There are freshmen, both redshirt and true, littered throughout the roster for the Illini in 2020.
While the Illinois football program has started to gain a reputation as a destination for transfers across the country, Lovie Smith and the coaching staff have actually been able to land quite a few talented recruits over the last couple of years.
If you look at the Illinois roster, you will see there are 39 either redshirt or true freshmen ready to take the reins of this program and put the Orange and Blue back on the map. Some of these freshmen will end up taking a redshirt this year and then making a bigger impact in 2021, but there are quite a few players who took the redshirt last year and are going to play this season.
No matter what type of freshmen you are labeled, each freshman has a chance to make an impact on the Illinois football team this fall or spring, depending on what happens with COVID-19. I love what we have on the roster and the future is extremely bright because of these freshmen.
But I have pinpointed five freshmen who I think will make the biggest impact on Illinois for the 2020 campaign. I think these five freshmen could either start for the Illini or at least play a lot of snaps. It is exciting looking at all of the talent on this team. It was hard to narrow it down to just five of the biggest impact freshmen too.
Here are the five Illini freshmen who will make the biggest impact.