Illinois Football: Iowa legacy recruit receives Illini offer

The class of 2025 might be a little ways away, but it is never too early to build relationships with recruits.

I want the Illini to start winning games and building recruiting classes. I believe we can get to 6-8 wins each year with solid recruiting of three-star players with a smattering of four-star recruits. But to get to 8-10 wins each year, we are going to need to secure some of the top players in the country.

One of those players for 2025 is Iose Epenesa. He is a 6-foot-3.5, 230-pound edge rusher from Edwardsville High School and resides in Edwardsville, Illinois. He is rated as a four-star recruit and ranked as the No. 9 player in the class of 2025. He is also the No. 3 defensive lineman in the country and the best player coming out of Illinois.

These rankings will obviously change with time. 247Sports has Epenesa as a four-star, so that means he would fall somewhere between No. 50 and No. 300 in the country. But, nonetheless, this kid is going to be special. That is why Illinois extended Epenesa a scholarship offer on Saturday when he was visiting for the Wyoming game.

Illinois isn’t the first offer for the talented edge rusher, though. Despite being just a sophomore in high school, Epenesa already has roughly nine scholarship offers, and they are all from big-time programs such as Illinois, Michigan, Miami (FL), and the scariest of them all, Iowa.

Illinois football has a tough road ahead if we want to land Iose Epenesa.

It is great Illinois came in with an offer to Epenesa, but this is going to be a difficult road ahead if we want to land the Edwardsville product. Why is this recruitment going to be challenging?

Epenesa’s brother, AJ Epenesa, was one of the top recruits in the country and the best player in the state of Illinois in 2017. He picked Iowa and had a great career with the Hawkeyes. AJ is now playing with the Buffalo Bills in the NFL.

That strong connection to Iowa has to make them the leader right now for the younger Epenesa. But Illinois does have a few things going for them that they didn’t back in 2017.

In 2017, the Illini were a mess of a program. We just hired Lovie Smith in the past year, and there wasn’t any proof this program could win. Bret Bielema is at the helm now, and he has Illinois on the right track. If we can win consistently and make bowl games every year, then we have a shot at landing a player like Epenesa.

I also believe that not every younger sibling wants to follow in the footsteps of their older sibling. The younger Epenesa might want to blaze his own trail, and there isn’t a better path than picking the home state program, Illinois.

It is a great idea for the Illini to get in the mix for Epenesa. I think this is going to be an uphill battle, but with a little winning, who knows what could happen. This would be a major get in the Bielema era.