Illinois Football Recruiting Thread
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Deleted member 654622
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I am not concerned about the fact they live within the state. It is just that the two QBs are 4 stars, one of which we wanted, and are in close proximity to us. Now I like Collier a lot. And if rankings are the same, give me the Texas kid for sure. It is just the time for us to take that next step in recruiting and hold on to some more players within our "border area".
Maybe I am being over the top considering it was just one class ago that we kept IW, Shammond, Moses and Randolph. But then we turn around and lose Mookie, Harper, AJ, the other AJ, Doyle, M. Moore and J. Moore. All dudes that we tried to get. And yes the transfer portal has been awesome to us and I hope that continues. The staff that does recruit, looks like they are busting their aces out there. We just didn't get any immediate difference makers in this class and that has to stop.
Hope my negative vent doesn't bring anyone down this a.m. Like always there is a handful of talented players around us, let's go get em
Nice article...nice swagger...Look forward to him being effective for our team!
I wish we made some sort of effort in Ohio/PA/MI - we did during the Zook years and got some really good players especially from Ohio.
Deleted member 746648
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Its a little harder now that we don't play Ohio St every year anymore. There's alot of talent in that state though.
Just looked at the transfer portal for the first time. Lots of dbs and ol. How does that work? Are they openly recruited or is there protocol like a hs player?
I try to follow all of this as much as I can, but at the end of the day, I have to rely on the main people from this thread to just lay it on me straight.
Did we do well yesterday or not?
Did we do well yesterday or not?
BananaShampoo
Captain 'Paign
- Phoenix, AZ
Zook was born and raised there and played for Miami of Ohio, plus I think he had staff with ties there also. So yeah, we had connections there, just like we did to DC/Maryland with Locksley and hence why we got a number of really good players from there (Rejus Benn, etc).
We obviously have more Florida/Texas/St Louis ties now so makes sense why those now are our recruiting hotbeds, which I'm more than good with.
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
Once Illinois high school coaches push Illinois like they do Wisconsin and Iowa then we will start focusing in-state.
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
A bit of a chicken-egg thing, no? Regardless of the reasons (no rehash here, sorry /s), hoping we establish a beachhead with in-state 2021 recruits. I certainly expect it.
I mean just look at what sunket did to Corey. Find me another coach in America that would call out the flagship school for pulling a scholarship on Twitter. They expect Illinois to take their kids but send their best to the SEC. I know kids make the decisions but it’s still a fact.
Bold: There are both factual inaccuracies here and theories that I flat out do not agree with.
SampsonRelpenk
- Edwardsville, IL
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Me too. Great rant.
Robert sees it exactly how I see it. Class size is everything in the rankings. I don't look at the accumulated score. I only look at the average of the recruits. Once the staff achieves class balance and has more schollies each year, I will still look at the average. IMO, it's the only way to look at the ranking.
What Sunkett did really surprised me. I thought Lovie was building a relationship there. these must be more to the story. Is there info that can be shared about this???
BananaShampoo
Captain 'Paign
- Phoenix, AZ
He did nice analysis in the comments of his most recent article:
"I looked at the 13 Beckman/Cubit players who are graduating and the 11 high school players coming in. I originally looked up their composite rating, but there's been clear grade inflation over the years. So I decided to look at player rank. Where were the outgoing players ranked and where were the incoming players ranked in their classes?
Players graduating: Dre Brown #457, Dele Harding #721, Jamal Milan #898, Kurt Gavin #1098, Trenard Davis #1112, Kenyon Jackson #1219, Justice Williams #1305, Caleb Reams #1353, Reggie Corbin #1534, Stanley Green #1723, Tymir Oliver #1872, Griffin Palmer #2159, Ayo Shogbonyo #2841
Average ranking: #1406
High school players in the 2020 class (can't use the jucos because they're ranked differently): Thompson #351, Frenchie #408, Love #430, Riggins #810, Davis #903, Spann #905, Newton #1024, Griffin #1342, Tyler #1374, McCoy #1652, Sparks #1951
Average ranking: #888"
That shows pretty clear improvement in recruiting from where we were when he took over. And also, just look how some of those guys graduating turned out to be. Milan, Harding, Corbin, Green, Oliver, Palmer, and Shogbonyo definitely outplayed their rankings.
Powell was a solid prospect as a underclassmen but really struggled the last couple of years. We thought we could get AJ and Powell in a package deal. Once AJ was gone and Powell didn’t establish himself the offer was off the table. Sunkett seems to think we owe him something and called out CP. Sorta ridiculous considering how it’s your flagship school and we’ve offered guys out of his school and they picked other schools constantly.
Great.
Now, to complete the statistical process, please complete a similar analysis for each of the B10 teams in the West league. Just like the above analysis "shows pretty clear improvement in recruiting" that our recruiting has improved over those two data years, it does not prove that we are more competitive in B10 West - yet. So, our improvement in recruiting has no real meaning WRT B10 West, UNLESS our recruiting improvement beats the other members in the B10 West. For us to represent the B10 West (with some consistency) we need to beat the rest of the B10 West in recruiting (with some consistency).
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
One quibble: not "sorta." Other than that, spot on.
What it means is that with the elevated average recruit ranking, we will now finish middle of the pack in B1G West, where in the past we were at the bottom. Bumping that average up in small increments wont show a clear advantage, but will allow for occasional spikes in wins. We need more wins, and better recruiting, to up that average and solidify us as an upper tier B1G West team... Time will tell, but we appear to be on the correct path.
We've been awful their whole lifetimes? Wonder how we landed in 2 BCS bowls this century then? BTW, how many B1G schools can say they've been in 2 BCS bowls this century?
We are 91-150 since 2000. With a overall program record of 602-598-49. So yes since 2000 we have been awful. And we haven’t had a winning season since 2011 when most of these recruits were in elementary school. So yes we haven’t been good and we need to re-evaluate on our expectations a tad as a program.
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