Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

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#276      
WyattEarp
Genesis said:
Since it's a slow time for recruiting news, I'm enjoying this focus on west central Illinois including Adams (home county), Pike and Hancock County. That area has produced a few athletes over the years including IL PGA Hall of Fame golfer D.A. Weibring , Illini lineman and QND football coach Jack Cornell, Illini and pro golfer Luke Guthrie, Illini guard Bruce Douglas, Iowa center Michael Payne and the Cubs pitching Reuschel brothers. Then there was Olympic volleyball player Caren Kemner, and Nicole Kramer, Olympic swimmer. I'm sure we can come up with a few others. More importantly, who are some of the upcoming athletes from Forgottonia that might be recruited by the Illini in the future? I understand there's a 15 yr old girl in Quincy who has some offers already. Who else? Any football players?
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Mel & El Tappe…(Quincy) Big Leagues/Manager(s)…ran Tappe’s Sporting Goods

* thinking about Quincy…now I’m hungry for a maidrite!
 
#277      
Greensboro
fyi...much consternation about recruiting rankings & how important getting one on the 2 TEs was. 247 has a recruiting add tool. Adding Sutter & here is the before/after impact on ranking. short story: Sutter would have raised us from 23 to 18; Eberhart would get us to 21

2026 Illinois Football Class Calculator

247sports.com 247sports.com


Current Ranking
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Adding Sutter

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Adding Eberhart
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#279      
Fly Illini Fly!
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
very unlikely its anyone but OU for eberhart. doesn't take a ton of digging after you look at his X account, all the Sooner pics, recent national buzz.
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Point-Illinois said:
Agreed. If the national folks start shifting our way there may be something there.

Until then, I’d guess OU.
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those predictions were three weeks ago. that's A TON of time for things to change.
 
#280      
WhereDoWeStandWithStorr?
If we do get Eberhart is this a great class? After missing on both TEs I thought no, but if we get Eberhart - looking at the OV list there literally wasn't a single miss outside the tight ends (the ones that were we turned them down or they were never serious options in the first place: Marlen Bright, Tilson, King, etc).

Would be a banger of a finish.
 
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#285      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
WhereDoWeStandWithStorr? said:
If we do get Eberhart is this a great class? After missing on both TEs I thought no, but if we get Eberhart - looking at the OV list there literally wasn't a single miss outside the tight ends (the ones that were we turned them down or they were never serious options in the first place: Marlen Bright, Tilson, King, etc).

Would be a banger of a finish.
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I'd consider Singelton and Barnett flipping pretty big misses. But no doubt the hit rate is superb.

Overall it depicts that TE is pretty lagging in terms of development/production when compared to the secondary, linebacker, edge, OL, etc.
 
#288      
the juiceman cometh
This class may not be an absolute home run on paper, but it's a good class filled with highly regarded prospects, and it's a significant improvement year-over-year. Realistically it was probably too early for a "home run" type class anyway. We still haven't strung 2 winning seasons together. Indiana had an even better season than us, and has a very similar class to ours (slightly lower ranked at #26, same number of commits). If the on-field success continues, the classes will get better.
 
#290      
TX Illiniwek
Greensboro said:
fyi...much consternation about recruiting rankings & how important getting one on the 2 TEs was. 247 has a recruiting add tool. Adding Sutter & here is the before/after impact on ranking. short story: Sutter would have raised us from 23 to 18; Eberhart would get us to 21

2026 Illinois Football Class Calculator

247sports.com 247sports.com


Current Ranking
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Adding Sutter

View attachment 42846


Adding Eberhart
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FWIW....Rivals still has us at #11 in the 2026 Rankings.
 
#291      
DevILLDawg
Mr. Tibbs said:
who knows why both guys went south in the last two weeks - my guess is it’s about money

I also suspect it’s not over & we will see one of them in orange & blue eventually
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My only holdout of hope is how hot the Bama seat could get if they miss the playoffs again but even at that I think they'd give Coach Deboer a 3rd year.

JC family doesn't seem like ones to let their son be a yearly transfer. Could be wrong
 
#293      
Greensboro
BretMyBeachHouse said:
Maybe I'm just a pollyanna, but my excitement is based less on the rankings and more on the offers that our guys we have been getting.
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this, look at offers, look at how many initial battles we won, look at how early we were able to fill the class

If you go back and look at last year's final rankings our 216 pts currently would put us 34th in 2025, the adding Sutter (225) moves us up to 28... their is so much noise in those ratings I would say the difference is meaningless.

Further to this point of noise, look to 2023 class where we nailed recruits that had almost no impact on the final ranking. The points that were added for Gabe, Xavier, Beatty, Bailey, & Kreutz is pretty much in the noise of the ranking; (total ranking add <3 pts vs 26 for Sutter)....in hindsight, how many of these would you give up to have the upside/but unknown outcome of Sutter in this class, let alone all of them.

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