Three boards, one state

Illinois opens its 2026 season this week. Recruit Intel built three verified boards for the state: the best player at every position, the recruits holding real Division 1 offers with no star rating anywhere, and the programs producing the most offers. Every number below comes from our canonical database and is stated with the sample it rests on. Player figures were re-verified against the current roster on 2026-08-19.

The best at every position

One player per position slot, classes 2027 through 2029. These ten hold 300 verified Division 1 offers between them. Offer counts are distinct college offers per player.

  • QB, Jameson Purcell, Maine South (Park Ridge), class of 2027. Committed to Indiana, 30 verified offers. Threw for 2,871 yards and 28 touchdowns and ran for 253 yards and 10 more over 12 games in 2025.
  • RB, Myson Johnson-Cook, East St. Louis (East St. Louis), class of 2027. Committed to Auburn, 57 verified offers, the most of any player on this board. Ran for 1,341 yards and 20 touchdowns over 12 games in 2025.
  • WR, Darin Ashiru, Batavia (Batavia), class of 2027. Committed to Western Michigan, 13 verified offers. Caught 55 passes for 785 yards and 9 touchdowns over 13 games in 2025.
  • TE, Brock Williams, Libertyville (Libertyville), class of 2027. Committed to Texas, 39 verified offers. Caught 44 passes for 596 yards and 11 touchdowns over 10 games in 2025.
  • OL, Mason Halliman, Lincoln-Way East (Frankfort), class of 2027. Committed to Illinois, 25 verified offers.
  • DL, Brayden Parks, Brother Rice (Chicago), class of 2027. Committed to Notre Dame, 48 verified offers. Recorded 44 tackles, 6 for loss and 2 sacks over 13 games in 2025.
  • LB, Kameron McGee, Brother Rice (Chicago), class of 2028. 46 verified offers. Recorded 38 tackles, 7 for loss and 1 sack over 13 games in 2025.
  • CB, Logan Thompson, Althoff Catholic (Belleville), class of 2028. 23 verified offers.
  • S, Jabarri Lofton, East St. Louis (East St. Louis), class of 2027. Committed to Missouri, 18 verified offers. Recorded 66 tackles, 3 for loss, 2 sacks and 1 interception over 12 games in 2025.
  • ATH, Steven Brown, Althoff Catholic (Belleville), class of 2027. 1 verified offer. Ran for 1,242 yards and 13 touchdowns and caught 21 passes for 172 yards over 9 games in 2025.

Myson Johnson-Cook anchors the board. His 57 offers are the most of any player here, he is committed to Auburn, and he ran for 1,341 yards and 20 touchdowns in a 12 game season. East St. Louis places two players on the board, Johnson-Cook at running back and Jabarri Lofton at safety, and also tops the producers board below. Steven Brown is the honest edge of the exercise: he holds a single offer but led the state's athlete pool on 2025 production, a reminder that the boards read production and offers separately.

The recruits the rankings have not caught

Classes 2028 and 2029, real Division 1 offers, and zero stars across 247Sports, On3, Rivals and ESPN as of 2026-08-19. These ten hold 59 verified offers between them, and we did not pad the board.

  1. Jordan Moore, DB, Brother Rice (Chicago), 2028. 14 offers.
  2. Liam Barrett, OL, St. Charles East (St. Charles), 2028. 9 offers.
  3. Javell Donley, OL, East St. Louis (East St. Louis), 2028. 7 offers.
  4. Brock Thompson, ATH, Loyola Academy (Wilmette), 2028. 7 offers.
  5. Antonio Grayes, OT, East St. Louis (East St. Louis), 2028. 6 offers.
  6. Tyler Houlf, OL, Brother Rice (Chicago), 2028. 6 offers.
  7. Bryce Kidd, WR, Simeon (Chicago), 2028. 5 offers.
  8. Antoine Norfleet, S, Bolingbrook (Bolingbrook), 2028. 2 offers.
  9. Blake Pohlman, LB, Montini Catholic (Lombard), 2029. 2 offers.
  10. Jamal Lewis, OL, Bloom (Chicago Heights), 2028. 1 offer.

It is a ratings gap, not a discovery claim: the programs recruiting these players found them long before we listed them. When the services get to them, this dated page is the receipt.

The programs producing the offers

Recruit Intel ranked the state's top 10 high schools by offer production across the 2023 through 2026 classes, the sum of verified Division 1 offers held by their recent recruits. Across these 10 schools sit 119 recruits holding 973 offers between them.

  1. East St. Louis (East St. Louis): 180 offers across 23 recruits
  2. Mount Carmel (Chicago): 113 offers across 15 recruits
  3. Loyola Academy (Wilmette): 109 offers across 15 recruits
  4. Lincoln-Way East (Frankfort): 103 offers across 10 recruits
  5. Kenwood Academy (Chicago): 102 offers across 15 recruits
  6. Marist (Chicago): 99 offers across 8 recruits
  7. Morgan Park (Chicago): 94 offers across 10 recruits
  8. St. Francis (Wheaton): 58 offers across 8 recruits
  9. Downers Grove North (Downers Grove): 58 offers across 4 recruits
  10. Simeon (Chicago): 57 offers across 11 recruits

East St. Louis leads the state at 180 offers across 23 recruits, well clear of the field, and Chicago programs fill five of the ten spots. The board runs from the city out to the suburbs and downstate to East St. Louis, a reminder that the state's Division 1 pipeline is not one metro.

How we counted

Every number here comes from the Recruit Intel canonical database. Offer counts are distinct college offers per player rather than raw offer rows. Production lines are season totals from game level box scores, and each one states the number of games it covers. At the offensive and defensive line slots, and at any slot whose 2027 through 2029 pool carried no recorded box-score production, the board ranks on verified offer volume alone rather than a production blend.

Star status was re-derived live from all five rating columns at 247Sports, On3, Rivals and ESPN, and every player on the unrated board returned zero at all five services on the build date. One offer figure on the unrated board is pinned to its 2026-08-19 snapshot: Liam Barrett has since accrued one more offer, live at ten, and the board keeps the snapshot value so its total reconciles to the card a fan sees. Candidates whose entire offer list came from a single source inside a two day window with no corroboration were routed out before the boards were set, and known duplicate and wrong-school records were filtered out of the totals. Two cream slots were filled from a live re-query after the original picks failed a manual check, one a wrong-school record and one a position mislabel, and both replacements were verified against current coverage. Every named player was re-verified against the current roster on 2026-08-19 and pinned to a single database record by id, because a common name can return many separate records across the country.

Kickoff is this week

Illinois opens the 2026 season this week. This is another of the Recruit Intel regional preseason previews, and more follow in kickoff order. The unrated board above is dated on purpose. When those players get rated, the timestamp on this page is the receipt.