Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

[Arizona Bob]

Back around the millenia I was teaching HS at East Suburban Catholic and Joliet Diocese schools, and had the opportunity to discuss this issue with some recruits who received scholarships to P5 schools.

Those who had other options didn't seriously consider Illinois when options at Iowa, Northwestern, Wisconsin or certainly ND tOSU or Michigan were available
Why not? Branding.

How do you change a program's brand to be competitive? It starts with the assistants. They're the face of the program to the recruits, and their gravitas defines the program to the student athletes. I had many recruits comment to me about how certain assistants knocked their socks off with their knowledge of the game, player development experience, and ability to develop the player to NFL level having done it many times before. There were times we had such assistants on staff, but not for a long while now.

When we send in coaches who only have one or two years experience at the P5 level and they're competing with the Harry Hiestands and Ed Warriners of the world, and have outstanding programs to sell as well, it's game over for Illinois.

How do we fix this? Winning a few games and going to minor bowls is fine, but it's not enough.

We need recruiters and assistants who are better than the competition, and whether such staff won't work for Lovie or he refuses to pursue them is a question I can't answer. IMHO, we now have the weakest staff in the B1G, especially with Schiano back at Rutgers.

That's why the Clark, Miles Smith and Hudson (he may be doing some good in Florida), Byrd and McClain hires were so disappointing. IT seems Clark is a decent recruiter, but he won't impress those 4* recruits with his experience and knowledge given the top recruiters to which he's being compared.

For those close to the program, this deficiency should be obvious. Can you answer why Lovie hasn't hired assistants good enough to change the brand? Do those kind of assistants reject him or does he just not give a damn? He knows what he needs to do for success I'm sure. The only question is why he isn't doing it.

 

[Twangers]

As far as our efforts in this cycle, I’m fairly satisfied. I have a few personal gripes that I won’t delve into right this minute but overall, I thought we did well for ourselves. We have 4 legitimate 4* star talents (We’llsee where Newton’s ranking falls) in my eyes and a number of intriguing developmental players. I know we’re reeling over the Antonio Doyle decision but that in and of itself was highly encouraging. To speak frankly, the Illini of old would have no business getting that far with a kid of that caliber. To go down to the wire and end in the top 2 for one of the better HS LBs I’ve seen in a while was a true moral victory. I’m excited for the prospects of 2021, even if Collier isn’t all that good.

 

[LHIllinis]

Why would a top assistant, come to Illinois? Lets ignore that others were interested in some of these low assistants as well. Both Clark and McClain are about to put players into the NFL, in the next couple of years. Especially, McClain. Does that help?

 

[Deleted member 654622]

The reason I asked that question (which was immediately followed by a post with data to support my question) was that if "TALENT" is the criteria, for the past 6 years UoI has pulled a grand total of 11 kids from the state of IL. If we were to deal with just the top 20 kids from the state of IL that would be 11 out of 120 kids (including all *s). Less than 10%. If we were to categorize them by stars, from the state of IL we signed 1 / 36 4+5* and 10 / 84 3*.

In the same period, UoI signed (from all other states) 69 kids (3* and above).

Lovie, in yesterday's presser, mentioned UoI offered 19 2020 IL kids, none came (I think he meant UoI offered 20 and 1 committed, not signed as yet)

Coming back to 2020 (just data folks) our best recruiter would have been the 4th best recruiter at MN (for 2020).

Every B10 West team got a higher ranking kid than our highest raking kid (who has yet to sign with us). Our highest raking kid would be the 7th best at 2020 NB.

Here are the numbers for 2020 for average rankings (from 247) (can provide URL, do not have it handy right now). These DO NOT have JC or transfers (I do not know how to rank JS/transfers):

NB: 590 (18 kids: signed and hard commits)
NW: 828 (17)
WI: 863 (19)
IA: 877 (22)
MN: 940 (26)
IL: 1013 (13) (comment by Robert in his rant article has this at 888. I think he included JC, which I did not)

IF I were to equalize the numbers for 13 players, the numbers would be rather *?#@ for UoI. The data shows we are not in the ballpark.

I have yet to gather and make sense of some numbers, BUT, I think what helped UoI last season are the portal kids. And, had we had the kids on the injury list we would have performed even better.

However, I do NOT think the past season's record can be replicated with consistency. UoI is hitting a very common ceiling that we see in any business. Has UoI improved? Absolutely - no two ways about it. Can it continue on this trajectory: I do not think so, the returns always diminish. As a result, after a certain point, no matter what UoI does they will not improve. (They may improve relative to themselves, but not other teams.)

UNLESS?

IMHO, based on data I have collected, UoI needs to absolutely upgrade the recruiters and at some point in time the coaches. Given that the two positions are the same better to get hold of great coaches that can recruit at a very high level. In short pay more (there is data out there that provides ranking as recruiters and pay).

Meanwhile, depend very heavily on the portal. That is what saved us this past year.

Again, these are just data points (collected it at 2 AM, so apologies if there are any mis-computations). Nothing more, nothing less. We do this type of analysis every day on the commercial (and the defense) side. However, I will admit that we take a lot more care than I have taken here, before publishing (this is the internet ).

Comments?

I apologize but I do not see the correlation of your question to this data.

I believe we have all agreed that

1. Border area players in general do not hold Illinois in high regard due to past performance and player facilities (fixed that one).
2. IL HS coaches also complain about not getting IL offers but still want thier players to go to more current prestigious programs
3. We all want talented rosters to win

Twangers makes good points about the allocation of our recruiting resources in how we get to number 3. I believe it all makes complete sense. I hope one day we can pull the majority of the top end talent within our border states region if anything to fill our 2 deep rotations, highlighted with game changers from wherever we can get them. Look at Ohio State's class - 24 signed - 10 from border states (bottom 5 all from OH), top end talent from California, Texas, New Jersey, NC. Basically coast to coast.
I would think that OSU recruiters do not have to put in a ton of work to pull in the .85 kids from Ohio, allowing them to spend more time chasing those top guys. But that is an assumption.

 

[ILL_INI]

The reason I asked that question (which was immediately followed by a post with data to support my question) was that if "TALENT" is the criteria, for the past 6 years UoI has pulled a grand total of 11 kids from the state of IL. If we were to deal with just the top 20 kids from the state of IL that would be 11 out of 120 kids (including all *s). Less than 10%. If we were to categorize them by stars, from the state of IL we signed 1 / 36 4+5* and 10 / 84 3*.

In the same period, UoI signed (from all other states) 69 kids (3* and above).

Lovie, in yesterday's presser, mentioned UoI offered 19 2020 IL kids, none came (I think he meant UoI offered 20 and 1 committed, not signed as yet)

Coming back to 2020 (just data folks) our best recruiter would have been the 4th best recruiter at MN (for 2020).

Every B10 West team got a higher ranking kid than our highest raking kid (who has yet to sign with us). Our highest raking kid would be the 7th best at 2020 NB.

Here are the numbers for 2020 for average rankings (from 247) (can provide URL, do not have it handy right now). These DO NOT have JC or transfers (I do not know how to rank JS/transfers):

NB: 590 (18 kids: signed and hard commits)
NW: 828 (17)
WI: 863 (19)
IA: 877 (22)
MN: 940 (26)
IL: 1013 (13) (comment by Robert in his rant article has this at 888. I think he included JC, which I did not)

IF I were to equalize the numbers for 13 players, the numbers would be rather *?#@ for UoI. The data shows we are not in the ballpark.

I have yet to gather and make sense of some numbers, BUT, I think what helped UoI last season are the portal kids. And, had we had the kids on the injury list we would have performed even better.

However, I do NOT think the past season's record can be replicated with consistency. UoI is hitting a very common ceiling that we see in any business. Has UoI improved? Absolutely - no two ways about it. Can it continue on this trajectory: I do not think so, the returns always diminish. As a result, after a certain point, no matter what UoI does they will not improve. (They may improve relative to themselves, but not other teams.)

UNLESS?

IMHO, based on data I have collected, UoI needs to absolutely upgrade the recruiters and at some point in time the coaches. Given that the two positions are the same better to get hold of great coaches that can recruit at a very high level. In short pay more (there is data out there that provides ranking as recruiters and pay).

Meanwhile, depend very heavily on the portal. That is what saved us this past year.

Again, these are just data points (collected it at 2 AM, so apologies if there are any mis-computations). Nothing more, nothing less. We do this type of analysis every day on the commercial (and the defense) side. However, I will admit that we take a lot more care than I have taken here, before publishing (this is the internet ).

Comments?

Robert said he didn't include the JC players, but he incorrectly divided the total by 13, essentially giving them a ranking of 0, which helped the average come down quite a bit. Your average is correct.

I would like to point out that there are still three scholarships left to give. How many guys ranked in the top 1,000 does Illinois still have a shot at? Most likely, this average falls further.

Relying on the transfer portal is not a good long term strategy. Illinois benefited last year in that: the staff was very familiar with the USC players having been at USC during their recruitment, Illinois was Brandon Peters' only P5 offer, and I believe Richie Petitbon had some sort of Illinois connection. Highly rated players transferring are looking for immediate playing time. As I see it, Illinois can offer that to a safety and an offensive lineman. Word is there are 4-5 players transferring out. I don't expect such highly rated recruits coming in as last year. It will probably be guys who can provide depth.

 

[Sneaky john ekey]

To be frank we really need to hire a central Illinois high school coach with similar name recognition to Corey Patterson. I’m offering Derek Leonard any amount of money he wants to be the QB coach. That man has put 6 D1 quarterbacks out in the last 12 years. Think about that, from a middle sized school he’s put a QB at western, Purdue, Illinois, eastern Illinois, southern Illinois and western Illinois. He would be your in with every single central and southern Illinois school. That’s a hire they need to make and I know they have tried before.

 

[Deleted member 654622]

That's why the Clark, Miles Smith and Hudson (he may be doing some good in Florida), Byrd and McClain hires were so disappointing. IT seems Clark is a decent recruiter, but he won't impress those 4* recruits with his experience and knowledge given the top recruiters to which he's being compared.

Did Seth Coleman ever get reranked to a 4 star like it was talked about? They also have been talking a lot about reranking Newton. So if those are true, that would be two 4 star D lineman Clark has landed to a losing program.
Not discounting everything you posted. I just feel you have a negative boner for Clark

 

[Deleted member 654622]

To be frank we really need to hire a central Illinois high school coach with similar name recognition to Corey Patterson. I’m offering Derek Leonard any amount of money he wants to be the QB coach. That man has put 6 D1 quarterbacks out in the last 12 years. Think about that, from a middle sized school he’s put a QB at western, Purdue, Illinois, eastern Illinois, southern Illinois and western Illinois. He would be your in with every single central and southern Illinois school. That’s a hire they need to make and I know they have tried before.

Are we not short one recruiter with Lovie as the D Coordinator? Price is already recruiting in Gill Byrd's place. Am I wrong here?

 

[Krombopulos_Michael]

Did Seth Coleman ever get reranked to a 4 star like it was talked about? They also have been talking a lot about reranking Newton. So if those are true, that would be two 4 star D lineman Clark has landed to a losing program.
Not discounting everything you posted. I just feel you have a negative boner for Clark

 

[DrewD007]

Did Seth Coleman ever get reranked to a 4 star like it was talked about? They also have been talking a lot about reranking Newton. So if those are true, that would be two 4 star D lineman Clark has landed to a losing program.
Not discounting everything you posted. I just feel you have a negative boner for Clark

247 ended up rating him a 4*, but he's still a composite 3* since other services didn't give him as much of a bump.

 

[Krombopulos_Michael]

247 ended up rating him a 4*, but he's still a composite 3* since other services didn't give him as much of a bump.

I tend to trust 247 much more than other sources bc IIRC, rivals was duped into providing a recruiting profile to someone who didn’t exist that received offers from some SEC schools.

 

[FT35]

Did Seth Coleman ever get reranked to a 4 star like it was talked about? They also have been talking a lot about reranking Newton. So if those are true, that would be two 4 star D lineman Clark has landed to a losing program.
Not discounting everything you posted. I just feel you have a negative boner for Clark

Coleman was re-ranked. You can see that his rating is a 90 on 247Sports. He was initially given a rating of 80 after he committed to Illinois. He did not play football his Junior year so all they had to go by was his film from 2016 when he was a Sophomore.

Nickerson discovered him at a Mercer camp in the Spring of 2018 when he decided to play football again. At that time he just had a few FCS offers. We got him on campus a month or so later which is when he committed to us.

Other P5 schools offered him after they saw his Senior year film and we almost lost him to Utah. Roundtree actually played a pretty big role in getting Seth to stay committed to Illinois.

His composite rating is lower because the other services didn't re-rank him based on his Senior film and offers.

 

[Sneaky john ekey]

Are we not short one recruiter with Lovie as the D Coordinator? Price is already recruiting in Gill Byrd's place. Am I wrong here?

I think we have a spot. Whatever you have to do to get Derek Leonard on the staff do it. I know he’s been offered the qb coach at Purdue and the head job at eastern Illinois.

 

[FT35]

I think we have a spot. Whatever you have to do to get Derek Leonard on the staff do it. I know he’s been offered the qb coach at Purdue and the head job at eastern Illinois.

Why hasn't he taken those jobs then? Perhaps he is happy where he's at or is angling for the job at SHG when his dad retires.

We've offered jobs to Sunkett and Holecek and they both said no because they were happy with their current situations.

 

[Greensboro]

Re Florida, we signed 4 blue chips from the Tampa Bay Area alone. None of the other schools you allude to had more than 3. Not disagreeing with Twangers, as I do care. But there is a ceiling in Illinois that correlates with basketball being the sport of choice for elite level athletes.

There surely is a ceiling everywhere, but we’re much closer to the floor than the ceiling in Illinois, we need to fix that before we start worrying about the ceiling in Illinois.

 

[Sneaky john ekey]

Why hasn't he taken those jobs then? Perhaps he is happy where he's at or is angling for the job at SHG when his dad retires.

We've offered jobs to Sunkett and Holecek and they both said no because they were happy with their current situations.

It’s not the SHG thing trust me on that. It’s cause he has young kids and didn’t want to move them. But his kids are getting older and I think if they made him a really good offer they could get him. Trust me when I say their isn’t a better offensive mind in the state at any level then him.

 

[Twangers]

Robert said he didn't include the JC players, but he incorrectly divided the total by 13, essentially giving them a ranking of 0, which helped the average come down quite a bit. Your average is correct.

I would like to point out that there are still three scholarships left to give. How many guys ranked in the top 1,000 does Illinois still have a shot at? Most likely, this average falls further.

Relying on the transfer portal is not a good long term strategy. Illinois benefited last year in that: the staff was very familiar with the USC players having been at USC during their recruitment, Illinois was Brandon Peters' only P5 offer, and I believe Richie Petitbon had some sort of Illinois connection. Highly rated players transferring are looking for immediate playing time. As I see it, Illinois can offer that to a safety and an offensive lineman. Word is there are 4-5 players transferring out. I don't expect such highly rated recruits coming in as last year. It will probably be guys who can provide depth.

The last paragraph, on ALL points, is 100% correct. Well done, as usual.

For note, Petitbon played high school with and was/is very close personally to Reggie Corbin. That's the connection.

 

[DrewD007]

Are we not short one recruiter with Lovie as the D Coordinator? Price is already recruiting in Gill Byrd's place. Am I wrong here?

We have all 10 assistant spots filled. Hardy Nickerson was DC/LB.

OC/QB: Rod Smith
RB: Mike Bellamy
WR: Andrew Hayes-Stoker
TE: Cory Patterson
OL: Bob McClain
DL: Austin Clark
LB: Miles Smith
CB: Keynodo Hudson
S: Gill Byrd (Joe Price is recruiting in his place at the moment)
ST: Bob Ligashesky

 

[ktal]

IF we want to play to represent the B10 West, we better win 25% of these battles here on out. That is in addition to pulling 3 * out of TX/FL.

This thread right now:
"Lovie, congratulations on six wins. Everything is horrible. HERE'S MY LIST OF DEMANDS!!!!"

 

[bombayIllini]

I tend to trust 247 much more than other sources bc IIRC, rivals was duped into providing a recruiting profile to someone who didn’t exist that received offers from some SEC schools.

Funny. 247, in its recruiting eval section, still has Garrick McGee as Illinois' O coord and is ranked the 3rd best recruiter at Illinois.

 

[HoosierIllini]

So what’s the play now? Looking into 2021 it seems we are going to be in need of WR, LB, and DL. And then in code red at OL, and possibly secondary. Maybe use the portal to grab a Interior DL, OG, and S for next season. Then test out recruiting and if you can’t get the 4 stars or high level JuCo for 2021 start picking apart the transfer portal? I’m just confused because I feel like we’re getting some solid talent, but not enough of it or consistently at positions of need for the long run.

 

[bombayIllini]

This thread right now:
"Lovie, congratulations on six wins. Everything is horrible. HERE'S MY LIST OF DEMANDS!!!!"

Nope.

"Lovie, here is the data, which you probably have, but based on my experience in data science, here are a few suggestions"

The word "better" is not a "demand", it is a word used to indicate urgency needed to attain certain goals, within a certain time frame. Par for the course. Done daily all over the world. For decades.

But, .....................internet.......................plenty of opinions, but lack of communication.

 

[bombayIllini]

As far as our efforts in this cycle, I’m fairly satisfied. I have a few personal gripes that I won’t delve into right this minute but overall, I thought we did well for ourselves. We have 4 legitimate 4* star talents (We’llsee where Newton’s ranking falls) in my eyes and a number of intriguing developmental players. I know we’re reeling over the Antonio Doyle decision but that in and of itself was highly encouraging. To speak frankly, the Illini of old would have no business getting that far with a kid of that caliber. To go down to the wire and end in the top 2 for one of the better HS LBs I’ve seen in a while was a true moral victory. I’m excited for the prospects of 2021, even if Collier isn’t all that good.

Wondering what that is based on? Comparing 2021 to past UoI performance or to 2021 B10 West opponents or something else?

 

[CogDog]

To be frank we really need to hire a central Illinois high school coach with similar name recognition to Corey Patterson. I’m offering Derek Leonard any amount of money he wants to be the QB coach. That man has put 6 D1 quarterbacks out in the last 12 years. Think about that, from a middle sized school he’s put a QB at western, Purdue, Illinois, eastern Illinois, southern Illinois and western Illinois. He would be your in with every single central and southern Illinois school. That’s a hire they need to make and I know they have tried before.

Derek Leonard 100%. I think he would give Rod a run for his money at offensive coordinator too. Excellent recommendation. What Illinois staff tried to hire him before?

 

[LHIllinis]

So what’s the play now? Looking into 2021 it seems we are going to be in need of WR, LB, and DL. And then in code red at OL, and possibly secondary. Maybe use the portal to grab a Interior DL, OG, and S for next season. Then test out recruiting and if you can’t get the 4 stars or high level JuCo for 2021 start picking apart the transfer portal? I’m just confused because I feel like we’re getting some solid talent, but not enough of it or consistently at positions of need for the long run.

OL first and foremost. But, after that, we will probably add guys in all areas since we will have 25+ spots.