Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

#226      
fuddrules
fuddrules said:
The only OL loss would be Renfro. Retention should be the goal.

I don't think they need a large group of players on D. Get the defense alignments and assignments squared away. Add a couple of top DL, a few LB's and a safety or two. 5 or 6 key guys would make a huge difference, IMO. Retain and train the rest.

Illinois isn't that far away despite lacking overall talent compared to the top P2 teams.
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>>The only OL loss would be Renfro. Retention should be the goal.<<

Forgot - add Dez Schuster to Renfro - but regardless the OL is in good shape next year - other than maybe tackle depth depending on current player development.
 
#227      
the juiceman cometh
mhuml32 said:
It's a precarious game to go into each individual transaction now that (some) results have rolled in. Coenen is having an awesome year and he's providing more than $800k in value to Michigan State, but no one was howling about his specific loss beyond the defensive line depth in the offseason. Or at least to the point of how he's performing now.
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Eh, would I like to have him vs what we have right now? Probably. But Coenen registered all 3 of his sacks/TFL in the games against Toledo and Eastern Michigan, and did not register a single tackle against Nebraska, and according to PFF graded out as one of the worst defensive players in both their losses to Notre Dame and Nebraska. So, I think we may be overexaggerating this loss on the basis of the two easiest games MSU will play all year, and he may actually not have been worth the $800k.
 
#228      
therealmiket86
aaeismacgychel said:
So alternate theory since it's difficult for me to fathom we were that far off in our assessment of what DL players would cost despite it being fairly well known at the time that DL was by far the highest market value position on the defensive side. Maybe there was over-optimism that we would be bringing in more NIL than we were actually able to procure? Or they thought they could sell some of the boosters on donating more midway through portal season and it just didn't come to fruition possibly because they were already tapped out from basketball spending?

Aside from that, yeah, the Colorado State players are doing pretty much what their projections and numbers suggested. Just some flat out misses there.
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We had deals with Angelo, Tomiwa and Coenen to come back. I heard we offered 400k to Angelo and Coenen and they obviously got way more on the open market.

Realistically if we didn’t bring in Martin and Taylor we would’ve had a lot more to spend on defense. We had enough depth to do that and spread the money around.
 
#229      
therealmiket86
the juiceman cometh said:
Eh, would I like to have him vs what we have right now? Probably. But Coenen registered all 3 of his sacks/TFL in the games against Toledo and Eastern Michigan, and did not register a single tackle against Nebraska, and according to PFF graded out as one of the worst defensive players in both their losses to Notre Dame and Nebraska. So, I think we may be overexaggerating this loss on the basis of the two easiest games MSU will play all year, and he may actually not have been worth the $800k.
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The dline market is crazy. Angelo got 1.2 million and he’s played like 30 snaps this year.
 
#232      
the juiceman cometh
therealmiket86 said:
The dline market is crazy. Angelo got 1.2 million and he’s played like 30 snaps this year.
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Get that completely, but not sure that what Coenen has shown this year justifies the thinking that allocating the $800k to him would have been the right move. I do agree there were likely better ways to allocate it towards the D-Line than we did (maybe increasing our spend to Tomiwa or finding better D-Line replacements instead of spending on O-Line depth).
 
#233      
aaeismacgychel
217sports said:
Hopefully people realize how dumb that was and it comes down this year
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It's only going to go up. Relative scarcity of great and good DL talent is the reason, which makes sense as the physical attributes to excel in that position are rarer. Easier to find someone 6'0" 200lb and fast as hell than someone 6'4" 280lb, strong as hell, and fast as hell. If you can win the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, you win period.
 
#234      
IlliniUnited
therealmiket86 said:
The prices aren’t going down anytime soon. It will cost us a ton to go out and get a new qb. Alessio at MSU makes 1.9 million, now imagine what it would cost to go out and get a good qb.
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Alessio better be saving and investing every penny of that money because it might be his last pay check for football
 
#240      
IlliniCaboose
On the other hand, the last few years, we've only gone as far as our QB could take us. I'm not sure I'd trade a slightly better defense for a mediocre QB.
Now if Clayton or Boyd could handle the reins and be a top quarter B1G passer that's a different story. Trouble is we won't have any garbage time the rest of the season to find out.
 
#242      
JBfor3
I asked a question about NIL budgets a while back and people came back with how it is somewhat limited and monitored across the board and that was why so much of the Gies contribution went to infrastructure rather than players. There have been recent articles from the Athletic showing how the big programs are spending double what we spend on their rosters. With that in mind... Why was a donation of that magnitude not put towards the roster this year? It's clear we could have used it... I love Bret - a higher quality roster under him would be a true contender.
 
#243      
therealmiket86
IlliniCaboose said:
On the other hand, the last few years, we've only gone as far as our QB could take us. I'm not sure I'd trade a slightly better defense for a mediocre QB.
Now if Clayton or Boyd could handle the reins and be a top quarter B1G passer that's a different story. Trouble is we won't have any garbage time the rest of the season to find out.
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It’s hard to count on a qb who’s never been on the field. Obviously they see them in practice but it’s risky. It would be great for the program if we needed to bring in a transfer to start
 
#244      
Battle89
217sports said:
If we want to compete we will need to be around 25-30m NIL wise to be in the top half of the Big Ten next year and that will be inclusive of a new QB. Hopefully we can atleast get to 7 wins to say that we continued momentum through a year that was expected to be closer to rebuilding year.
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Aligned with the later conversation about DL prices and the overall rise in the market, I do not have faith that the numbers here would equate to a top-half NIL budget in 2027...we are at 24+ this year already and not competitive on the defensive side of the ball.
 
#245      
ChiefGritty
Battle89 said:
Aligned with the later conversation about DL prices and the overall rise in the market, I do not have faith that the numbers here would equate to a top-half NIL budget in 2027...we are at 24+ this year already and not competitive on the defensive side of the ball.
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In every year of the NIL era the price level in January was unimaginable the prior October.

It does have to hit a wall at some point, but it's pure guesswork when that arrives.

My personal heuristic would be to just watch the S&P 500, that's where all this cash is coming from.

The next recession is going to be a thousand year flood for the whole American sports industry.
 
#246      
fuddrules
BalloonsTheElephant said:
What's the likelihood we go Carson Boyd as our starter, save the NIL and put it towards places we need it more?
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Slim.

Illinois is going to the portal for a QB regardless. Zero percent chance they go into the season with 4 QB's who have taken only a few college snaps.

How much will they pay? It's the one (and only) portal position that has paid off every year so do they change that and go a different route? Doubtful IMO.

The only caveat is if Hauser gets injured and one of the back ups has to step up and plays reasonably well.
 
#249      
ChiefGritty
mhuml32 said:
If true, this is a major change from what insiders were saying in late summer.
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Is it? A change toward Boyd or away from him?

mhuml32 said:
Even if the plan was to make one of the internal options the starter, I'm not even sure it will be Boyd.
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No way, Boyd has been treated completely differently from prior prep recruits. He has the buy-in internally.
 
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