I put together the top five rated quarterbacks, since the full recruiting ranking era began, that the Illini have had on their team. It is hard to tell exactly when the full recruiting rankings started. Prior to roughly 2003, the recruiting rankings only went up to the top 100 players.
So, this list does have some limitations to it. I couldn’t put anyone past 2003 because there weren’t full recruiting rankings. With that being said, when Jeff George was coming out of high school, he was ranked as the No. 1 player in the country. He eventually transferred to Illinois.