Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

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#26      

Dbell1981

Decatur, IL
Good scouting of Illinois preps who leave the state then enter the portal at the first sign of trouble is going to be a very important skill for our program over the coming years. There will be lots of them every year, with a ton of upside to targeting the right ones and a ton of downside throwing away scholarships on the wrong ones.

Just in general, accurately pinning a value on the raft of “big recruit who barely played at a top school” types has rapidly become one of the most important thing staffs are doing. I have no idea what if any tape or other kinds of intel they may have access to.
I would love to see Jacardia in the O&B. Kid was an absolute work horse for St. Teresa. Played against some small schools but he has legit size and skill. The person i was hearing from made it sound like Jacardia was unhappy with the crowded running back room at K-State. If thats the case then he will be unhappy here too. Bielema will keep a stable of backs if history tells us anything.
 
#28      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
I would love to see Jacardia in the O&B. Kid was an absolute work horse for St. Teresa. Played against some small schools but he has legit size and skill. The person i was hearing from made it sound like Jacardia was unhappy with the crowded running back room at K-State. If thats the case then he will be unhappy here too. Bielema will keep a stable of backs if history tells us anything.
A running back who expects to be an old school bell cow is a running back who apparently hasn’t watched much of the NFL lately.
 
#29      

Illinivek23

Gurnee
Will be interesting to see what, if any, position changes are made going into spring ball. RBs or WRs to LB/DB?
 
#35      
Mechanical Engineering major at Cornell. Smart boy, and we've got a Top 10 grad school department just waiting for him.
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#36      
Wow....Spencer Rattler leaves because he lost his job to Williams, then Williams turns around and leaves - crazy
Well the coach left too tho

A running back who expects to be an old school bell cow is a running back who apparently hasn’t watched much of the NFL lately.
I just don’t understand why you would want to be. So much nowadays is analytics and how efficient you are. A bell cow might get 1500 yards, but multiple backs splitting carries might grab 4.5-5.5ypc, which is reflective of play by play consistency. And consistency is what every coach in the world is looking for from his players.
On top of that it’s easy to scale out, “oh I got this xx carries and 450 yards but if I got yy carries you could see I would have gotten 900!”

Also, probably wanna be able to walk when you’re 35.
 
#37      
Coach B would take issue with that mindset! ...though I totally agree with you
Yes, he would. I would take issue with him if he thought this way as well. I want him to reach out and give him the "pitch". But yes, we are in agreement, no way would this happen. Please please make me eat crow coach B.
 
#40      
Demetrius Cannon a 3* 2021 WR out of Trinity Catholic has hit the portal. Had no stats as a freshman at Louisville. Illinois offered coming out of high school.

LB Khali Saunders from Purdue also in portal. He’s from Elmhurst. Only had 12 tackles across 3 seasons.
 
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#42      

217sports

Springfield
I found this interesting. We need some of our alumni to step up and buy us players. I know it's NIL, but how's that even legal?

It’s not. NIL said you can’t offer players deals contingent on them attending your school. How it will be policed? Who knows. I assume they wouldn’t do anything unless he actually went there. NCAA seems like it’s been sitting on their hands so far with it all
 
#43      
It’s not. NIL said you can’t offer players deals contingent on them attending your school. How it will be policed? Who knows. I assume they wouldn’t do anything unless he actually went there. NCAA seems like it’s been sitting on their hands so far with it all
Ncaa has not been sitting on their hands. Thats because their head has been up their !!!. They have been waiting for others to make the rules for them and that is not going to happen.
 
#44      
Ncaa has not been sitting on their hands. Thats because their head has been up their !!!. They have been waiting for others to make the rules for them and that is not going to happen.
I have to say that this is true. It seems like NCAA waits until someone else figures it out and they just ”go with the flow”. My question is, why do we have Mark Emmett as head of NCAA then? Why pay him a salary if he literally does nothing!
 
#45      
Demetrius Cannon a 3* 2021 WR out of Trinity Catholic has hit the portal. Had no stats as a freshman at Louisville. Illinois offered coming out of high school.

LB Khali Saunders from Purdue also in portal. He’s from Elmhurst. Only had 12 tackles across 3 seasons.
Cannon would be a good get. We need some WR depth. Hoping new OC can put our WR room to better use. Still wondering what happened with Hightower and Jafar Armstrong.

Saunders would be a great depth piece. I am still holding out for Antonio Doyle. Any word on his recruitment?
 
#47      
Cannon would be a good get.

Not sure. Seems most of the Trinity kids (exception: Isaiah) were fairly overrated/overhyped. Cannon also had some Semrau-like trajectory across his HS time, and seems he wasn't good enough to get much tick at all at UL. I'm hoping the portal holds better options
 
#49      

Cook

Richmond, VA
Saw during the BB game on the ESPN feed, VA Tech is getting 2 QBs transfers from the portal. One from Marshall, one from S.Carolina. So clearly it does happen.
 
#50      
Mekhi Wingo, a DL from Missouri via DeSmet HS (St. Louis), has entered portal. He had 27 tackles (14 solo), a sack, 3 tackles for loss, and an Int for a touchdown (against North Texas). That was good for SEC all-freshmen team in season he played all 13 games and started 4. According to 24/7, Illini didn’t offer him, but he was offered and committed to Missouri in Jan. 2020 so presumably Walters had some kind of relationship with him.
 
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