Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

[MajorNathanMaxwellJanice]

I live near STL and this just makes me sick to my stomach. It's like money is growing on trees for them And we have to collect pennies to try to make things happen here. Tired of hearing Mizzou fans and media talk about how they are a powerhouse now in football, and then get more help to make them even better.

Dude, it has ever been thus. Just have to tune that noise out. Seriously. Going back to the missery dark days before Pinky, anytime they won a couple games in a row, the folks you speak of would immediately start touting tiggers as awesome.

Almost all of the post-dispatch sports staff are missery alums.

StL sports radio is full of them, and they know who their listeners are.

StL television stations sports, same. Heck, they hired a StL sports anchor years ago as their tiggers radio voice and brought him in-house as an athletic department executive.

they have zero qualms about unabashedly cheerleading even in down years.

Illinois doesn’t have a similar situation.

Grew up watching channels 4 and 5; reading post-dispatch. Haven’t watched local tv sports coverage in probably twenty years (cusumano still there?)

Check post-dispatch for cardinals info couple times per season. That’s it.

Separately, remember the whole ‘Paige Arena’ debacle? illustration of stupid money

 

[illinidarrin]

the 2023 class was really encouraging for in-state recruiting and it really felt like we built on the 22 class and season

we are just getting slaughtered in-state in 2024 recruiting and that is making me gravely worried for the whole bielema administration.

This has happened to every coach we had. Start out strong in the state and then it falls apart. Are we going to change coaches just because of in-state recruiting? The program is in much better shape now under Bielema. It would be crazy to fire him for that.

 

[redwingillini11]

Cancel cancel cancel! Honestly it looks like FSU will be in the B1G by 2026, which likely means we will have a 10 game conference schedule moving forward. If that is the case, we cannot afford to have Mizzou on the schedule for non-con. As much as I'd love to have a meaningful non-con border state rivalry in football, I'd like to focus on winning our permanent conference rivalries more often than not and take 2 free wins in early September.

 

[DrMac210]

Myson Johnson-Cook

TikTok - Make Your Day

Moved to Katy, TX with his mom as soon as his freshman season at Decatur MacArthur ended.

ZERO chance he comes to ILL.

 

[STLflyinIllini]

the 2023 class was really encouraging for in-state recruiting and it really felt like we built on the 22 class and season

we are just getting slaughtered in-state in 2024 recruiting and that is making me gravely worried for the whole bielema administration.

5-7 in a historically bad B1G west will do that. We need to prove we can sustain success before we'll consistently get a good chunk of top instate talent. Hopefully we can do it.

 

[fatt lacosse]

This has happened to every coach we had. Start out strong in the state and then it falls apart. Are we going to change coaches just because of in-state recruiting? The program is in much better shape now under Bielema. It would be crazy to fire him for that.

of course we're not going to make a coaching change because of recruiting. but you said it yourself, this has happened to every coach we've had...and the last five (plus cubit) have eventually been fired after losing many more games than they won.

we all want this to be the guy that breaks the cycle. 2024 in-state recruiting struggles don't necessarily mean 2025 will be worse, but it sure will help if this version of this coaching staff can produce a winning football team in the fall.

 

[1m4tr]

Moved to Katy, TX with his mom as soon as his freshman season at Decatur MacArthur ended.

ZERO chance he comes to ILL.

Yep I just heard that. Katy HS. We’ll see how long he has his socials w top pinned posts wearing Illini gloves.

 

[fatt lacosse]

what year was the last time it went well? What would you consider a good in state year recruiting? Genuinely wondering. I’m thinking of it now, and it doesn’t seem easy, for realistic expectations.

2022 was a decent showing and 2023 was good all things considered. the 2024 class is deeper in IL than 2022 but compares reasonably to 2023.

in 2022 we had six of the top 20 recruits in the state and eleven of the top 40.
in 2023 we had two of the top 10, five of the top 25 and seven of the top 40 (plus an in state kicker and punter that were top 3 nationally)
in 2024, our top in state recruit is ranked #19, we have two of the top 25 and four of the top 40. bear in mind only three of the top 40 are uncommitted with the highest of those being 28th.

we got our lunch eaten this year. gotta prove on the field that we're better than this!

 

[Joel Goodson]

This has happened to every coach we had. Start out strong in the state and then it falls apart. Are we going to change coaches just because of in-state recruiting? The program is in much better shape now under Bielema. It would be crazy to fire him for that.

our in-state recruiting has been commensurate with our doormat status. Lovie was a tire fire. Same with Lasagna and his successor. BB has made some inroads. but anyone expecting a quick turnaround is delusional. if you're a HS stud with a bunch of good offers, why would you go to Illinois? this is gonna take time and we need to be competitive, year in and year out.

 

[BRucks]

Coach Finger, meet coach Nose

 

[LFOD]

I find myself wondering WWLD? As in "What would Lance Leipold have done, had he been hired rather than Bielema?"

Did he have some advantages at Kansas that Bret doesn't have at Illinois? Or is he somehow just a better recruiter/coach?

If not, then why Kansas, and not Illinois?

Or, to repeat a really bad slogan from a few years ago, "Why not Illinois?"

 

[BRucks]

Any idea why we whiffed on this one?

You need some measure of consistency with high school programs and coaches. Iowa has had two head coaches for the past 107 years (slight exaggeration). We've had countless over that same period and one of them openly snubbed Illinois high school coaches and recruits. Relatively few of our players over the past 50 years were able to play 4 or 5 years under the same coaching staff.

 

[illini0440]

Any idea why we whiffed on this one?

We never lead. It was also gonna be Iowa. Dads tight with coaches and people at Iowa.

 

[illini0440]

I find myself wondering WWLD? As in "What would Lance Leipold have done, had he been hired rather than Bielema?"

Did he have some advantages at Kansas that Bret doesn't have at Illinois? Or is he somehow just a better recruiter/coach?

If not, then why Kansas, and not Illinois?

Or, to repeat a really bad slogan from a few years ago, "Why not Illinois?"

Well Bret’s 18-19 here and Lance is 17-21

 

[ChiefGritty]

I find myself wondering WWLD? As in "What would Lance Leipold have done, had he been hired rather than Bielema?"

Did he have some advantages at Kansas that Bret doesn't have at Illinois? Or is he somehow just a better recruiter/coach?

If not, then why Kansas, and not Illinois?

Or, to repeat a really bad slogan from a few years ago, "Why not Illinois?"

The teambuilding strategies Bielema and Leipold enacted upon taking over at Illinois and Kansas respectively were something close to complete opposites.

Leipold brought most of his Buffalo staff including both coordinators and used the new added roster flexibility of that moment to bring in an army of transfers, including a whole raft of them directly from Buffalo. And that massive immediate overhaul has continued with very portal-heavy roster management ever since.

Bielema hired two coordinators he'd never worked with before and a staff generally of the best hired hands he could find, and then used the new added roster flexibility of that moment to create a basically unheard-of degree of roster retention and stability for a coaching transition. And that commitment to player retention and development has continued with very portal-light roster management ever since.

I don't know that one strategy is better than the other, but they're so night-and-day different it makes comparisons difficult.

 

[LFOD]

Well Bret’s 18-19 here and Lance is 17-21

Good point.

Kansas: 2-10, 6-7, 9-4 (with year prior to Lance 0-9)
Illinois: 5-7, 8-5, 5-7 (with year prior to Bret 2-6)

Hmm, okay. While I do like the trajectory of KS's results better so far, it's too early to tell.

But wait, what about 2023 recruiting classes:

Illinois: 38 (54 including transfers)
Kansas: 73 (63 including transfers)

Okay. Like I was trying to say, we're lucky to have Bret and not Lance.

 

[BRucks]

crappin' us? in the context of the massive crater we were in, a minor bowl is a major W (for us and that's all I'm referring to). digging out takes time.

These aren't your daddy's minor bowls. You now have players who choose not to play and, in some cases, programs actually lose money by participating. When we played in the ReliaQuest Bowl two years ago there were 35k fans and the DIA lost ~$3M. We had five players (Brown, Brown, Ford, Snyder and Witherspoon) opt out. Mississippi State had even more. There were probably a dozen bowls where attendance was even worse. There are still some plusses for struggling programs like us but it isn't like it was even ten years ago.

 

[Illinivek23]

Good point.

Kansas: 2-10, 6-7, 9-4 (with year prior to Lance 0-9)
Illinois: 5-7, 8-5, 5-7 (with year prior to Bret 2-6)

Hmm, okay. While I do like the trajectory of KS's results better so far, it's too early to tell.

But wait, what about 2023 recruiting classes:

Illinois: 38 (54 including transfers)
Kansas: 73 (63 including transfers)

Okay. Like I was trying to say, we're lucky to have Bret and not Lance.

Need to have a bounce back year on the D side - finish in top half of the B1G, at a minimum. Like our continuity going forward on offensive side, including OL depth and returning starting QB.

Recruiting will go as W-L's go...

 

[bluemountain]

I find myself wondering WWLD? As in "What would Lance Leipold have done, had he been hired rather than Bielema?"

Did he have some advantages at Kansas that Bret doesn't have at Illinois? Or is he somehow just a better recruiter/coach?

If not, then why Kansas, and not Illinois?

Or, to repeat a really bad slogan from a few years ago, "Why not Illinois?"

Well, we did win the Big 10 the year that was our slogan

 

[bluemountain]

our in-state recruiting has been commensurate with our doormat status. Lovie was a tire fire. Same with Lasagna and his successor. BB has made some inroads. but anyone expecting a quick turnaround is delusional. if you're a HS stud with a bunch of good offers, why would you go to Illinois? this is gonna take time and we need to be competitive, year in and year out.

You can go all the way back to the 80's and 90's, and you would see the same thing. Back then, you could pretty much count on most 4* and above recruits going to ND and MI, with a few plucked by Iowa or the hot school du jour. Our bread and butter was the Henry Jones' and John Holecek's of the world - high 3* type players who weren't quite good enough to land on the blue bloods radar.

The two best recruiters we have had as HC's in my lifetime were Tepper and Zook, and neither could coach worth a bucket of warm spit. If RG had just fired Zook after the 2009 season we would probably be looking back at multiple division championships - the 2010 and 2011 teams had enough talent to win 9-10 games with a decent coach, and that type of start would have really ignited recruiting and fan interest.

 

[217sports]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1754614699675562334

Looks like Knight is out

 

[suburbanILLINI]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1754614699675562334

Looks like Knight is out

How can he do that if he has signed his NLI?

 

[illini0440]

How can he do that if he has signed his NLI?

You get let out of your NLI

 

[GrayGhost77]

 

[illini0440]

Let’s overreact when we don’t know why!