Three Names to Know for Northwestern Football's 2026 Recruiting Class
After two mass visit weekends in the past month, Northwestern's 2026 recruiting class currently sits at 11 members. And there are likely still more commitments coming from last weekend's visit.
At the moment, all 11 players are three-star recruits, and it's a little difficult to discern who the most impactful players will be and why. Here's a look at the three most important names to know in Northwestern's 2026 class so far.
RB Sean Morris
Morris is Northwestern's highest rated recruit, according to On3's Industry Rankings. He's the No. 39 running back in the class and the No. 58 player out of his home state of California. It's important to note that California is a great state for high school talent, and he'd likely rank much higher in different states around the country.
The 'Cats beat out some big-time competition for Morris's services in Arizona, Washington and SMU. On3 actually predicted that Morris had a 75.9% chance of going to Arizona before his commitment to Northwestern.
This was a really big recruiting win for the Wildcats at a position that is up-in-the-air moving forward. Starter Cam Porter will be gone after this season, and there's no obvious replacement. Adding some depth to the room in this recruiting class was paramount, and David Braun got it done in a big way bringing in Morris.
LB Jacob Curry
Curry is the second highest ranked recruit in NU's class, according to the Industry Rankings. He's listed as the No. 54 LB in the class and the No. 93 player out of Florida, another big recruiting state.
Standing at 6-foot-1 with a weight of 200 lbs, there's a thought that Curry could wind up playing safety. But he's listed as a linebacker and has enough time to put on weight to fill that role in the Big Ten.
Curry committed on May 14, choosing Northwestern over Vanderbilt, Iowa State and Wake Forest. Linebacker is another position that's been strong recently for Northwestern but needed to be shored up for the future.
QB Johnny O'Brien
O'Brien is actually one of Northwestern's lowest ranked recruits, but he's a quarterback, so he's important. The Illinois native is the No. 29 player from his home state and the No. 72 quarterback in the class.
It will be important to follow O'Brien's development because Northwestern needs to be able to develop quarterbacks in-house. The program has relied on transfers in recent seasons, and while that can work well (see Ben Bryant), it can also blow up in your face (Mike Wright).
Eventually, the 'Cats would likely prefer to develop a consistent starter themselves and be able to rely on him for multiple seasons. That's proven difficult recently, but maybe O'Brien can represent a new era.
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Ryan Cole is a writer for Northwestern Wildcats On SI covering every team on campus. He’s currently a junior at NU where he’s studying journalism and previously wrote and edited for Inside NU. He also studies business with an eye towards eventually helping develop business models to revive local news. In his free time, Cole enjoys watching sports, playing sports, reading the news and singing.