Illinois Football: Illini flip monster offensive line recruit for 2023

It has been a rough couple of weeks for the Illinois football team, but landing a huge recruit for 2023 helped heal those wounds.

Before Tuesday, the Illini had a solid class that sported 18 commitments for the class of 2023. This was good enough to have the program ranked No. 50 in the nation. That was all before landing a massive commitment from Brandon Henderson.

Henderson is a 6-foot-4.5, 320-pound offensive tackle from East St. Louis High School in East. St. Louis, Illinois. He is rated as a three-star recruit and ranked as the No. 996 player in the class of 2023. Henderson is also the No. 82 offensive tackle in the country and the No. 18 player coming out of Illinois.

This was not an easy recruitment for the Illini to win. In fact, Henderson had two official visits back in June to Iowa State and Illinois, and he picked the Cyclones over the Illini at the time. Well, fast forward five months later and Henderson has now decided to flip his commitment to the Orange and Blue.

Brandon Henderson gives the Illinois football team another monster on the offensive line.

The improvements that Bret Bielema has made to the Illinois offensive line since becoming the head coach have been amazing. Just today, the current Illini blockers were named to the Joe Moore award semifinalist list. This is the award for the best offensive line in college football.

Usually, with a talented offensive line like Illinois has this season, most of the players would be seniors and ready to graduate. That isn’t the case with this Illini offensive line.

We will be losing Alex Palczewski after the 2022 campaign. His presence at tackle will be missed greatly. The only other offensive lineman who will depart will be Alex Pihlstrom. He took over for Doug Kramer at center and has done a solid job this season.

Besides Palczewski and Pihlstrom, the rest of the Illinois offensive line will be running it back next season. We will actually have one of the most experienced offensive lines in the country in 2023. I have Julian Pearl, Jordyn Slaughter, and Isaiah Adams all entering their senior years as starting offensive linemen for the Illini. Zy Crisler should also be a starter as a junior.

This great experience is why landing a player like Henderson is so important. We are going to be decimated on the offensive line when 2024 rolls around. Thankfully, Bielema has already brought in or is bringing in a couple of nice recruiting hauls for the offensive line.

Illinois has 11 either freshmen or redshirt freshmen on the roster who play on the offensive line right now. For 2023, Henderson leads the pack of offensive linemen coming in. He will be joining fellow offensive linemen TJ McMillen, Zachary Aamland, and Dez’Mond Schuster.

Bielema knows football and how to coach the game. But there is one thing he specializes in, and that is how to teach and develop offensive linemen. Illinois fans should be excited about the future of this program.