Illinois Football Recruiting Thread
- Status
That class despite being one of, if not the worst Illinois class in recent memory (which is saying something), it has produced Pat Bryant, Josh McCray, and 4 guys who will be starting this year on a CFP caliber Illini team. Even with the low-end prep classes, staff's ability to develop has remained beyond superb... can only imagine the potential new heights when you start stacking top 30 class with multiple four stars.
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ee-ber-hart OR eh-ber-hart ?
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
Illinois 2025 Class Offer Comparisons
Reminder that this is about the 2025 class, not the 2026 class. A good chunk of these guys are already on campus.
The main takeaway is the 2025 class is a slight step back compared to the 2024 class and creates a bell-curve shape with 2023 - 2024 - 2025. Here is the comparisons (these are medians, not averages, to correctly weight quality/quantity):
See the rapid reduction of commitments from guys with no other P5 offers since Bielema took over. The increase in P5 offers compared to 2024 is noteworthy, but the "feel" doesn't exactly match that. Looking over the 2024 class, there are more players that have 10+ D1, 5+ P5 offers where Illinois "won" the recruitment (Petty, Tuerk, Valentine, Woodward, Stewart, Barna, Baker, Dennis) and only a couple where guys have high offers but there were injuries or their recruitment cooled (Griffin, maybe John?). 2025 doesn't have as many no-doubt wins (Brooks, Trimble, Lovett, White, Beerman) but more recruitments with players that had unique fits, cooled recruitments, injuries, whatnot (Straughton, Boyd (still very high here, but Werner has made it well known that certain programs were turned off by his height), Forster, Newton, Gayle, Farrell). I'm not poo-pooing any of these guys, but it's important to remember that some of these recruitments mean a big SEC or B1G school offers in 2023 and things noticeably change when the next offer isn't until 2025 and the program is Texas State. The gold standard is having a recruit with 20+ offers and there are multiple official visits showing that teams have prioritized them. Going through the class, those winning battles happened more in 2024 than 2025.
Smaller notes:
- Just use this as a reminder at the talent acquisition issue that was still pervasive in 2021. There might be three 2021 guys that would even be on the radar in current times. This is the simple graphic on the bottom to visually represent how much things have improved for commits with other P4 offers.
- This likely needs more content another day but the offensive line recruiting is still noticeably bad by these metrics. The 2025 offensive line class is McDonough, Frechette, Rousseau, and Hirdes doesn't have much pedigree based on offers or comparisons to the rest of this class.
- I really like the approach for adding more unique d-line and edge pieces in this class and trusting that a few of these guys will make a difference. There's an insatiable need for more offensive/defensive line, so I'm all for grabbing more of high schoolers to maximize your chances knowing that finding transfer depth is going to be really hard and really expensive.
- This class is miles better than anything from Beckman - Smith, but it still needs to be much better for Illinois to be a top 4-6 B1G team.
- Final takeaway is reflecting on this class makes it feels like the staff took bigger boom-or-bust takes compared to 2024 - banking on athleticism and that the program's development track record will pay off with a chunk of these guys having positional questions or injuries.
Reminder that this is about the 2025 class, not the 2026 class. A good chunk of these guys are already on campus.
The main takeaway is the 2025 class is a slight step back compared to the 2024 class and creates a bell-curve shape with 2023 - 2024 - 2025. Here is the comparisons (these are medians, not averages, to correctly weight quality/quantity):
See the rapid reduction of commitments from guys with no other P5 offers since Bielema took over. The increase in P5 offers compared to 2024 is noteworthy, but the "feel" doesn't exactly match that. Looking over the 2024 class, there are more players that have 10+ D1, 5+ P5 offers where Illinois "won" the recruitment (Petty, Tuerk, Valentine, Woodward, Stewart, Barna, Baker, Dennis) and only a couple where guys have high offers but there were injuries or their recruitment cooled (Griffin, maybe John?). 2025 doesn't have as many no-doubt wins (Brooks, Trimble, Lovett, White, Beerman) but more recruitments with players that had unique fits, cooled recruitments, injuries, whatnot (Straughton, Boyd (still very high here, but Werner has made it well known that certain programs were turned off by his height), Forster, Newton, Gayle, Farrell). I'm not poo-pooing any of these guys, but it's important to remember that some of these recruitments mean a big SEC or B1G school offers in 2023 and things noticeably change when the next offer isn't until 2025 and the program is Texas State. The gold standard is having a recruit with 20+ offers and there are multiple official visits showing that teams have prioritized them. Going through the class, those winning battles happened more in 2024 than 2025.
Smaller notes:
- Just use this as a reminder at the talent acquisition issue that was still pervasive in 2021. There might be three 2021 guys that would even be on the radar in current times. This is the simple graphic on the bottom to visually represent how much things have improved for commits with other P4 offers.
- This likely needs more content another day but the offensive line recruiting is still noticeably bad by these metrics. The 2025 offensive line class is McDonough, Frechette, Rousseau, and Hirdes doesn't have much pedigree based on offers or comparisons to the rest of this class.
- I really like the approach for adding more unique d-line and edge pieces in this class and trusting that a few of these guys will make a difference. There's an insatiable need for more offensive/defensive line, so I'm all for grabbing more of high schoolers to maximize your chances knowing that finding transfer depth is going to be really hard and really expensive.
- This class is miles better than anything from Beckman - Smith, but it still needs to be much better for Illinois to be a top 4-6 B1G team.
- Final takeaway is reflecting on this class makes it feels like the staff took bigger boom-or-bust takes compared to 2024 - banking on athleticism and that the program's development track record will pay off with a chunk of these guys having positional questions or injuries.
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mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
Now, let's look at the comparisons to other B1G teams. I'm repeating the previous application of mostly B1G (former) West teams because these are the common recruiting competition and are the teams that Illinois needs to beat for long-term success. Now, let's get to the graphics!
These graphics are less complicated than what I'll be sharing further down. First, holy moly Wisconsin! Fickell has real issues right now, but their recruiting has exploded with major, national recruiting wins last year. I don't want to talk much about 2026, but the (recruiting) bubble has burst for them but there is going to be serious, young talent on the roster. Also, you can see the pain from Purdue (Walters era) and Northwestern (post-Pat and NIL hasn't been great). The transfer portal allows these issues to be papered over easier than 10+ years ago, but it's still a grave concern. For Illinois, the linear improvement is aesthetically pleasing and shows that Illinois is competing near the top of the B1G former West map.
Now this is different than offers, but rankings. A few different stories here, such as Wisconsin's class rankings were similar to Iowa, even though Wisconsin's offer list for each commit is vastly better. Also, gotta tip your cap to Fleck for winning this many games with pretty meh talent. He obviously knows what he's looking for in recruits and develops the crap out of them.
Last one to share:
Simliar to the previous one but showing the "passing ships in the night". Again, Wisconsin had one heck of a 2025 class. Nebraska loaded up last year, too. But most importantly, you see that Illinois' incoming prep talent is rising the program's floor.
Excited for next year's update to see how Illinois' class compares to these same programs.
These graphics are less complicated than what I'll be sharing further down. First, holy moly Wisconsin! Fickell has real issues right now, but their recruiting has exploded with major, national recruiting wins last year. I don't want to talk much about 2026, but the (recruiting) bubble has burst for them but there is going to be serious, young talent on the roster. Also, you can see the pain from Purdue (Walters era) and Northwestern (post-Pat and NIL hasn't been great). The transfer portal allows these issues to be papered over easier than 10+ years ago, but it's still a grave concern. For Illinois, the linear improvement is aesthetically pleasing and shows that Illinois is competing near the top of the B1G former West map.
Now this is different than offers, but rankings. A few different stories here, such as Wisconsin's class rankings were similar to Iowa, even though Wisconsin's offer list for each commit is vastly better. Also, gotta tip your cap to Fleck for winning this many games with pretty meh talent. He obviously knows what he's looking for in recruits and develops the crap out of them.
Last one to share:
Simliar to the previous one but showing the "passing ships in the night". Again, Wisconsin had one heck of a 2025 class. Nebraska loaded up last year, too. But most importantly, you see that Illinois' incoming prep talent is rising the program's floor.
Excited for next year's update to see how Illinois' class compares to these same programs.
Yeh, maybe they should do recruiting class rankings five years later: see who really did get the best players
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
I wonder if more recruits generally are committing early with NIL and revenue sharing becoming more of fixed pie situation. Teams have only so much money they're willing to commit to your position, and committing early may mean a bigger piece of it (plus you can always decommit if you get a better offer down the line). Just a thought.
Okay now let's not pile on when it comes to Lovie...How many pros have come from Lovies zero stars and 2 stars? Maybe he didn't know how to play em but he sure knew how to pick em...
Didn't you see Alabama steal our RB.. Snagged our prime home TE prospect and Owen Cabell was primed and ready to be an ILL-INI,then that house of elephant clipped our bait...Listen you Tide e bowler,Get out of our kitchen.
Any thoughts as to why OL recruiting as a whole has been bad under Bielema?
jc anderson qualifies.
Do your research? How many 4 or 5 stars that were at Wisconsin and Arkansas? Coach B developed offensive lineman. Don't get caught up in the rankings. JJ WATT was a transfer walkon and we see how he developed under Bielema as a defensive lineman.
Great question
Complicated question with lots of reasons why and some generalizations.
Lovie didn't recruit any Big Ten caliber linemen his last few years, so the focus when Bret got in the job was to retain the superseniors and get some immediate transfer help/depth.
COVID screwed up OL evaluation and recruiting a lot, especially for upperclassmen that didn't get to play/develop. There's only so many college ready linemen around, so unless you're Notre Dame or Ohio State, you're mostly getting kids that need to put on strength, change their body, and/or learn actual technique that isn't just leaning over a kid that's half your size.
Missed evaluation/bad fit on Dennis, staff had a lot of eggs in this basket
Transfer portal has made it easier to find immediate help (i.e. Adams, Davis, Priestly)
Building OL is such a gradual process in general especially depth, and it takes time to attract the types of kids that have more than just size and will actually project well at the Big Ten level (i.e. Hansen, Henderson, McDonough, 2026 kids)
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Illini92and96
- Austin, TX
What was the issue with Dennis? He was super highly rated - is he likely to not live up to that hype?
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
Easy, and fair, to dunk on Lovie's recruiting post-2017 but it's worth mentioning that two of the starting linemen this year committed under Lovie.
He didn't make it past the summer and transferred back to home state MSU
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
This is a really good list. COVID was such a big factor because all of those classes were allowed to stick around for an extra year, magnifying their value compared to those that came after. Further fueling the issue was Bielema and staff didn't get many quality linemen. The lack of talent and one less year of eligibility put them at a big disadvantage.
Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
very few with options want to play for a doormat. the hole we were in was more like an abyss
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