I don't follow football recruiting nearly as closely as basketball so someone explain this to me. How is Illinois last in recruiting after 2 of the best seasons in Illinois history back to back and what I had been told was a very sizeable NIL budget?
Illinois Football Recruiting Thread
If I had to guess we are probably in the bottom third of the conference in regards to NIL budget. That combined with the fact that we spent big on the highly rated 2026 class is what led to this current class
Because the gap between the other big $$ programs continues to increase.
Our budget is more "sizeable" than last year. And way more sizeable than 3 or 4 years ago. No one's denying that.
But as our pockets are increasing, so are the other's, at even more exponential proportions.
.....
In the end, the staff has to prioritize two major areas over prep recruiting: retention and the transfer portal.
You need to retain your star players. You have ZERO chance at a competitive program if you don't. Signing X prep recruit is not worth losing someone like X. Scott, Matt Bailey, Calil Valentine, etc etc.
And then, the transfer portal. Making your mark in that market is significantly more meaningful than prep recruiting. Making a splash with a Katin Houser is much more impactful for your program, than any of these prep prospects we have on campus.
almost all recruiting rankings are based on high school commits and does not factor recruiting of college transfers nor re-recruiting your own players ( retention) .
our prep class for 2027 is intentionally small in quantity and therefore will show up near the bottom .
we also have no real history of signing multiple 5 star or lots of 4 star players . those player rankings tend to be overly inflated for players going to traditional football blue bloods anyway
our smaller prep class being made up of mostly 3 star guys will lead to a lower “ranking”. but in today’s world , it matters a lot less than it did 5 years ago . what really matters is the ability of your top 48 (two deep) to contribute at a high level . BB has chosen to focus on that , in much the same way Cignetti has done with great results in his tenure at IU .
some schools have NIL budgets to promise to pay prep players . we don’t . The five star preps all expect big bags of cash . see Bryce Underwood . as such , we just won’t get many or any . it’s okay . there are other valid formulas for successful roster building
I think NIL is spent more on retention than recruiting. In looking over the past few years I did notice that currently our average score for the 27 class is 86.67 while the 25 class is at 86.79, so nearly identical. While that average was higher in 26, we are still getting good guys.
Overall, and contrary to another thing I tell my wife, (recruiting class) size does matter in rankings. So far only 3 big ten schools have a small number of commits, making it tough to be much higher in the rankings.
They are going to spend a tremendous amount of money on retention for the 2027 roster. They like the 2026 class, and they are going to play a large amount of guys in the 2026 season with elgibility remaining for 2027 and beyond.
Next priority is transfer portal.
Distant 3rd in dollar value is HS players.
The single biggest factor at this point in recruiting (retention, transfer portal, HS) is money. Where teams allocate their money spent is going to be reflected.
Indiana is doing a similar philosophy I will add.
Everyone talks a lot about prioritizing retention in our program. Is that a unique strategy? Like do we think other programs are just letting starters walk so they can afford better HS recruits?
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
Not invalidating anyone's points above, but we still lost some great players to the portal. Yeah that will happen, but to be flat-out outspent is so depressing. Watched the highlights of the bowl game the other day and really felt a pang for Olano in particular.
What great players did we lose?
Olano was tremendous at his job. Those pressure kicks aren’t easy at all, given how many close games we play.
TE coach Jared Elliott was a great hire, Cade Newman's a super wellspoken young man
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
Well I named the biggest in my opinion. I think perfection on PATs and 20/23 on FGs, including some clutch ones, will be missed.
I think McCollum also will be missed, others may disagree or talk about fit in a 3-3-5, I just hate being outspent I guess. Feels too much like the old days, just more aboveboard (and therefore more visible) now.
Olano was very good and definitely won us a couple games but that’s 1 player. To say we lost some great players is meaning we lost several great players
McCollum is a good player the problem is he got offered a ton of money. But he’s not going to start for Texas A&M. Saying he’s a great player is a stretch.
Olano is the biggie. We lost 3 or 4 guys on the D-Line who may have not been great players, but who would have looked awfully good in our 2-deep
If the kicker is your biggest loss then in this day and age of the portal I think you're doing just fine on retention.
I think the bigger question is whether we hit on the eval for the players we brought it, and whether the new defensive philosophy will work out. And there's no way to know that yet.
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
McCullom was the biggest surprise for me. I think he was a solid player and had a chance to be a team leader as a senior. The surprise was (a) he hadn't taken the leap yet but was showing good signs and (b) he's taking a pay raise to not start at TAMU. I don't understand that. It feels really short-sighted by him to already harm his pro prospects for a short-term increase in compensation. Olano? I understand. He's getting the same opportunity but much more pay, at a position that is very hard to be an NFL draft pick. Might as well cash those checks while you can.
Agreed on Olano. Outside of him I wouldn't say we lost any significant contributors. In the two-deep, yes. From my perspective I was just sad to see some of the guys go who I had high hopes for when they were first recruited or transferred in. Guys like Elzy (I know that one was decided during last season), Karriem, JoJo Hayden (who was recruiting for us after he committed), Easton Baker (who never panned out), Rusk, Bowick. But, while I know the D-line is the biggest question for everyone, I think we've restocked pretty well. And, hopefully our highly-touted 2026 class will make a lot of noise.
Joel Goodson
- it's all ball bearings, nowadays
it wasn't the program's call. the donor (or mega donors, anyway) dictate how their donation is allocated. in this case, the vast majority was allocated to infrastructure.
FWLIW, allowing mega donors to choose where their money is going is a good call. Josh knows what he's doing
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Thanks. That's interesting. I have no idea what would have had the most impact so I was more curious than anything else. I don't know how big NIL budgets are at blue bloods but it makes you wonder if Bret got a $25M check to go spend next offseason, could we immediately enter the following year ranked in the top 5.
I heard he was offered double. McCollum is also very young he was only 18 last year as a sophomore. With 5 for 5 passing he still has a lot of time time to improve his pro stock
Joel Goodson
- it's all ball bearings, nowadays
top 5? no chance
10-20, probably. there's going to be a lot of uncertainty about our new starting, inexperienced QB. and getting the stank off the Illinois brand is akin to turning an ocean liner around. anyway, preseason rankings are virtually worthless
The only "NIL" the program can spend is the revenue share which is capped at a set amount for the entire Athletic Dept., and which I am assuming is being fully spent. NIL is for deals between third parties and players. So the program can't just take that $100 million and buy players.
What the program can do is use that money on other things which frees up AD funds to max out the revenue share without putting the balance sheet in the red, and frees up other donors to focus on NIL and not other expenses and projects.