I don't think that you understand how much better hs football in FL is than IL.
Illinois Football Recruiting Thread
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.th...dinator-kirk-ciarrocca-leaving-for-penn-state
Does this make any of those recruited vulnerable to a flip?
Does this make any of those recruited vulnerable to a flip?
You mean like the E. Stl coach who complained when we didn't take his No. 4 player when his top players went elsewhere. One way street, eh coach!
From my cheat sheet:
Name of player / position
State / national / position
Committed to
(Subject to change)(data from 247, gathered a few days ago)
2021 | ||||
| Illinois | Florida | Texas | California | |
1 | J. J. McCarthy / PRO / 4* 1 / 17 / 4 Michigan | James Williams / S / 5* 1 / 5 / 1 Georgia | Tommy Brockermeyer / OT / 5* 1 / 3 / 1 Texas | Korey Foreman / SDE / 5* 1 / 1 / 1 Southern Cal |
2 | David Davidkov / OT 2 / 159 / 22 Michigan | Agiye Hall / WR 2 / 22 / 1 TBD | Camar Wheaton / RB 2 / 6 / 1 TBD | Jake Garcia / PRO 2 / 14 / 3 Southern Cal |
3 | Athan Kaliakmanis / Dual 3 / 268 / 9 Minnesota | Terrence Lewis / OLB / 4* 3 / 30 / 2 TBD | Savion Byrd / OT 3 / 12 / 2 Texas | Raesjon Davis / OLB 3 / 19 / 1 Southern Cal |
4 | Sam Jackson / ATH 4 / 270 / 25 Minnesota | Leonard Taylor / DT 4 / 36 / 6 TBD | Landon Jackson / WDE 4 / 16 / 1 TBD | Troy Franklin / WR 4 / 23 / 2 TBD |
5 | Dominic Bass / DT 5 / 273 / 21 Michigan | Branden Jennings / OLB 5 / 39 / 4 Florida State | Tunmise Adeleye / SDE 5 / 26 / 3 TBD | Beaux Collins / WR / 4* 5 / 34 / 3 tOSU |
6 | Mac Uihlein / ILB 6 / 286 / 10 TBD (No illinois offer) | Bryce Langston / WDE 6 / 42 / 3 Florida | Ja'Tavion Sanders / ATH / 4* 6 / 46 / 4 Texas | Tyler Buchner / PRO 6 / 50 / 6 Notre Dame |
7 | Justin Johnson / RB 7 / 299 / 18 TBD (Illinois offer) | Jason Marshall / CB 7 / 47 / 4 Miami (FL) | Donovan Jackson / OT 7 / 57 / 11 TBD | Miller Moss / PRO 7 / 59 / 7 TBD |
8 | Dominic Lovett / WR 8 / 303 / 50 TBD (Illinois offer) | Mario Williams / WR 8 / 48 / 6 Oklahoma | Prestopn Stone / DUAL 8 / 58 / 2 TBD | Ma'a Gaoteote / OLB 8 / 63 /5 Southern Cal |
9 | Mar'Keise Irving / RB / 3* 8 / 359 /25 TBD (Illinois offer) | Jacorey Brooks / WR 9 / 60 /9 Miami (FL) | Jalen Milroe / DUAL 9 / 65 /3 Texas | Seven McGee / RB 9 / 83 / 5 Oregon |
10 | Bryan Sanborn / ILB 10 / 366 / 13 Wisconsin | Xavian Sorey / ATH 10 / 62 / 5 Alabama | Shadrach Banks / ATH 10 / 67 / 6 Texas A&M | Ethan Calvert / ATH 10 / 90 / 9 Washington |
| Next 10 (in order): 1 to Iowa 1 to Notre Dame 1 to Minnesota 1 to Michigan | Next 10 (no order)(all 4*): 2 to FSU 2 to Clemson 1 to tOSU 1 to FL | Next 10 (no order)(all 4*) 3 to Texas A&M 2 to Texas 1 to Oklahoma 1 to Alabama | Next 10 (no order)(all 4*) 2 to Oregon 1 to Notre Dame 1 Southern Cal 1 to Alabama | |
| 20th IL: 702 national | 20th FL: 148 National | 2oth TX: 112 national | 20th CA: 202 national |
Well done. The next question would be, on average, how many Floridians, Texans, Californians and Illinoisans are in the top 1000 every year?
Bonus question, on average if you combine the entire Midwest (border idea stolen from twangers), do they have more top 1000 players than when you combine the big 3? And what is the mean ranking of the players from those areas?
Thanks.
I will try and get that info.
What I do know is that for the past two recruiting classes, UoI had about equal numbers of kids below and above 1000. Want to say about 47% above and 53% below (1-999).
The other 5 B10 West teams had better ratios than UoI.
BTW, my interest is B10 West, nothing else.
Wow. I know it's only one year, but the fact that the second highest ranked player from IL is ranked lower than the 20th ranked players from TX or FL is certainly telling.
Also, gtfoh Minny!
Distribution of Top 1000 by state (247):
UoI signed 6 in each year?
Lovie stated, in his presser for Red box, that UoI offered 19 in IL, none signed (I think it included the WR that has committed and not signed as yet)
| State\Year | 2019 | 2020 |
| IL | 19 | 18 |
| IN | 12 | 9 |
| KY | 12 | 11 |
| MO | 21 | 20 |
| IA | 6 | 7 |
| WI | 3 | 9 |
| CA | 97 | 82 |
| FL | 138 | 125 |
| TX | 130 | 128 |
UoI signed 6 in each year?
Lovie stated, in his presser for Red box, that UoI offered 19 in IL, none signed (I think it included the WR that has committed and not signed as yet)
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Deleted member 649710
D
Guest
I think its fair to say that Lovie is not an elite recruiter like Zook and Locks were. Those guys also had the benefit of having pre-existing relationships with HS coaches and players that they brought with them to Illinois; Lovie did not. Hiring assistants like Patterson and Clark, with relationships to players, has paid recruiting dividends. I would very much like to see Lovie add another guy or two like that to the staff. Lovie seems to have created a better culture; he needs assistants out on the road who can sell that to recruits.
So I hear willie Shaw is close to committing. Idk just keep your ears out. The staff isn’t recruiting heavy right now
this is what we are currently seeing. Adding price and Bellamy should bear fruit in 2021
Anybody know if the staff is in on Benjamin Perry, the safety from Mount Carmel? Dude has fantastic film: https://www.hudl.com/profile/10025423/Benjamin-Perry.
If they can land 1-2 of the 3 good in-state RBs (Johnson, Irving, Shaw), Lovett, somebody like Perry, and a couple of OL/DL from Illinois...that would be a fantastic improvement on the home state recruitment.
If they can land 1-2 of the 3 good in-state RBs (Johnson, Irving, Shaw), Lovett, somebody like Perry, and a couple of OL/DL from Illinois...that would be a fantastic improvement on the home state recruitment.
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
linebackers).Literally the 50th best kid in FL is in the Top 10 in Illinois. That's why i'm not that worried about recruiting the state.
You’ll never consistently sign those players from FL or TX, which is why you have to care.
Pending a few re-evals, we haven’t signed one top fifty player (Let alone top 100) in either of those states in this cycle. We will sign one top ten player from Illinois and two from Missouri. The point here should speak for itself. If you’re treating non-border states as must recruit areas and you don’t have a national footprint, you’re running uphill into the wind.
Indeed I do, Kevin. I've seen a lot of prep football in the Tampa ST Pete region (as well as Midland/Odessa in Texas and Cincinnati in Ohio). They play at an entirely different level than Illinois. There's no question that their skill and speed players are overwhelmingly superior and have numbers that dwarf the quality skill players in Illinois. The only place we're competitive with Florida is in Offensive lineman due to some exceptional weight training programs in many Illinois High schools. Illinois should have resources that are far better than Florida considering that in Illinois $17,297 per year is spent per pupil and Florida only spends $10,686 per pupil. http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/2019 Rankings and Estimates Report.pdf page 60. With what Illinois spends, it should have far better coaching, player development, and equipment to have players meet their potential. Too bad high performance of our students is not the primary goal of our public schools. If it were, we'd have Spring football to at least be competitive with lower spending, higher athletically performing students in other states.
OL should be one position we shouldn't have to go to Florida to get, yet we get shut out for the top ones with this staff. When we're getting the 263rd best player in Florida for OL when much better OL are in Illinois, that's a people and process problem....
We should be getting WRs, TEs (like Barker), RBs, pass rushers, DBs and LBs from Florida on a regular basis if Florida is our focus. We should be getting a Dele Harding and Hansen every year, but we aren't. that's the problem.....
Thunderwear, I respecetfully disagree with the statement that our early classes got us to the middle of the pack in the B1G. Those classes got us a 4-8 quality team. This year's transfers (Peters, BheBhe, Eifler, Pettibon Wole, and Navarro) got us to the middle of the pack. Without them, we saw what the Lovie prep recruits could do in the NW game. That team against NW had an upside of 4 wins, if that. No MSU win. No Wisconsin win. Maybe no Connecticut win.
They accomplished about what 4-4* and 1-5* upperclassman were expected to achieve, although the problems they had that kept them down on their previous depth charts, injury problems, severely cut back their effectiveness into the season. That was the risk we took with them, but it paid off enough for some spectacular comebacks and upsets that branded this season. Definitely worth it, but we can't expect that level of talent infusion from transfers this year.
The problem is that we need that kind of talent transfer upgrade every year to reach minor bowls, and attracting that level of recruit annually is extremely unlikely. We'll see.
Cheat sheet #2A (partial)(6 states out of 15)
UoI FB 2021 offer list (subject to change):
Position / stars
State / National / Position
Committed to
UoI FB 2021 offer list (subject to change):
Position / stars
State / National / Position
Committed to
| IL | TX | FL | NC | GA | MO | |
1 | 1 / 17 / 4 Michigan | DUAL / 4* 8 / 58 / 2 TBD | DUAL / 3* 60 / 385 / 14 TBD | APB / 5* 2 / 21 / 1 TBD | 23 / 236 / 13 CLEMSON | RB / 3* 7 / 492 / 36 TBD |
2 | DUAL / 3* 22 / 707 / 23 TBD | DUAL / 3* 114 / 863 / 26 ILLINOIS | DUAL / 3* 81 / 623 / 17 TBD | WR / 4* 4 / 85 / 14 TBD | WR / 4* 12 / 131 / 25 TBD | WR / 3* 6 / 466 / 79 TBD |
3 | RB / 4* 7 / 299 /19 TBD | RB / 4* 41 / 245 / 14 TBD | RB / 4* 40 / 277 / 16 TBD | WR / 3* 25 / 448 / 75 TBD | OLB / 4* 9 / 100 / 6 TBD | WDE / 4* 2 / 92 / 4 TBD |
4 | RB / 3* 9 / 359 / 25 TBD | RB / 3* 99 / 714 / 56 TBD | WR / 4* 30 / 223 / 37 TBD | TE / 3* 27 / 476 / 19 TBD | 22 / 234 / 16 FLORIDA | 3 / 97 / 8 Notre Dame |
5 | RB / 3* 14 / 500 / 36 TBD | WR / 4* 30 / 161 / 31 TBD | WR / 4* 43 / 287 / 46 TBD | TE / NA NA / NA / NA TBD | CB / 4* 1 / 51 / 5 TBD | |
6 | WR / 4* 8 / 303 / 50 TBD | WR / 4* 37 / 228 / 39 TBD | OT / NA NA/ NA / NA TBD | OT / 3* 29 / 528 / 51 TBD | ||
7 | WR / 3* 21 / 703/ 112 TBD | WR / 3* 64 / 463 / 78 TBD | SDE / 4* 13 / 91 / 7 TBD | OT / 3* 37 / 687 / 65 TBD | ||
8 | TE / 3* 13 / 472 / 18 TBD | WR / 3* 70 / 517 /87 TBD | OLB / 3* 72 / 540 / 39 TBD | OT / NA NA/ NA /NA TBD | ||
9 | OT / 4* 2 / 159 / 22 MICHIGAN | WR / 3* 88 / 642 / 105 TBD | CB / NA NA / NA / NA TBD | OG / 4* 9 / 156 / 4 TBD | ||
10 | OT / 3* 16 / 553 / 54 TBD | OT / 5* 3 / 12 / 2 TBD | CA / NA NA / NA / NA TBD | OG / 3* 24 / 413 / 16 TBD | ||
11 | SDE / 3* 18 / 578 / 38 TBD | OT / 3* 54 / 381 / 39 TBD | S / 3* 58 / 377 / 15 TBD | |||
12 | OLB / 3* 20 / 702 / 49 TBD | OT / 3* 80 / 544 / 52 TBD | ||||
13 | 4 / 270 / 25 MINNESOTA | WDE / NA NA / NA / NA TBD | ||||
14 | SDE / 5* 5 / 26 / 3 TBD | |||||
15 | SDE / 4* 3? / 165 / 11 TBD | |||||
16 | SDE / 4* 36 / 219 / 15 TBD | |||||
17 | SDE / NA NA / NA / NA TBD | |||||
18 | DT / NA NA / NA / NA TBD | |||||
19 | ILB / 4* 21 / 116 / 3 TBD | |||||
20 | OLB / NA NA / NA / NA TBD | |||||
21 | 10 / 67 / 6 TEXAS A&M |
Cheat sheet #2B (partial)(remaining 9 states)
UoI FB 2021 offer list (subject to change):
Position / stars
State / National / Position
Committed to
UoI FB 2021 offer list (subject to change):
Position / stars
State / National / Position
Committed to
| WV | SC | AZ | CA | MD | AL | MS | DC | MI | |
1 | OT / 4* 2 / 78 / 13 TBD | OT / NA NA / NA / NA TBD | ILB / 3* 21 / 640 / 24 TBD | CB / 4* 11 / 120 / 9 TBD | CB / 4* 9 / 163 / 12 TBD | ATH / NA NA / NA /NA TBD | ATH / NA NA / NA / NA TBD | DUAL / 5* 1 / 15 /1 TBD | RB / 4* 3 / 49 / 2 TBD |
2 | SDE / 4* 3 / 165 / 11 TBD | OG / NA NA / NA / NA TBD | CB / 4* 18 / 167 / 12 TBD | WR / 4* 3 / 307 / TBD | |||||
3 | 22 / 252 / 21 OREGON | SDE / 3* 4 / 420 / 30 TBD |
I agree with much of what you are saying. But the transfers in, one could argue, replaced the player’s that left. Williams, Watkins, Roundtree, rivers, etc. we definitely picked up skill players, but we also are still missing a class of players. I agree that our recruiting has not been stellar, particularly instate. But I also think talent evaluations have been stellar. I also don’t know how many 4 and 5* athletes from Illinois were going to come to Illinois. Did we miss on important recruits? Yes. Emphatically without a doubt. Does it need to be fixed? Definitely. We have to land higher quality in state prospects and border state prospects. Did transfers help us? Without a doubt. Did transfers out hurt us. Immensely. I think rivers would be starting over peters. I think Roundtree was better than Betiku. Truth is that it’s hard to imagine this team without bhebhe and we are certainly short on depth.. But I do believe that depth issue is mostly resolved. And I’m not concerned with our recruiting at the time being. I think it’s improving and we are learning from our mistakes. I appreciate your take and voice in the boards. Despite some of what I say, when I’m not playing devils advocate, I agree with much of what you are saying. I may not take it as far as you take it. But it’s good to have someone with so much experience and insight sharetheir insights. Thanks for the posts!
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
I'm confused by this argument. It's important to recruit Illinois, it's important to prioritize certain recruiting hotbeds, such as Texas and Florida. There's no point in arguing the value of each because it isn't a binary relationship (e.g., give up recruiting Illinois to focus on Texas).
I can't speak for out-of-state recruiting (besides general location, such as DFW area), but high school and location within the state of Illinois has been a strong indicator of Illinois football's chances of getting a specific recruit. Using the 2021 recruiting rankings for the State of Illinois, there are at least five recruits in an area that Illinois has a ~0% chance of securing commitments (JJ McCarthy (La Grange), David Davidkov (Winnetka), Athan Kaliakmanis (Antioch), Mac Uihlein (Lake Forest), Bryan Sanborn (Lake Zurich)). I'd also make an argument that one more recruit are in an area that Illinois is facing an uphill battle (Mar'Kiese Irving (Country Club Hills), but there is less history on that area for support and more of a projection of surrounding communities. This means Illinois has a plausible chance on four of the remaining recruits in the state (Sam Jackson (Naperville - committed to Minnesota), Dominic Bass (Chicago), Justin Johnson (Edwardsville), and Dominic Lovett (East St. Louis). The coaching staff has a choice of making progress. Start really hitting on the areas of high likelihood, or start making in-roads in these areas that have not been kind to Illinois in the past 15+ years (North suburbs, West suburbs, private schools, quad cities). It also wouldn't hurt if Illinois would find a pulse in any neighboring states besides St. Louis (specifically Indiana). Having an improved season in 2019 will hopefully have some tangible improvement for in-state recruitment, but as I mentioned above, the map isn't great and a number of 2021 in-state recruits have already committed elsewhere. Getting someone like Willie Shaw would be a nice start. It's very early with national rankings, almost so early it's foolish to mention, but the 247 rankings for Illinois in-state prospects show a very deep state. Securing 5-6 of these recruits would be a great keystone for future team improvement and in-state recruiting success.
I can't speak for out-of-state recruiting (besides general location, such as DFW area), but high school and location within the state of Illinois has been a strong indicator of Illinois football's chances of getting a specific recruit. Using the 2021 recruiting rankings for the State of Illinois, there are at least five recruits in an area that Illinois has a ~0% chance of securing commitments (JJ McCarthy (La Grange), David Davidkov (Winnetka), Athan Kaliakmanis (Antioch), Mac Uihlein (Lake Forest), Bryan Sanborn (Lake Zurich)). I'd also make an argument that one more recruit are in an area that Illinois is facing an uphill battle (Mar'Kiese Irving (Country Club Hills), but there is less history on that area for support and more of a projection of surrounding communities. This means Illinois has a plausible chance on four of the remaining recruits in the state (Sam Jackson (Naperville - committed to Minnesota), Dominic Bass (Chicago), Justin Johnson (Edwardsville), and Dominic Lovett (East St. Louis). The coaching staff has a choice of making progress. Start really hitting on the areas of high likelihood, or start making in-roads in these areas that have not been kind to Illinois in the past 15+ years (North suburbs, West suburbs, private schools, quad cities). It also wouldn't hurt if Illinois would find a pulse in any neighboring states besides St. Louis (specifically Indiana). Having an improved season in 2019 will hopefully have some tangible improvement for in-state recruitment, but as I mentioned above, the map isn't great and a number of 2021 in-state recruits have already committed elsewhere. Getting someone like Willie Shaw would be a nice start. It's very early with national rankings, almost so early it's foolish to mention, but the 247 rankings for Illinois in-state prospects show a very deep state. Securing 5-6 of these recruits would be a great keystone for future team improvement and in-state recruiting success.
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