Knoxville Blue Bullets Football: 2026 Schedule and Results

2026: 1-2 · Coach: Marty Turner, first season · Division: Lincoln Land North · Enrollment: 279

No state championships in any sport. And 24 football playoff qualifications — more than Galesburg and Monmouth-Roseville have managed between them.

2026 results

• Aug 21 — lost at Macomb 42-14. A hard opener for a first-year head coach: Macomb went 9-2 last season. Drake May ran for 125 yards, three touchdowns and added 12 tackles.
• Aug 28 — beat Rushville-Industry 23-18. Turner’s first win, by five points, over a team that went 7-3 a year ago.

Sept 4 — lost to Hamilton/Warsaw 22-20 at home. Two points. The opponent appears in some places as West Hancock; it is the same co-op.

2026 schedule

† Lincoln Land North. All 7:00 p.m.

Look closely at that schedule: after September 4, Knoxville does not play another home game all season. Seven of nine on the road.

The playoff streak

Knoxville football has qualified for the IHSA playoffs 24 times — in 1979, 1982, six straight years from 1985 to 1990, then 2004, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2011, ten consecutive seasons from 2013 to 2022, and again in 2025.

For a school of 279 students with no state trophy in any sport, that is a remarkable record of sustained competence.

The Hebard era, and its end

Most of the recent part of that streak belongs to Ryan Hebard, Knoxville class of 1992, who came back to coach his own school.

Thirteen seasons. 83-45. Ten playoff appearances. State quarterfinal berths in 2019 and 2022. He built the ten-year run and was chasing an eleventh when he resigned over Christmas break, announced in January 2025.

“I just thought the time was right to step away and prioritize my girls as they enter young adulthood.”

And: “Maybe it’s a sabbatical, maybe it’s permanent, who knows? It’s been a great ride.”

He is still at Knoxville, teaching biology.

Marty Turner inherits five returning offensive starters and six on defence, plus a senior quarterback who did not play last season.

The one trophy

Knoxville’s only IHSA state-finals placement in any sport is third place in Class A boys cross country in 2006-07, under coach Tom Hillier.

Everything else is regional and sectional: sixteen boys basketball regionals dating to 1952, ten in girls basketball, twelve in volleyball, five in baseball. All-time, the boys basketball programme is 1,426-1,207 across 113 years and football is 494-434-23 across 111.

Softball is the outlier — 297-641 all-time, a .317 winning percentage.

The oldest town in the county

Knoxville has more history than any other town in this coverage area.

It was established on January 15, 1831 as Henderson and renamed Knoxville on December 22, 1832, making it one of the first ten incorporated municipalities in Illinois. It was the Knox County seat until 1873, when the seat moved six miles up the road to Galesburg.

The first county courthouse, built in 1839, and the second jail, from 1845, are both still standing and both on the National Register of Historic Places, along with the Sanburn Log Cabin of 1832 — the town’s first general store and post office.

Abraham Lincoln stayed overnight in Knoxville on his way to the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate at Knox College.

The Knox County Fairgrounds are here. Population: 2,901.

Born here, but not from here

Two famous names are frequently attached to Knoxville and should not be.

Justin Hartley, the actor, was born in Knoxville but raised in Orland Park, and attended university at SIU-Carbondale and UIC. He was Knox College’s commencement speaker in June 2026. Charles R. Walgreen, who founded the pharmacy chain, was born here but the family moved to Dixon in his childhood.

Neither graduated from Knoxville High School. Also born in Knoxville: Justina Ford, a pioneering Black woman physician, and jazz drummer Matt Wilson.

Beyond football

Knoxville fields baseball, basketball, cross country, golf, track and wrestling for boys; basketball, cross country, golf, track and volleyball for girls; plus softball, competitive cheer, competitive dance, bass fishing, scholastic bowl — and girls badminton, unusual for a small downstate school.

Recent form: girls cross country state qualifiers in 2024 and 2026, a girls basketball regional in 2020, a baseball regional in 2021, and bass fishing state qualifiers in 2021 and 2022.

Volleyball is 2-1 in conference to open 2026, with wins over Rockridge and Farmington around a loss to Monmouth-Roseville.

The coaching lineage

Hebard was not the first to build something here. Dennis Larson coached Knoxville football for sixteen seasons at .674. In boys basketball, Jerry Hise finished at .714 and Steve Sandholm at .707. On the girls side, Dean Axcell went .775 and Matt Gibson .770 — two of the best winning percentages recorded at any school in this coverage area.

Current tenures: Erik Hughs is five years into boys basketball at .565, Marci Tyrrell six years into volleyball at .542, and Troy Strode has coached softball for fourteen.

What the numbers say

Knoxville’s all-time records tell you what kind of athletic department this is. Boys basketball: 1,426-1,207 over 113 years. Football: 494-434-23 over 111 years. Girls basketball 688-500. Volleyball 649-494-27. Baseball 711-686.

Five programmes above .500 across more than a century each, at a school of 279 students, with no state championship to show for any of it. That is the Knoxville story in one paragraph — consistent, durable, and always one round short.

Send us results

We cannot be at every stadium and every gym. If you have a score, a stat line or a photo from this programme, send it in — we post them as they come and we correct errors the same day.

Records via the IHSA and MaxPreps. Coaching detail via WGIL. Lincoln Land North standings →