Xavier Scott #14 and Miles Scott #10 of the Illinois Fighting Illini (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)
When college football programs recruit players out of high school, they do so with an awareness of a star system that ranks the prospects, on a scale of one to five stars, with five being the highest and one being the lowest.
Of course, being a five-star doesn't exactly guarantee success at the next level. And if you have one-star status it doesn't mean all hope is lost. The same principle can be applied in the transfer portal, when college football programs are looking to add experienced college players to their team.
The University of Illinois Fighting Illini are turning this entire system on its head. They are winning games and developing National Football League level players who came to them with ratings of just two or three stars, not four or five. Illini Defensive Coordinator Aaron Henry, quite often a colorful character, said it best ahead of his team's 21-17 win over #15 South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl.
"If anybody knows anything about Illinois football, we are the best in the country at not taking four and five-stars," said Henry a couple days before his team pulled off a double digit upset. “That's easy. Taking four and five-star players are easy. I can do that with my eyes closed. But we take guys who are zero, one, two, three-star recruits, walk-ons, and we develop them at a really, really high clip."
Henry maintains that's it not about the potential conveyed that's conveyed by your star rating, which is based on what you did in high school.
"We've made it a point, especially this off-season and moving forward, to just find experience and try to find the best players that fit us," Henry continued. "I know there's a lot of people in the portal looking for stars. They're looking for this, looking for that. This ain't how we operate. We're looking for, one, experience, if you have experience, and two, are you a fit? Do you have experience and are you a fit?”
For Henry, that experience becomes invaluable when it comes to building out his roster.
"If we can take a guy who's an experienced player at another school and he has a year or two years with us, we've got a pretty good opportunity to be good. That's what we pride ourselves on."
Illinois finished the season with 10 wins for just the fifth time in school history. Their 10-3 mark included the program's first ever win over a SEC team, first bowl win in 13 years and first New Year's bowl win in 34 years. And they did it despite not having recruiting classes overflowing with four and five-star talent, like we usually see at places like Texas, Alabama and other SEC powerhouses where the most lucrative Name, Image and Likeness deals are readily available.
Focused On Development
In December, Student Athlete NIL Founder Jason Belzer, collaborating with CNBC reporter Mike Ozanian, released a study that ranked the top 75 most valuable college athletic programs eligible for the College Football Playoff.
Six of the top ten: #2 Texas ($1.28B), #3 Texas A&M ($1.26B), #5 Alabama ($978M) #7 Georgia ($950M), #9 Tennessee ($940M) and #10 Oklahoma ($928M) are from the SEC. These six programs are some of the best at attracting and retaining five-star prospects. Typically, where the money flows, the top prospects will follow.
But Illinois is finding their own way - winning games by taking modestly rated recruits and then developing them into elite players.
They were the only power four conference program to offer three-star wide receiver Miles Scott. During his sophomore year, Scott switched over to defensive back where he's now developed into an all-conference level player and Burlsworth Trophy nominee.
He'll enter his senior season in Champaign as one of the team captains, and some NFL Draft potential.
"Stars [in recruiting] have never mattered at all," Scott said in an exclusive with RG. "That's not what football is about- who can get the best recruits in. “We just got to understand, we just need everybody to buy into what the DNA [of the program] is, what the model is, and that's tough, smart defending. We get guys to buy into that, and we got the results to prove it."
Scott has seen has seen three of his former position group mates (Devon Witherspoon - Seattle Seahawks, Sydney Brown - Philadelphia Eagles and Quan Martin - Washington Commanders) in Champaign go on to the NFL. It's the same position group (the secondary) that Henry led, before he was promoted to Defensive Coordinator in late 2022.
The Illini are becoming one of the best developmental programs in all of college football, somewhat similar to what the Kansas City Chiefs have done at the NFL level.
It all starts with the head coach, Bret Bielema, who possesses a Super Bowl ring (which he said is worth $88,000). Bielema won that ring as a Defensive Line Coach under the G.O.A.T. Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots. He said he emphasizes toughness, smartness and dependability in recruiting not players, but also assistant coaches.
"Nothing has to do with how fast you are, how you can jump, how far you can throw a football, how well you can run with a football, the way to tackle, it's how you live," Bielema said after the Citrus Bowl win. "And these guys [current team] are great examples. But I think we always kind of go back to our core principles. I don't know what these guys' stars were coming in. I talked about stars going out, right? And I don't really care what other people think.
It's good that Bielema doesn't care what other programs and other coaches think, because the man on the opposite sideline in Orlando, FL that day, Shane Beamer, offered his skepticism of Illinois.
"I can't imagine if there's a four- or five-star elite defensive player that they're going to say no thanks, we don't want you. I don't think that's probably going to happen," Beamer responded to when asked about the claims made by Henry earlier in the week. "Maybe it does."
He then offered praise for the team that had just defeated him, and the coach that he had just tried to physically charge towards.
"I think they're just very well-coached," Beamer continued. "I've got a lot of respect for their defense, because they do what they do, and when I say that, that's a compliment. Like they're going to get up in your face, they're going to play man coverage.”
Beamer continued to praise how well-prepared his opponents were; pointing to their ability to apply edge pressure to help them win games.
"They don't bring a lot of pressure. They bring some edge pressure, which they did to us some, as well. They say that we're going to be very good fundamentally, as well, and they are. They're well-coached. They're hard to beat. Nobody has scored a lot of points on them this year outside of Oregon."
He then went on to say how talented some of the Illini players are, and he did so in a pretty snarky and very humorous way.
"They're a good defense, and they've got good players," the Charleston, S.C. native continued. "Let's not act like this is Wabash College. Is that a Division III school in Illinois? Wheaton, is that a school? There you go. I went to a basketball camp at Elmhurst College back in the day in Illinois, Michael Jordan's camp. I don't think they have football, but let's not act like this is some Division III school out there without good players. They have all-conference guys.”
Finding Their Identify
Identity is absolutely critical to finding success in sports, and the Illini have absolutely established an identity. Imitation is always the sincerest form of flattery, and other programs are now imitating Illinois, according to Bielema.
"We literally have programs that follow us in recruiting, and when we offer a kid, they'll literally get an offer within the next 24 hours from people that follow us," Bielema revealed. "I stopped following certain recruits before they commit, because I don't want to tip off people who recruit."
On the recruiting trail, Bielema has a lot to sell, especially their ability to develop lightly recruited guys into NFL Draft picks. Bielema has only been in Champaign since 2021, but he's already produced a good number of NFL players, especially on defense.
The best example is Seattle Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon, who went from basically a 0-star recruit (if such a thing truly exists) to the fifth overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.
At Illinois, the only high-major program to offer him, he was a consensus All-American and Big Ten Defensive Back of the Year his senior season.
With the Seahawks, he's made the Pro Bowl in each of his first two years in the league.
Witherspoon perfectly embodies the toughness, smartness and dependability that Bielema was talking about.
You also have Chase Brown, who was a three-star recruit coming out of high school, and came to the Illini via the transfer portal from Western Michigan.
At Illinois, he spent almost his entire senior season as the nation's leading rusher, before finally finishing second with 1,643 yards rushing. In the NFL he has blossomed into the Cincinnati Bengals' featured back, and he's made the most of that opportunity, earning Pro Bowl alternate designation this season.
His twin brother, Sydney Brown, was just a two-star prospect coming out of high school. But he was All-Big Ten first team at Illinois in 2022 and a third-round pick by the Philadelphia Eagles in the 2023 NFL Draft. He's currently the Eagles second string strong safety.
Quan Martin was a mere three-star prospect when he committed to the Illini, but he would develop into a very elite player in college. He was taken in the second round of the 2023 NFL Draft by the Washington Commanders, where he is the starting free safety.
Jer'Zahn (or Johnny) Newton, who also came to Illinois as a three-star prospect, joined Martin in Washington this year, when the Commanders selected him in the second round of this past draft.
Newton has 44 tackles, one pass defended, one forced fumble and one fumble recovery this season, as a second-string defensive tackle.
Martin and Newton will play in the NFC Divisional round this weekend at the Detroit Lions.
When postgame festivities at the Citrus Bowl winded to a close, the turn of the calendar year was drawing near. It was perhaps the perfect metaphor for this Illini football program that just gave their fan base added reason to celebrate New Year's Eve.
The Illini began 2025 as a nationally relevant team and program. That was certainly not the case when 2023 flipped to 2024.
"I was just tired of the disrespect," Illini quarterback Luke Altmyer said. "I think Illinois has been a disrespected program for a long time. I know that because I lived in that area and in that conference. I don't think that's the case anymore.”
Altmyer uses this disrespect as motivation to prove people wrong and put Illinois on the map.
“A couple days ago we were at the fun spot [theme park in Orlando for a bowl week event] doing a team activity with the other team and they were calling us Syracuse,” said Altmyer. “They didn't even know we were playing. Not that we needed any extra motivation, but that was all we needed to hear, and we gave him that Big Ten belt."
Paul M. Banks
