Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

[bert1991]

A certain big-time recruit will not be signing with UGA tomorrow...

Still could sign but not tomorrow which is making for uneasy times in Athens.

One thing I can say with the utter-most confidence is that if Illinois pulls off this Broderick Jones signing I will personally crap my pants ️️

Per ESPN, a certain big-time recruit DID sign with Georgia. Bummer

 

[kiwanegarris22]

It's all about RECRUITING.

Same 5 teams at the top of the national rankings every year, because they have superior athletes: Clemson, Ohio St., Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma. It starts with these five teams and their abundance of 5-stars and works its way down from there.

 

[Illinois_2_AZ]

Besides "Taz" are we expecting to sign anyone else today??

 

[thunderwear]

Your ability to spin is second to none. I love it.

But sometimes I can't stand it. None of the players you mentioned could be considered "coached up." They all showed their ability to play early. If anything, it shows the staff's ability to find underrated talent, which all staffs can claim, really, especially ones who haven't recruited well. The staff certainly didn't coach Corbin to pass block effectively to improve his chances in the NFL draft. A year ago, you were raving about the staff finding Quan Martin. If the staff was actually good at "coaching up," he should have been a star this year.

i think this is all fair (except I don’t agree about spin). Recruits like Broderick get a ton of attention. Recruits like Tahveon do not. Kh has been on him and he has not allowed interest from other coaching staffs, other schools reached out to him and he didnt reciprocate. These recruiting sites Learn about players through camps and offers. If a kid doesn’t reciprocate interest, they are less likely to be seen. Tahveon is not a 5*. But his offer lists and interest don’t reflect his ability to contribute.

I expected more from Quan and I think another year in the system will help him with positioning. You re right, the coach does a better job identifying players so it can’t all be attributed to coaching up. But I wouldn’t say all of those players would be at the same place without the coaching staff. There’s a reason, for example, Harding ended up at Illinois. No one was predicting him to lead the big in tackles. Corbin, Hansen, Hobbs. None of them were considered to be as good as they have been.The staff didn’t recruit them and I’m not sure if anyone thought becKmN or cubit were excellent scouts.

 

[thunderwear]

Besides "Taz" are we expecting to sign anyone else today??

Im not.

 

[Illinois_2_AZ]

We just picked up a commit for nationally ranked Long Snapper Reed Reagin from Valdosta, GA. I'm not sure if he is signing today or not. It is a scholarship, not a PWO.

 

[SampsonRelpenk]

Shontrail Key to Arizona. What went wrong there?

 

[thunderwear]

It's all about RECRUITING.

Same 5 teams at the top of the national rankings every year, because they have superior athletes: Clemson, Ohio St., Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma. It starts with these five teams and their abundance of 5-stars and works its way down from there.

Usc, UCLA, Miami, Oregon, Texas, Texas a&m, and others have the ability to recruit at a comparable level and even when they do, they don’t come close to performing comparably. It’s not all about recruiting, but the current team we have, would need a lot of luck to beat a team like Alabama.

unless admissions change, we won’t compete with these programs year in and out

 

[thunderwear]

IMHO, our FB program needs top notch recruiters. Now

I fully agree with this

 

[Deleted member 746648]

Your right ILL_INI there is a little bit of inflation overtime so let's use the cumulative talent rankings to compare ourselves to other teams in the west so that inflation won't be an issue.
2017 2019
(64) Illini (37)
(37) Wisconsin (33)
(71) Purdue (51)
(29) Nebraska (24)
(47) Iowa (40)
(41) Northwestern (49)
(63) Minnesota (46)
(50.57) Average (40)

The entire west made huge improvements in a short amount of time. Just because we would be 13th in the conference this year doesn't mean this recruiting class is worse than 5 years ago. It means the whole conference got better at recruiting including us.

 

[Krombopulos_Michael]

A certain big-time recruit will not be signing with UGA tomorrow...

Still could sign but not tomorrow which is making for uneasy times in Athens.

One thing I can say with the utter-most confidence is that if Illinois pulls off this Broderick Jones signing I will personally crap my pants ️️

Unfortunately if you crap your pants now it will presumably be for much more disappointing reasons.

 

[QCillini48]

Don't know if he's actually signed on the dotted line, but he just now announced at his high school that he's going to Georgia

Yes Georgia was able to close the gap late last nite unfortunately and he is signed with UGA!

Great effort by CPatt however! Kudos to him on this one!

 

[QCillini48]

Per ESPN, a certain big-time recruit DID sign with Georgia. Bummer

Yes no pants crapping today unfortunately, just supreme constipation over the frustration of this recruiting class!

 

[ILLINISON1]

Is it me or does the Tribune have it out for u of I. Every time I check an artical on anything football related it always seems have a negative slant. Today our news from them was who got away, not who is coming. Am I a disappointed optimist dealing with reality or are they bad mouthing the orange and blue ?

 

[ILL_INI]

We just picked up a commit for nationally ranked Long Snapper Reed Reagin from Valdosta, GA. I'm not sure if he is signing today or not. It is a scholarship, not a PWO.

I just don't know what to think about this. Two long snappers on scholarship this year?

 

[Deleted member 746648]

I wasn't saying that this class wasn't better than five years ago. Comparatively to conference peers, it is not really better. And especially with rating inflation, .8490 is not a baseline to hang your hat on going forward. I just don't see how you could be content with finishing last in the Big Ten West.

You wrote that you would be content with the 2020 average rating as the baseline, but your list above shows 2019, a much better average for Illinois. Why didn't you use 2020?

The Team talent Composite compares the entire roster of each team and not just each recruiting class. It takes into account things like transfers and other forms of attrition. It's updated August of every year when the rosters are finalized so the 2020 numbers aren't available yet.
The point I was trying to make was that our recruiting has improved despite the underwhelming recruiting class this year. If this is as bad as it gets moving forward then I'm ok with that.

 

[mhuml32]

Disappointing class.

Disappointed the staff decided to offer a second scholarship to a long snapper.

Disappointed in the loss of one of the top prospects and in-state recruits.


Disappointing day.

 

[illini80]

Disappointing class.

Disappointed the staff decided to offer a second scholarship to a long snapper.

Disappointed in the loss of one of the top prospects and in-state recruits.


Disappointing day.

Just prior to the early signing period it felt like there was real momentum. *sigh*

Looks like the transfer portal or bust. Of course we’ve seen admissions lay waste to some of those as well.

 

[Illini034]

I just don't know what to think about this. Two long snappers on scholarship this year?

The staff must know they will need to punt frequently.

 

[IdahoIllini]

Is it me or does the Tribune have it out for u of I. Every time I check an artical on anything football related it always seems have a negative slant. Today our news from them was who got away, not who is coming. Am I a disappointed optimist dealing with reality or are they bad mouthing the orange and blue ?

I don’t think there is much positive to take out of today. I read somewhere else that our 2020 class is the lowest rated b10 class in the last 10 years?

We are going to be decent this year with what we return, but there is a serious drop off a cliff coming in 2021 unless we go crazy in the transfer market.

 

[WeWillWhen]

Next year is make or break both on the field and on the recruiting trail. Again. Staff basically did the minimum this year to clear the bar and get extended. Bar goes up next year.

 

[EthanM]

If nothing else, I'm disappointed in this class because it feels like there is nothing to be excited about by having virtually no one signing today. It's incredibly hard to build excitement in a program when we're signing low ranked guys and a second long snapper. No one gets excited over PWOs. Instead of using that bowl game for momentum, this is what we got.

 

[Deleted member 746648]

I don’t think there is much positive to take out of today. I read somewhere else that our 2020 class is the lowest rated b10 class in the last 10 years?

We are going to be decent this year with what we return, but there is a serious drop off a cliff coming in 2021 unless we go crazy in the transfer market.

This class was underwhelming but it's not historically bad. We were 59th based on average (only ahead of Rutgers) but this one bad recruiting class won't be what causes a serious drop off in 2021. The last 2 or 3 classes will decide that. I'm not as confident about WR now though.

 

[Bverdec]

You have to remember that the "recruiting class rankings" are largely based on the volume of recruits brought in. Illinois has a small recruiting class because we've had the smallest group of Seniors in the Big Ten if not all of football over the last two years. Fewer seniors mean fewer graduates means fewer offers going out and fewer recruits coming in. It's ok. This recruiting cycle should be more about building depth than anything else. Watch them look to the transfer portal and JUCOs to fill in gaps.

 

[Deleted member 746648]

Last thing I'll say about this recruiting class and then I'm done for awhile. It's a widely accepted principle that recruiting lags behind on field success by a year. For most of last year we were speculating that lovie would no longer be the coach by this time. And after that Eastern Michigan game I didn't see a way lovie could keep his job.

The 2021 recruiting class is going to be the one that makes or breaks us. We should see alot of progress in that class from the bowl game. If we end up with another disappointing class then i don't see a path to a bowl game.