Illinois football is trying to navigate through the transfer portal, but overall, there isn't a huge history of great players transferring out.
The last decade has produced the vast majority of the transfers out of the Illini program. This time period has also produced some of the most painful transfer portal departures we have ever seen.
Here are the top 10 most painful Illinois football transfer portal departures of all time
10. Daniel Barker
Illinois has had a few good tight ends over the years. One of the best and most physically put-together pass-catching tight ends was Daniel Barker.
Coming out of Deerfield Beach High School in Florida, Barker wasn’t a highly-rated recruit. He had a ton of non-power-five offers, but Illinois swooped in and scooped him up.
Barker was a big part of the Illinois offense for four seasons. He was a great red zone option, and in his final season, he had 202 yards and four touchdowns for the Orange and Blue. After his fourth year with the program, Barker hit the transfer portal.
Leaving Illinois was painful enough, but he ended up picking in-conference foe Michigan State as his landing spot. With the Spartans, Barker had a career-high 21 receptions for 239 yards and two touchdowns.
What makes Barker leaving extra painful is the fact Illinois had a good team in 2022. That was the eight-win campaign, and we finally got a solid quarterback behind center. Barker had a myriad of quarterbacks throwing him the football at Illinois with the best being Brandon Peters. Just imagine what he could have done with Tommy DeVito flinging him the ball in 2022.
All four losses for the Illini in 2022 were by a single score. If Barker was still in the fold, who knows how those games turn out?