 months with the team
Does this include grads or strictly portal players?
I think this is one of those things where both sides can be correct. There's no question that since NIL and portal kombat, Illinois has been given the opportunities and advantages to be a upper half B10 team. It's been great for us and has been instrumental in turning our program around.
But I also agree that the Portal and NIL has made college sports worse overall. The constant transfers, the constant rerecruitment, the venturing into a professional minor league for the most part, and the continuous churn and burn what have you done for me lately approach leading to a revolving door is overall just not as enjoyable in my opinion. And I think a lot of it has to do with you not seeing kids grow and mature and develop. Kids you look forward seeing turn from awkward freshmen into senior leaders. Now you might get 1 or 2 ride or die guys like Luke or Matt or Ayo and a bunch of 1yr mercenaries, when back then most of your team was ride or die.
So I agree the portal has been great for Illinois, but I also agree that the overall NCAA product has gotten less enjoyable and worse due to NIL and turning students into professional mercenaries
Is the 40 number including grads or only portal players?
Is the big Norseman OL still on the roster? Will big Magnus have already transferred and I missed. Not sure if he has any game day PT.
We had 22 outgoing transfers last year and have 21 outgoing now per 247. It might end up a little more this year, but it isn't vastly different.
Listen to Brets presser today....he said only one entrant has surprised him. He also said they will have more guys enter this year than years past.
aiwpfan
- Springfield, Il
He transferred out last year
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