The transfer portal has struck again, but this time it is in favor of the Illinois football team.
As the count stands right now, the Illini have 13 players in the transfer portal. That may sound like a lot, but if you look at other teams, 13 players is a pretty low number. Granted, now that the bowl game is over, that number could easily grow.
With that being said, Bret Bielema and the Illinois coaching staff have done a great job combating the transfer portal departures with some talented incoming transfer portal talent.
Coming into Thursday, Illinois had six incoming transfer portal players. You can now add another name to that list, as Hudson Clement has decided to transfer to Illinois.
Thank you West Virginia pic.twitter.com/OVQobEJ4dx
— Hudson Clement (@hudsonclement3) January 2, 2025
Clement is a 6-foot-1, 198-pound wide receiver who was originally a walk-on recruit with West Virginia. He took a redshirt in 2022. In 2023, he started in eight games for the Mountaineers and finished with 22 receptions for 480 yards and four touchdowns.
This past season was by far the best for Clement. He amassed 51 receptions for 741 yards and five touchdowns, all of which were team highs.
It is puzzling why Illinois football commit Hudson Clement isn’t ranked higher in the transfer portal
Illinois needed more wide receiver talent heading into the 2025 campaign. We are losing our top two pass catchers in Pat Bryant and Zakhari Franklin. Bielema was able to land Justin Bowick from Ball State, but the Illini needed at least one more wide receiver.
Clement is a great get for the Orange and Blue. He is experienced and talented, but my only question is, why isn’t he ranked higher in the 247Sports transfer portal rankings?
247Sports has Clement as a three-star transfer portal recruit who is the No. 491 transfer portal player and the No. 85 transfer portal wide receiver. Those numbers blow my mind.
Just purely based on his numbers, Clement should be highly regarded. When you look deeper into his sophomore campaign, what Clement did was extremely impressive.
Out of the 934 wide receivers in college football, Clement ranked No. 85 with a grade of 79.3. In 2024, he was targeted 78 times by West Virginia quarterbacks. Out of those 78 targets, Clement only had three drops. Just think about that for a second. He had more touchdowns, five, than drops.
I don’t understand why 247Sports didn’t rate Clement better, but that doesn’t matter at the end of the day. Games aren’t played on paper, much like in the Cheez-It Citrus Bowl. Illinois had a great win over South Carolina, and now we have a great wide receiver coming in for 2025. What a week.