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Final recruiting rankings have Illinois football with one of the elite 2026 prospects

The dust is settling on the transfer portal chaos, and the Illinois football team is emerging with one of the best freshmen in the country.
ByRees Woodcock|
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Oct 4, 2025; West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; Illinois Fighting Illini head coach Bret Bielema watches warm ups before the game against the Purdue Boilermakers at Ross-Ade Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images
Oct 4, 2025; West Lafayette, Indiana, USA; Illinois Fighting Illini head coach Bret Bielema watches warm ups before the game against the Purdue Boilermakers at Ross-Ade Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images | Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

The transfer portal is always active, but the Illinois football team has done a great job building depth with incoming freshmen.

What the Illini have coming in from the class of 2026 goes down as one of the best recruiting classes the program has ever had. Finishing with a national ranking of No. 22 in the country, that far surpasses anything Bret Bielema has done thus far, and it laps anything the previous two coaching regimes managed to pull off.

There is substance to the class of 2026. We have 30 commitments, and that means there should be depth up and down the roster. What is also exciting is what is waiting at the top.

Illinois has plenty of talent coming in from the 2026 class, but when all of the rankings shook out, it was Nick Hankins Jr. who took the top spot.

In the final On3/Rivals rankings for 2026, Hankins managed to crack the top 100 overall. He sits as the No. 96 player in the class of 2026.

To put that top 100 ranking in perspective, Bielema has only had one of those players, and that is Hankins. You can go back an entire decade, and you will only find one Illinois commit who ranked inside the top 100. Isaiah Williams accomplished this feat in 2019, as he was the No. 64 player in that recruiting class.

The icing on the recruiting cake is that Nick Hankins Jr. plays a crucial position for the Illinois football program

It is always great to get top athletes at their position. I don’t care what position they play, as long as they are the best of the best.

What makes Hankins even more special is the fact that Illinois needs defensive back help at all times. Hankins comes in as one of the top cornerbacks in the country, ranking as the No. 12 cornerback in the class of 2026.

The Illini managed to snag a few good newcomers, like top junior college cornerback Jakwon Morris, but we need depth and talent. We can’t just have one layer that is good and hope for the best. Injuries and other things arise, and Illinois needs to be ready with multiple layers on the depth chart.

Hankins will have an immediate impact on the team. I am sure there is an idea of how Bielema wants to use him. Look for Hankins to not only see snaps, but it wouldn’t shock me if he is a starter the majority of the season and ends up being a Freshman All-American. Special things are coming.

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