{"id":783346,"date":"2026-05-09T03:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/783346\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T03:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:06:12","slug":"vip-who-could-be-next-in-illini-football-class-of-2027-five-prospects-to-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/783346\/","title":{"rendered":"VIP: Who could be next in Illini football Class of 2027? Five prospects to watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following long-time Illinois<\/a><\/b> commit and Composite four-star quarterback Kamden Lopati<\/a><\/b> ‘s defection to Michigan<\/a><\/b> last month, Composite four-star Evanston (Ill.) defensive back Justin Johnson<\/a><\/b> stands alone as Illini football’s lone commitment in the Class of 2027.<\/p>\n

Illinois currently is the only Big Ten program with fewer than three commitments. But the Illini hope to change that soon.<\/p>\n

Illinois hosted 10 prospects for official visits last month and will host many more for official visits during three June weekends.<\/p>\n

Illinois head coach Bret Bielema<\/a><\/b> said last week that the Illini will bring in a much smaller class this cycle \u2014 about 12 to 18 players \u2014 compared to last year’s top-25 national class, which included 29 prep prospects and four junior college prospects.<\/p>\n

But the Illini also have seen some top targets commit to rivals, including in-state prospects Luke Injaychock<\/a><\/b> (Missouri<\/a>), David Hill<\/a><\/b> (Wisconsin<\/a>) and Jake Thies<\/a><\/b> (Iowa<\/a>). So Illinois has some urgency to add around Johnson in the Class of 2027 in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

“The first two weeks in June are going to be big weeks for us,” Bielema said last week.<\/p>\n

Here are five prospects who could be next to commit to the Illini.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following long-time Illinois commit and Composite four-star quarterback Kamden Lopati ‘s defection to Michigan last month, Composite four-star…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":783347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,1317,1315,1316,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-783346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116542412291066350","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}