Illinois football plucks huge wide receiver out of the transfer portal

The transfer portal is now a huge part of the college game, and the Illinois football program has taken it in stride.

Bret Bielema isn’t sitting on his hands hoping that players come to Champaign. He has the Illini competitive on the field and in the transfer portal. While there have been a number of players depart the program, we are rebounding with some nice additions too.

One of the biggest additions came on Saturday. Justin Bowick took to social media to announce that he is committing to the Illinois football program.

Bowick is a 6-foot-4, 199-pound wide receiver out of Georgia. He spent his first two seasons of college football with Eastern Illinois where he amassed 709 yards and eight touchdowns. Bowick then transferred out and played last season with Ball State. While with the Cardinals, Bowick had 20 receptions for 383 yards and three touchdowns.

Illinois swooped in and ended up landing this highly sought-after wide receiver. Bowick visited Louisville, Kentucky, and Penn State before committing to the Orange and Blue.

Landing Justin Bowick out of the transfer portal should help replace some big departures from the Illinois football team

This was a great get for the Illini. Bowick is a nice large target for Luke Altmyer, and he should have a starting job from day one.

Illinois has a lot of production to replace from the 2024 squad, and this addition should help. Out of the 2,572 yards receiving in 2024, the Illini are only bringing back 896 yards. That is just 34.8% of receiving production coming back.

The biggest pieces of this missing receiving production are Pat Bryant and Zakhari Franklin. They were our No. 1 and No. 2 wide receivers and should be seeing time on Sundays in the near future.

There were multiple positions that needed to be addressed in the transfer portal. Wide receiver was one of those positions, and Bielema knocked this addition out of the park.