Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

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#2,076      
Deleted member 654622
IlliniGuy said:
Looks like Walker is from st Louis and still has 3 years of eligibility remaining.
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I would not overlook this tidbit. I am not sure what HS he played at, but could help with the Trinity kids...
 
#2,077      
BigStan97
FiveStar said:
Yeah we didn’t recruit a juco linebacker last year that ended up leading our team in tackles did we?
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Hahaha touché but! We have, or wait, did have very good depth at LB. (before transfers). So taking a JUCO in a position where we have depth already is an ideal situation if you need to go JUCO.

Taking a JUCO in a position where you Have little to no depth is dangerous. That JUCO leaves quickly and you are even in a worse situation at that position then when you started.

Everyone don’t freak out. This is just my opinion- I’ve never been a huge fan of JUCO. To build a program you need Hs kids and development. Going JUCO is a stop gap solution and could affect getting another HS kid who could come in and develop.

This could work out perfectly fine and this JUCO could come in and help maybe redshirt a kid that needs more time.
 
#2,078      
Hoppy2105
BigStan97 said:
Hahaha touché but! We have, or wait, did have very good depth at LB. (before transfers). So taking a JUCO in a position where we have depth already is an ideal situation if you need to go JUCO.

Taking a JUCO in a position where you Have little to no depth is dangerous. That JUCO leaves quickly and you are even in a worse situation at that position then when you started.

Everyone don’t freak out. This is just my opinion- I’ve never been a huge fan of JUCO. To build a program you need Hs kids and development. Going JUCO is a stop gap solution and could affect getting another HS kid who could come in and develop.

This could work out perfectly fine and this JUCO could come in and help maybe redshirt a kid that needs more time.
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Honestly, just take the best guys available. (Especially if he may have 3 years of eligibility) If he is good enough to come in and be a part of the 2 deep then take him. (If not, I would agree a JUCO isn't a good idea)

Depth issues can be worked out with redshirts and recruiting to preserve class balance.
 
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#2,079      
bert1991
BigStan97 said:
Agree, the one good thing is the JUCO is a DB where we have Hobbs, Adams, Williams, DeGroot along with all the HS DBs in this current class. Getting a JUCO at a position where we already have young prospects in is less alarming.
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I agree. Think of scholarship years as the premium you pay for an insurance policy. Would you rather pay "4 years" for a backup player or "1 year?"

***Edit - Sorry, posted this before reading he had 3 years remaining. Still....trust the staffs evaluation.
 
#2,080      
Lake Camelot
Next year we will add Avery and Kendrick Green at DT. We have some young DE's. I would really like another good LB. AA hurt.

I feel OK about our two QB's.

Not overly excited about our class. But I guess it is OK.
 
#2,084      
TheGMan
It's one JUCO player. Why is everyone freaking out? He's likely being recruited for depth, and as someone else said, might allow some of our high school DBs to develop before being thrown into the fire. Getting a few JUCO players for depth purposes is not the end of the world. It becomes a problem when you have to rely on mostly JUCO players (I'm looking at you, Beckman).
 
#2,085      
bert1991
:thumb: - I hear ya! I'm still gushing over Sydney Brown's highlights. Tough nosed, absolute smash hitter, fearleass and very fast.

Illinibatt said:
I know I keep harping on this but the film on these 'nobody' recruits looks really good. Walker, Brown, Ware, Joseph all look great. They are all fast, agile hips, and hit like trucks.

With Cubit/Beckman, we used to bring in guys and you'd watch the film and say ... ehhhh? This is 180 degrees different.
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#2,086      
JDHalfrack
Illinibatt said:
Based on film alone, the guys they are signing are so much better than anything we've signed since the Zook years. Its so obvious from the film.
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This. I mean, again, it's based on film alone, but the gut feeling is still that these classes and players are leaps an bounds better than where we were the previous 8 years.

The 2017 season at first look was awful, but when you start to really look into some of the development and some of the numbers, we made a LOT of progress in a lot of areas. I think we will see that this class will continue that.

Everyone needs to remember that we're still fighting to even be welcome to compete for some of the big time recruits... let alone actively compete to get them. Many of the players we've added this year are better than ones we've added last year, and look at how good many of them last year turned out to be. If we can continue to coach up 2* into 3/4* type players and coach 3* players into 4/5* type players, that will start to speak volumes.

We will win. And when we do, if the system is still intact, we will continue to recruit better and better players.

I get very frustrated at Lovie many times throughout the season/recruiting process, yet he has proven me wrong nearly every damn time. I do believe he is the right guy to fix this program's football problems.
 
#2,088      
Future Walk-On
Anyone know anything about Coran Taylor? Articles seem like its not an issue that he is delaying his signing.
 
#2,091      
South Farms
chief2007 said:
It appears the talent level being recruited is not much better. They also still need to recruit Illinois better. I really thought Lovie with his NFL connections would raise the talent level and his connection with the Bears help to recruit Illinois. Neither has happened and currently ranked at the bottom of the Big10 rankings.
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because the Illini's negative issues are so well known here in state, its going to take longer for us to rebuild that pipeline than the ones we have going in Fla and Texas.


I would not expect a lot of change in our in state recruiting until we start going 7-5, 8-4 for a few years
 
#2,092      
Jack Ingram Ball Screen
chief2007 said:
It appears the talent level being recruited is not much better. They also still need to recruit Illinois better. I really thought Lovie with his NFL connections would raise the talent level and his connection with the Bears help to recruit Illinois. Neither has happened and currently ranked at the bottom of the Big10 rankings.
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He took over a dumpster fire of a program. The talent level of recruits has been raised. I would rather see him recruit Texas and FL because they have better players than Illinois. When was the last time we had talent coming in like Avery, Rivers, Myers? The Zook Era? We are in the running for players we have no business getting interest from (Adeoye, Brown, Ford). I would say that is a massive improvement from a team that hasn't won a big ten game since 10/5/2016.
 
#2,093      
Hoppy2105
South Farms said:
seeing that 24/7 has it 87% Ga, 9% OU and 4% Bama, this would be the national coup of the week if we get him to stay home
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I'm not sure if the crystal ball trends are the same in football as they are in basketball, but if an announcement date/time is set, we need to pay attention to them.

Unless something changes, the odds are he is going to Georgia. Man would it be cool if he stayed home...but I just don't see it.

Plus, didn't we already just sign a TE? :D
 
#2,094      
Deleted member 654622
Hoppy2105 said:
I'm not sure if the crystal ball trends are the same in football as they are in basketball, but if an announcement date/time is set, we need to pay attention to them.

Unless something changes, the odds are he is going to Georgia. Man would it be cool if he stayed home...but I just don't see it.

Plus, didn't we already just sign a TE? :D
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I believe we told Luke we might have a numbers issue, and sent him packing

J/k:D
 
#2,095      
BananaShampoo
IllinoisFanAtFSU said:
https://www.hudl.com/profile/5304133/sydney-brown

In the meantime.... WOW. Sydney Brown came out of nowhere, but he has the most fun highlight tape in the whole class. Yes, it is just a highlight. But by the end of it I was left thinking that we will have the best safety duo in the B1G by the time he's a junior and Bennett Williams is a senior.

The tape is that good, give it a watch!
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Very impressive. It looks like he can play some WR and return some kicks, as well!
 
#2,096      
ebakola
Illinibatt said:
This staff clearly ignores 'stars' and relies on their own player evaluation system and I'm fine with that.

We've talked for years about heavily recruiting Florida, California and Texas and how 2*-3* players from there often would be 4* guys in Illinois. The staff proved last year that they can hit big on guys like that ... that everyone else seemingly ignored. Bennett Williams, Isaiah Gay, Louis Dorsey etc... ... all showed signs of being the type of players we need.

I'm guessing the same happens again this year.

Based on film alone, the guys they are signing are so much better than anything we've signed since the Zook years. Its so obvious from the film.
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The heavy signing of defensive backs can only be seen as a good thing. Could also indicate Lovie and Nickerson tend to convert the largest safeties into outside linebackers to optimize team speed. Guess I don’t share the pessimism seen in earlier threads, but I like where we’re going with the last two classes.
 
#2,097      
EJ33

@TomLuginbill

To give further context on #EarlySigningDay roughly 2,800 players will sign G5/P5 LOI's in a given class. By 2day we predict 1,900+ will be signed, another 500+ will be committed, but unsigned which only leaves around 400 players left to be signed. That's a small pool in January.
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#2,098      
blmillini
chief2007 said:
It appears the talent level being recruited is not much better. They also still need to recruit Illinois better. I really thought Lovie with his NFL connections would raise the talent level and his connection with the Bears help to recruit Illinois. Neither has happened and currently ranked at the bottom of the Big10 rankings.
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It doesn't seem to matter to you what the staff has proven or developed, you just continue to put all your eggs in the rankings basket. It seems most others have decided to trust the process. I don't care that you don't, I just wish you would stop telling us all the same thing every 10 or so posts.
 
#2,100      
Dren1
blmillini said:
It doesn't seem to matter to you what the staff has proven or developed, you just continue to put all your eggs in the rankings basket. It seems most others have decided to trust the process. I don't care that you don't, I just wish you would stop telling us all the same thing every 10 or so posts.
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+1. Nearly everyone is focusing on the apparently higher level of skill of recent recruits, very few (if any) are claiming that the actual rankings are higher.
 
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