Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
#1,053      
jamie13197
lstewart53x3 said:
Read Robert’s full article. His content is worth every penny:

www.illiniboard.com

88 Illini: #72-#69

That's it, I'm calling it. This is the hardest 90 Illini list (er, 88 Illini list) I've ever assembled. 22 freshmen + 19 transfers added to a team that only lost nine scholarship seniors? Absolutely impossible to rank the players from 1 to 88. I'll just use tight end as an
www.illiniboard.com www.illiniboard.com

Here’s what he currently has for our TE room:

View attachment 42690
Click to expand...
I forgot about Jordan Anderson. 6.4ft 250lbs. Very good hands and speed. Could be a huge sleeper if completely healthy.
 
#1,056      
mhuml32
PizzaHutParkingLot said:
On Fire GIF by DefyTV
On Fire GIF

I don’t want to be hyperbolic, but is this the best recruiting run in program history?
Click to expand...

During the era of actually tracking recruiting at a national level (dot-com era), this is the best week of football recruiting in Illinois history.
 
#1,058      
mhuml32
mhuml32 said:
Let's ignore the recruiting ranking funny business for a second and reflect on the 2025 B1G class rankings.


Illinois finished 12th (out of 18) in recruiting ranking and had two 4-stars (Trimble and Beerman). Seeing the pending recruiting wave upcoming for Illinois, it's obvious that this class is going to elevate above previous years, but how much can they realistically rise? Let's do a breakdown. The 2025 class has six (!) teams who secured 10+ 4-star recruits:

Ohio State (19)
Penn State (19)
Oregon (17)
Michigan (14)
USC (12)
Nebraska (11)

Looking at the 2024 class and it's a slightly different list (swap in Wisconsin for Nebraska), but the same threshold. Therefore, to break into the top 1/3 of the conference requires 10+ 4-star recruits. Is that feasible in the 2026 class? That seems like a really tall task. Assuming everything goes Illinois' way this cycle, with two current commits bumped up to 4*, then they get Rankin, Thomas, Blade, Anderson, Sutter, Alexander, and Pritchard, and then win the lottery and get Singleton, that would put them at 10. That's almost a clean sweep of every top target. I'm hopeful like all of you but that seems improbable, and maybe more of a very aggressive goal for 2027 if the '26 season goes swimmingly. So let's dive into the next tier of B1G teams based on the '25 rankings:

Washington (8)
Wisconsin (8)
Maryland (5)
Iowa (5)
Rutgers (4)

This seems realistic, especially the bottom three teams. In fact, I'll go further and say falling below the 4-5 4-star threshold this year would be a disappointment (and a cold realization that the climb up the mountain is steep). Now catching Wisconsin or Washington's 8 is a good, possibly too aggressive goal. Putting it into context - (a) get one of the current commits to bump up to 4-star (1) + Thomas (2) + Rankin (3) + Anderson (4) + Alexander (5) + Tilson (6) + Gebhardt (7) + Riordan (8). That would be a reallllllly good haul, but also requires some luck with landing all of these guys and a few of them getting bumped up (Alexander, Gebhardt, Tilson, and Riordan). All that said, the arbitrary cut-off between 4-star and high 3-star is a silly cutoff to assess, and I'm a "follow the offers and visits" guy to the end, but this is still an important talent barometer to follow as the spring and summer march on.
Click to expand...


I wrote everything above at the end of January and important to consider now that Illinois is on the precipice of wrapping up the 2026 commitments. It's easy to see the current team ranking as extreme hope, but where will the ranking settle come signing day? Remember this is star-ranking, so take that grain of salt with considering everything below. I talked about the target was reaching 8 4-star commitments in 2026; this would show that Illinois can make as big of a leap in the rankings as we envisioned (hoped?) for back at the start of the year.

Choosing your recruiting service can dictate your perspective on this (ESPN and Rivals are much higher on Illinois' top-end talent than On3 and 247), so let's be comprehensive and list every player that has at least one 4-star designation across the services. Now, you might say this is unfairly interpreting the rankings, but let's also remember this is star-rankings and they have a problematic past. It also means we don't have to act like JaVari Barnett is the lowest-ranked recruit in Illinois' class even though half of the SEC is trying to get him to de-commit. Here are the four-star commits:

Nasir Rankin (247, ESPN, Rivals)
Kai Pritchard (247, ESPN, Rivals)
Cam Thomas (ESPN, Rivals)
Nick Hankins (On3)
JaVari Barnett (On3, Rivals)
Tony Williams (Rivals)
Michael Clayton (Rivals)
Kayden Bennett (Rivals)

That means Illinois has reached the eight 4-star commitment threshold I discussed six months ago. USC has the current #1 class and there's no shot to catching Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and Oregon once they finish up their '26 class. That said, Illinois has a real shot at being the 6th best B1G recruiting class this year.

Not that it matters if Illinois finishes 18th or 27th in the recruiting rankings, but there is PR value. I would say it's very likely that Illinois will have a top-25 class in 2026 (you'll need to look at '24 Wisconsin and '25 Nebraska classes for the best comps) - and there are still two big targets remaining.
 
#1,061      
mhuml32
I care a lot more about offers than rankings:

Bielema Era

2026 Illinois Commits with 20+ D1 Offers: 10
2022-2025 Illinois Signees with 20+ D1 Offers: 8



2026 Illinois Commits with 15+ Power-4 Offers: 9
2022-2025 Illinois Signees with 15+ Power-4 Offers: 4
 
Last edited:
#1,063      
STLini25
SampsonRelpenk said:
I am beyond ecstatic about the state of the program but also just can’t escape the thought that “it could have been this way for a long time”. I think the assumed inherent disadvantages of Illini football have been long overstated. We. Just. Needed. Competency. (I am not trying to understate the accomplishments of both BB and staff as well as the fanbase)
Click to expand...
One of the main reasons is an extreme lack of quality coaches. Illinois head coaches for basically all of modern history have been a really bad bunch as a whole.
 
#1,064      
BDMAN
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
we've already gone through this - our class is very good, but nothing will quite top Zook's class of 2 five stars and 5 or 6 four stars.
Click to expand...
Unless next year we get three 5*'s and seven 4*'s in our class
 
#1,065      
Joel Goodson
mhuml32 said:
I care a lot more about offers than rankings:

Bielema Era

2026 Illinois Commits with 20+ D1 Offers: 10
2022-2025 Illinois Signees with 20+ D1 Offers: 8



2026 Illinois Commits with 15+ Power-4 Offers: 9
2022-2025 Illinois Signees with 15+ Power-4 Offers: 4
Click to expand...

bingo. need to draw attention to 22-25 being cumulative rather than averages. as Giorgi would say, amazing
 
#1,067      
pvaughn8
mhuml32 said:
Not that it matters if Illinois finishes 18th or 27th in the recruiting rankings, but there is PR value. I would say it's very likely that Illinois will have a top-25 class in 2026 (you'll need to look at '24 Wisconsin and '25 Nebraska classes for the best comps) - and there are still two big targets remaining.
Click to expand...
I was looking at the prior year 247 national composite team rankings trying to project where Illinois would land in the end. A couple observations:

1. For each team in the top 15, the number of 4&5 Star recruits outnumbered 3 Star.
2. Each team in the top 20 has at least 10 4 stars

I would guess we finish between 25-30
 
#1,071      
Joel Goodson
pvaughn8 said:
I was looking at the prior year 247 national composite team rankings trying to project where Illinois would land in the end. A couple observations:

1. For each team in the top 15, the number of 4&5 Star recruits outnumbered 3 Star.
2. Each team in the top 20 has at least 10 4 stars

I would guess we finish between 25-30
Click to expand...

probably. but let's face it, kids get elevated by the services when they commit to a powerhouse school. not all kids, of course, but a significant chunk. and I'll forever beat the ranking services are far from perfect drum. especially, as you get further from the top of the lists
 
#1,072      
pvaughn8
Joel Goodson said:
probably. but let's face it, kids get elevated by the services when they commit to a powerhouse school. not all kids, of course, but a significant chunk. and I'll forever beat the ranking services are far from perfect drum. especially, as you get further from the top of the lists
Click to expand...
Probably, being Illinois is a handicap. You can probably add a few spots to wherever we end up
 
#1,073      
SixthandWhite
Joel Goodson said:
probably. but let's face it, kids get elevated by the services when they commit to a powerhouse school. not all kids, of course, but a significant chunk. and I'll forever beat the ranking services are far from perfect drum. especially, as you get further from the top of the lists
Click to expand...
If Barnett flips from us to Bama, what do you think will happen to his rating? 247 still has him at an 85 and the lowest rated recruit in our class.
 
#1,075      
Joel Goodson
Joel Goodson said:
probably. but let's face it, kids get elevated by the services when they commit to a powerhouse school. not all kids, of course, but a significant chunk. and I'll forever beat the ranking services are far from perfect drum. especially, as you get further from the top of the lists
Click to expand...

upon further review, change "commit" to "offered/commit"
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back