Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

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#502      

mhuml32

Cincinnati, OH
Werner Crystal Ball for Saboor Karriem.


fascinating michael j fox GIF
 
#503      

mhuml32

Cincinnati, OH
Yeah. Well two things I'd note.

1. We're already winning! Obviously I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but just feels like it should be noted that the order of operations here has been black cloud of doom lifted in the games first, recruits jumping on board second. It was the other way around with Ayo (and Kofi). We're showing these kids what's possible here on Saturdays.

2. It really can't be overstated how badly we've been doing with in-state football recruiting.

2023: Kaden Feagin is our only one of the top 17, with 3 going to Wisconsin, 3 to Northwestern and 3 to Iowa
2022: We got none of the top 11, with 2 to Northwestern and 1 each to Iowa and Wisconsin
2021: We got none of the top 25(!), with 3 to Iowa, 2 to Northwestern, 1 to Wisconsin and 5 to Minnesota (including that poor helpless backup QB lol)
2020: We got none of the top 50(!!!!!!!). I mean, what? This was the year Lovie took us bowling, for reference.
2019: We got none of the top 12, and Keith Randolph was our only one of the top 26
2018: We got none of the top 12. Luke Ford and Quincy Patterson (the last big recruitment Lovie actually competed in, as I recall) were the top 2.
2017: The initial Lovie buzz class, but Ricky Smalling and Kendrick Green were still our only 2 of the top 13 and with Lere Oladipo and Kendall Smith were 4 of the top 28
2016: None of the top 29. Not ideal indeed.

Beckman actually did intermittently better, but you get the idea.

I dug into this stuff many moons ago. If you get one of Elzy/Hill to go with Feagin and it's the best quality of in-state recruits since 2015 (Dre and Megginson) or 2009 (Hawthorne and Buckner). Get all three? You're competing with the in-state haul of '07 (Martez, Brent, Morris, Cornell).


Also, remember that getting beyond the top 600ish players gets really wishy-washy and it's fine to be dismissive if Illinois got the 26th best player in the class instead of the 18th and not perceive a difference between the players. You can view a couple targets in the 20's for Illinois as good examples: Antwon Hayden is 28th, Illinois commit. Mizzou badly wants him - they've been bringing him to campus and sending him lots of social media engagement. He also got a Mississippi State offer this fall. Jamel Howard is a Wisconsin commit. Illinois badly wants him. Wisconsin locked him down early and likely suppressed any other interest besides Illinois being a stalking horse trying to finish the recruitment. Is the State of Illinois full of enough talent to have ~30 P5 recruits? Probably, so you can decide if Howard/Hayden/Farrell are correctly assessed or belong in a big second tier behind the top 8.
 
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#510      
Bielema was talking at a press conference a couple days ago about making an offer to a recruit in the afternoon and the recruit getting another dozen offers since then, I was wondering if he was referring to Schuster.

I think it was actually the Juco DB from Texas - Channing Canada. I went to look at his Twitter after he announced our offer and he was tweeting other offers from programs just about every hour. With our DB success, I don’t blame other programs for trailing our coaches.
 
#512      

Joel Goodson

respect my decision™
Future secondary could be phenomenal.

Hill, Karriem, Wilcher in this class seem like studs. You get Taz, Bailey and Jennings back, McCantos who I'm high on too, then Turner at ss, and Rooks who is the most intriguing guy in the room.

yep, Rooks seems like a Witherspoon special (coming out of nowhere). Agreed, high on McCantos too. Turner is a super intriguing wildcard. Love how our secondary is shaping up. Needless to say, if teams can't pass against us, they're pretty much hosed.
 
#517      
I think it was actually the Juco DB from Texas - Channing Canada. I went to look at his Twitter after he announced our offer and he was tweeting other offers from programs just about every hour. With our DB success, I don’t blame other programs for trailing our coaches.
And he's got a twin! Gotta offer Chase Canada too. We do pretty good with twins.
 
#521      
Yeah. Well two things I'd note.

1. We're already winning! Obviously I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but just feels like it should be noted that the order of operations here has been black cloud of doom lifted in the games first, recruits jumping on board second. It was the other way around with Ayo (and Kofi). We're showing these kids what's possible here on Saturdays.

2. It really can't be overstated how badly we've been doing with in-state football recruiting.

2023: Kaden Feagin is our only one of the top 17, with 3 going to Wisconsin, 3 to Northwestern and 3 to Iowa
2022: We got none of the top 11, with 2 to Northwestern and 1 each to Iowa and Wisconsin
2021: We got none of the top 25(!), with 3 to Iowa, 2 to Northwestern, 1 to Wisconsin and 5 to Minnesota (including that poor helpless backup QB lol)
2020: We got none of the top 50(!!!!!!!). I mean, what? This was the year Lovie took us bowling, for reference.
2019: We got none of the top 12, and Keith Randolph was our only one of the top 26
2018: We got none of the top 12. Luke Ford and Quincy Patterson (the last big recruitment Lovie actually competed in, as I recall) were the top 2.
2017: The initial Lovie buzz class, but Ricky Smalling and Kendrick Green were still our only 2 of the top 13 and with Lere Oladipo and Kendall Smith were 4 of the top 28
2016: None of the top 29. Not ideal indeed.

Beckman actually did intermittently better, but you get the idea.
I go back a good ways, so to add some historical perspective...

- Looking back 30+ years, the overall quality of HS football in Illinois was, relative to other states, much better than it is today. There were almost always a few guys in the top 100 lists nationally, and some years there were 6 or more. you don't see that today
- Even when we were consistently good in the 80's and early 90's we got very few top 10 instate players. UM and ND were the dominant players in state, but Iowa, Wisky and random non-regional schools picked off quite a few players. ABI has always been an issue
- We made our living off of second tier instate players and typically did pretty well in St. Louis and Indiana. White of course did really well with juco's and attracted some good national recruits. Mackovic did pretty well in Texas and Tepper recruited well nationally
- Even under RT we were reasonably successful recruiting second tier IL HS talent. These guys made up a decent chunk of the 2007 Rose Bowl team
- So losing out on the top players instate is not a recent phenomenon, but missing out on the second tier players is.
 
#524      
What would a reasonable comparison to Ayo's contribution to the BB program be to a new kid or kids contribution to a football program.....
Maybe 4 or 5- 4 star or better recruits from Illinois each at strategic positions. a DB, receiver, DE/LB, RB, QB. That 5th spot at QB as the "face of
the franchise" if you will would be a clean sweep and put us in the national spotlight again next year. Maybe all these kids don't exist in one year,
in one state...but we could dream.
Arch Manning?
 
#525      
Yeah. Well two things I'd note.

1. We're already winning! Obviously I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but just feels like it should be noted that the order of operations here has been black cloud of doom lifted in the games first, recruits jumping on board second. It was the other way around with Ayo (and Kofi). We're showing these kids what's possible here on Saturdays.

2. It really can't be overstated how badly we've been doing with in-state football recruiting.

2023: Kaden Feagin is our only one of the top 17, with 3 going to Wisconsin, 3 to Northwestern and 3 to Iowa
2022: We got none of the top 11, with 2 to Northwestern and 1 each to Iowa and Wisconsin
2021: We got none of the top 25(!), with 3 to Iowa, 2 to Northwestern, 1 to Wisconsin and 5 to Minnesota (including that poor helpless backup QB lol)
2020: We got none of the top 50(!!!!!!!). I mean, what? This was the year Lovie took us bowling, for reference.
2019: We got none of the top 12, and Keith Randolph was our only one of the top 26
2018: We got none of the top 12. Luke Ford and Quincy Patterson (the last big recruitment Lovie actually competed in, as I recall) were the top 2.
2017: The initial Lovie buzz class, but Ricky Smalling and Kendrick Green were still our only 2 of the top 13 and with Lere Oladipo and Kendall Smith were 4 of the top 28
2016: None of the top 29. Not ideal indeed.

Beckman actually did intermittently better, but you get the idea.
Whatever happened to Ricky Smalling?
 
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