Illinois Football: Illini receive Crystal Ball Prediction for 4-star recruit

Less than 24 hours after the Illinois football team received their first Crystal Ball Prediction for the 2023 class, another one dropped for a big in-state recruit.

On Tuesday, the Illini were announced as favorites to land East St. Louis star Antwon Hayden. This was a big 247Sports Crystal Ball Prediction to pick up for the Orange and Blue. And, just a day later, Illinois is the favorite to land another big-time talent in Kaden Feagin.

Feagin is a 6-foot-3, 221-pound athlete from Arthur Sr. High School and resides in Arthur, Illinois. He is rated as a four-star recruit and ranked as the No. 240 player in the class of 2023. Feagin is also the No. 18 athlete in the nation and the No. 3 player coming out of Illinois.

Kaden Feagin would be a huge piece to the Illinois football rebuild.

Illinois has been showing Feagin a lot of recruiting attention since Bret Bielema took over the program. The Illini offered the talented athlete back in March 2021. He then attended Illinois’ junior day in January of this year.

Since then, Feagin has received a ton of recruiting attention. As of right now, he has roughly 13 scholarship offers with some of the bigger names including Wisconsin, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Miami (FL).

But it looks like Illinois might have the recruiting momentum right now. On Wednesday, Jeremy Werner of 247Sports put in a Crystal Ball Prediction for Feagin. Werner has him heading to the Illini with a confidence of six out of 10.

Opinion

Wow, this is exciting news. A player like Feagin would have been a near-lock to head elsewhere with past regimes. This type of player tends to commit to a team like Iowa or Notre Dame, which has always been depressing as an Illinois fan.

But Bielema and his coaching staff seem to be on top of their game when it comes to in-state recruiting. Actions speak louder than words, and the current coaching staff is starting to really pick up some momentum with recruits. If we can land a player like Feagin, it would send shockwaves through the recruiting world when it comes to the state of Illinois.

Feagin played a lot of running back in high school, and that is the position I believe he would play at Illinois. It is clear that Bielema has a type of running back he likes as well. Feagin is a bruiser and will be a menace in the Big Ten. He can lower his shoulder into the defensive player, but he can give you a little shimmy with his hips and get around the defender as well.

If Feagin does come to Illinois, we would have the best running back room I have seen since the 2000s. I imagine he redshirts year one because as a freshman, the Illini running backs would be Chase Brown (SR), Josh McCray (JR), and Reggie Love (JR). This will give Feagin more time to get the speed of the game. By his redshirt freshman season, I think he is going to be getting a lot of snaps.

I hope Illinois can land Feagin. A Crystal Ball Prediction is huge for that caliber of player. He would be a massive building block in what is an impressively quick rebuild by Bielema.