Illinois Football: Illini land top Nebraska offensive lineman for 2024

Illinois football has just landed a big out-of-state commitment for the class of 2024.

Coming into the day, the Illini had a strong class of 2024 that consisted of 14 commitments. This group ranked No. 39 in the country, which is an impressive ranking considering we haven’t had a top-40 class in over a decade.

The past couple of weeks have been great for the Illinois class of 2024. It seems like we have added a player to the group at least every other day, and that trend continued on Thursday morning.

In an announcement on social media, Caleb Pyfrom decided to end his recruitment and commit to Illinois. The Illini have just landed a talented recruit who will help on the front lines in the near future.

Landing Caleb Pyfrom shows the recruiting power that the Illinois football program wields

Pyfrom is a 6-foot-5, 300-pound offensive tackle from Central High School in Nebraska. He is rated as a three-star recruit and ranked as the No. 670 player in the class of 2024. He is also the No. 51 offensive tackle in the country and the No. 5 player coming out of Nebraska.

Illinois was the last of three official visits that Pyfrom took in June. He stopped at Nebraska on June 2 and followed that up with a stop at Minnesota on June 16. His final visit was to Champaign this past weekend.

Opinion

This was a huge commitment for Illinois. Pyfrom is the third-highest-rated recruit Bret Bielema has been able to pull in for the class of 2024. He now joins Tysean Griffin and Eddie Tuerk as top 700 recruits for the Illini.

I think the bigger impact the Pyfrom commitment has is on recruiting overall. Illinois just went into the state of Nebraska and landed its fifth-best player in the 2024 class. Five out of the top six recruits in Nebraska are either committed or are projected to commit to the Cornhuskers.

Bielema wielding this type of recruiting power is impressive. He is keeping his promise of recruiting in-state talent, but he is also winning recruiting battles for key out-of-state recruits. I love this commitment for the Illini. Pyfrom is going to be an important piece to the program.