Today on the Aline Enquirer podcast, Tom Furnelli, CBS Sports College Football Writer, University of Illinois graduate.

He joins us for our yearly check-in.

In the spring, talk Aligni football. We talked the state of the program entering year six under

Brett Bielma, where Tom ranks Brett Bielmo among the coaches in the country, what he makes of how

Brett has led this program to really relevance in the Big

10 and a lot of success in the Big 10. 19 wins over the last couple years, a couple of bull wins

over SEC opponents. And then we get Tom's take on the Illinois coordinators, both Barry

Lonnie Jr. The long time now, offense coordinator of Illinois, what he makes of him and why he's

had success and what Tom thinks of the Bobby Halkire and the new defense. The Illini will run.

We talk about the schedule, his expectations for 2026 and beyond. Then we talk about some big

picture topics in college football, including potential expansion of 24 teams in the college

football playoff, potential legislation to address college football contracts, rosters,

all of that. We talked to Tom about that and who he's buying and selling in the Big Ten. So a fantastic

conversation with Tom. As always, great insight from the national

level, plus an Illinois guy. But before we do that, some Illinois football recruiting news

the last couple of days that hasn't gone Illinois's way. So a little bit of update on that.

Michigan State and Pat Fitzgerald, got to be a little bit of a thorn in the side,

potentially, of, in recruiting.

Because when Jonathan Smith was here, he was a West Coast guy, didn't have a lot of ties to the Midwest, and didn't recruit all that well.

Well, Pat Fitzgerald, plenty of ties to the Chicago land area, the state of Illinois.

And this week, he landed two of the Illinois' targets at linebacker.

One, Henry Sickelis from Chicago, Nazareth commits to Michigan State on Thursday, right?

...