Wasn’t Mizzou in Doyle’s final 3? Oh boyyyy would it be nice for Mizzou to be out of the race for him.
Like what?Heard some really encouraging things today on the 7th floor of Memorial!
December 18th cant come fast enough after this embarrassment...
Like what?
We also have to see who Mizzou hires. It’s not like they just shut down their program.
Hopefully the new coach won’t be able to keep all the commitments they have. The recent NCAA punishments on them should make it tough for him.
Irrelevant now. We won’t be pitching against the new Mizzou HC.
Explain. You mean we won’t be pitching against him because he won’t be hired before the December signing period?
Yes. Even if they do make a hire before that time, which is ripe with risk, he’ll have no time to pitch these kids and he won’t have a staff to help push the efforts
We won’t be pitching against a new hire. What we will be pitching against is “Do you really love the University of Missouri”?
Has there been any studies/research done on how many decommits there are during a standard coaching change?
While I’d expect a lot, it seems to be just a handful in reality. (Maybe a quarter of the class at most?) That’s not based on anything, just my gut feel.
We need to recruit everywhere. I feel the best talent comes from not only Florida and Texas but the entire southeast. Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia are not very populated states but unfortunately have provided more elite college and NFL talent in the last 30 or more years than the state of Illinois has. We need to recruit those areas and others the best we can. A small populated state like Mississippi has great RBs, QBs and WR all time greats as any in Payton, Rice, and take your pick at QB there are several I hope we hit all the areas we can. We must do so to win every year.Who cares where the talent comes from. As long as we get better, I don't care if we get players from Antarctica!
The most important pipelines to build in my opinion is Texas and Florida, a ton of talent comes from those states. Illinois does not even come close, so let's focus on getting better.
Great question. Not to my knowledge.
I agree with the gut feeling though, I doubt the percentage is more than a 20-30% (Roughly 2-5 kids depending on class size) clip. In this particular case, I’m only looking at 3 kids.
Will we get any of the 3?
I am no longer obligated to do the social media thing and what an amazing reprieve it has been but because so many still are active out there, it’s been relayed that St. John apparently has publically decommitted.
Outside of that, I am told he has one visit already scheduled and it isn’t us.
Well, hopefully by then we'll have upgraded the OL coaching to someone who can attract the ST John, Harper, Elsbury, Bartlett and Skoronski level recruits. With OL, it's all about the position coach and how they fit in with their personality and approach. WE had that when we had Harry Hiestand and Ed Warriner, two of the top OL coaches in the nation. Just curious. a "Lovie Buddy" like (former bear OL) Olin Kreutz might an interesting addition. IMHO, the only way to upgrade our weak current OL recruiting and player development is to make a change. Probably won't happen though. BTW, it seems that Olin has some temper issues that got him fired from NO. Is that good or bad in a OL coach?lol I believe Hiestand is coaching for the Bears and Warriner is at tOSU. Tough to lure those folks away, but who knows....
If we're talking about a wish list of Mizzou de-commitments that align with Illinois targets:
- Jalen St. John (already de-committed)
- Kevon Billingsley (DT/DE - East St. Louis)
- Mitchell Walters (OT - Mehlville (StL)
- Not sure the level of interest here for Illinois for Walters