Illinois football commit shuts down recruitment, “100% locked in”

The Illinois football program has been on the receiving end of recruits committing and then heading elsewhere despite their pledge.

Recruiting is a rough game sometimes. The Illini have experienced that plenty. So, while commitments are nice, you always have to take the original commitment with a grain of salt. You never know what program will swoop in and drop a bag in their lap.

One phenomenon has started to happen lately, though. Illinois is starting to get players to shut down their recruitment. On Friday, we had another player say he is all-in.

In an interview with John Garcia Jr. of Rivals, Illinois commit Kingston Shaw has shut down his recruitment. In the post on social media by Garcia, Shaw says that, “I’m 100% locked in.”

This is big for the Illini. It adds another layer of assurance that Shaw is going to be in Champaign next season. On top of that, the article also mentions that he is going to be enrolling early and joining the program in January, which is huge.

I am probably a bigger optimist than most when it comes to Shaw. He is a 6-foot-3, 235-pound edge who is currently rated as a three-star recruit and ranked as the No. 936 player in the class of 2026. He is also the No. 85 edge in the country and the No. 117 player coming out of Florida.

That is way too low a ranking for Shaw. There are many things that stick out about his game, but the biggest for me is that he plays multiple positions on the field. He had his hand in the dirt quite often, but also plays the outside linebacker role. It is not like Illinois is taking a defensive end and then making them a linebacker or vice versa.

Shaw has a great knowledge of the defensive side of the ball. He already plays that edge role at the high school level, and I feel like that is rare. Now, he is locked into his commitment to Illinois, which is exciting.

Illinois football has heavily recruited the middle of the defense for 2026

I believe Shaw is going to be one of the best players coming out of the 2026 class for the Illini. This group is laced with talent in the middle of the defense as well.

One of the top commits is Cam Thomas, who will play linebacker for the Illini. He is joined by Kaedyn Cobbs and Tony Williams at the linebacker role. Illinois also has Parker Crim and Jacob Alexander, who are both listed as edge players, alongside Shaw. That means they usually transition into the outside linebacker role, especially in the 3-4 or nickel defense Illinois likes to play.