Gavin Ericson-Staton’s official campus visit to Illinois was enough to flip the verbal pledge of the three-star 2027 offensive tackle prospect from Iowa State to the Illini.

Matt Stevens, IlliniGuys Staff Writer

June 7, 2026

The expected flip of Gavin Ericson-Staton’s verbal pledge from Iowa State to Illinois has been completed. Ericson-Staton announced the news of his change before the end of his official campus visit to Champaign-Urbana this weekend.

The 270-pound offensive tackle prospect from Montini Catholic High School in Lombard, Ill. was almost anticipated by everywhere involved in his recruiting process after he agreed to attend the Illini’s first official visit weekend in June as an Iowa State verbal commit from April 11, which is over five months after Jimmy Rogers was named the program’s new head coach shortly after Matt Campbell departed to Penn State.

Illinois offensive line coach Bart Miller has been aggressive in his pursuit to flip this prospect to the Big Ten program despite the Illini’s historical lack of success in the Bielema era at getting a secure foothold for prospects in the Chicago Catholic League. Ericson-Staton is currently the sixth verbal commit of the Illini’s 2027 recruiting class, which still ranks outside the Top 60 of Football Bowl Subdivision programs according to 247Sports.com, and joins Mason Halliman of Lincoln-Way East High School in Frankfort, Ill., who committed on May 9, along with Morton offensive tackle Soren Fifer, who committed on May 14, as the three offensive line verbal pledges in the Illini’s recruiting class.

Miller is well known for his propensity to mix and match his offensive linemen during their college careers so it bodes very well that at 6-foot-5 and 270 pounds, Ericson-Staton has already started games at center, guard and tackle for a Montini Catholic program that won the 2024 Illinois High School Association Class 3A state championship and is also an all-state wrestler at the 285-pound heavyweight level.

Bielema’s barge package may have also received a weapon as Ericson-Staton has also lined up at tight end in the big package for long-time Montini Catholic head coach Mike Bukovsky.

Ericson-Staton was part of a trio of prospects with ties to the Iowa State program on their campus visit in Champaign-Urbana this weekend. Three-star Cade Newman and three-star edge rusher Ryan Paulsen from Central High School in DeWitt, Iowa joined the offensive lineman on the University of Illinois campus this weekend. All three players made an official visit to Ames over the previous weekend in late May, and Newman became the Illini’s fifth verbal commitment in the 2027 class before his visit in Illinois was completed. If Paulsen, a three-star edge rusher who is 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds, were to commit to Illinois, it would represent a 3-0 sweep of prospects in this cycle against the Cyclones program.

The flip of Ericson-Staton this weekend was critical to Illinois’ 2027 recruiting efforts as the program is only currently slated to host one more offensive line prospect - three-star Reed Gerken from Ohio - but Gerken is expected to announce his verbal pledge on Monday, which is days before he’s supposed to arrive in Champaign-Urbana.