I wouldn’t be surprised if there were from a production standpoint, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they were a better fit for Illini. I don’t delve in deep as to who is in the portal, so pure speculation as to what made Daxon more appealing than others.
1.two years of eligibility
2. Interest in Illinois
3. Willingness to come in as rotational depth
4. Fit for and willingness to play NT
As fans we often forget things like 2-4 above. And, yes, that’s called recruiting, but not all recruiting roadblocks can be overcome. If they could we’d have top 10 classes every year. And do we know anything about him this past season other than his stats. Did he have any kind of nagging injury? Was he being used same way. He did have slightly better stats the previous year — 6 games, 8 tackles, 2 TFL, 1 sack — and his 24/7 prep rating would have put him in at least top 5 in BB’s classes, so would seem to have some talent with which to work.
Not saying he was an awe-inspiring pick up, but how many of those are in the portal and how many of those meet the criteria above. I know Terah Edwards didn’t have much in the way of playing time/stats at Northwestern prior to joining Illini. Has he worked out OK? Honestly asking as other than stats I don’t know how he graded out.