You'd ideally never want your starting QB to be a true frosh. Unless it's Jared Curtis, Bryce Underwood, etc. (and even then there are concerns)
Illinois Football Recruiting Thread
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No idea if that’s accurate, but I believe I did read somewhere that his brother has a degree, a masters, and working in second masters.I thought he was still in high school
you saying he’s been taking community college classes for two years?
if true , it enforces my belief that OL guys are the teams smartest . they were on my high school team . and as a former guard , i’m not biased
Hard pass for that money. Unless it's going to be thrown into program. Our WR room at this moment is very good.
Hope he touches the field. It's there, tons of injuries.
Mizzou was heavy in the mix at the end. Parker and Henry deserve a lot of credit.
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
Hey PLEASE……
You just might be able to now update that UserName. (Let me suggest “….TheCFP.”)
You just might be able to now update that UserName. (Let me suggest “….TheCFP.”)
That's where I'm at with this as well. When he started going into the, we'll have new guys in here who'll be able to start from week 1......that spoke volumes.
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
Not absolving the coaching no but a lot of our d problems stem from our talent being at such a level where we have to make accommodations to try to win. We either blitz like mad or lay back in coverage to cover for lack of d line pass rush. When u play that style u have e to cover all your assignments and make all the tackles or you get blasted as happened to us a few times this year against top competition.
I get there is/was a talent issue, but we saw the defense play well when they were aggressive. So, they cannot go into next year doing the same things they've been doing on defense.
The strangest thing to me is that Henry is close with Walters, and Walters is such an aggressive coach, while Henry seems to be the complete opposite.
So very obvious and frustrating. The talent didn’t change one bit in the 2nd half of that last game, but the energy and aggressiveness sure did.
I would think it depends on player development and retaining those you wish to retain. Some of that is the character of the coaches and of the players you recruit. This staff seems to retain players at a pretty high level.
Illinivek23
- Gurnee
So all the kids that transferred in from JMU are way more talented than ours recruits over the last few years? Resulting in faster , more physical play? That doesn't seem believable. But development and sureness of assignment in scheme seems like it was a huge part of it.
I could be completely not remembering one, but what was a good offense that we played well against this year? I think the point is that when we weren't playing inferior offenses, we were bad because we lacked the dudes on that side of the ball.
illinidarrin
- from parts unknown
I'll never understand why Henry completely changed things after Walter left? Why mess with something that was working?
It is going to be very interesting to see who tries to replace Luke. I'm leaning another transfer but I really haven't seen enough to know if someone currently on the roster has the talent and leadership qualities to do that.
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
I don't see him as a day-one starter. There's been comments shared on here that make me less optimistic about him, long-term.
The offensive line was the problem along with play calling.
Evaluations play a big part as well.
For this class, I just wanted to say it's a home run. Yes I would like a few more game wrecker types at NG/DT (Though you also have a few OL who could fit there), but this class is so good. It's also underrated in a sense. I think Hankins should absolutely be a 5 star. Eberhart not far off if you're projecting. Rankin is electric. Those are 3 top 100-150 type of guys.
Barnett if fully healthy come next fall will factor. OL haul is ridiculous with Taylor (Future NFL), Maika (Future NFL), Smith (Possible instant impact as a true frosh), etc.
Alston is heavily underrated at WR. He's a 4 star caliber WR. Thomas at LB, Williams at LB, Cobb at LB, those are run and hit strikers who will eat running with space eaters and disrupters on the DLine. I'm very intrigued to see Tony B's development as a DT.
Really like Liggins as well. Knowing what we do about the trenches though, I feel like they need more. They need another impact NG/DT or two. They've got good ones and signed some pretty good ones, but one of my priorities in the portal would be to try to bring in that early/1st round type of NG to take this defense to the next level. Same with EDGE. They've got some good ones, but I want them to go get a few more guys who can cause havoc on the offense. It looks like they'll have what they need to make it happen, so it'll be interesting to watch.
All in all, absolute impact class and a perfect fit to what they've been doing. Sometimes you have to look at classes as 2 (The year before and the next). Top notch job. We should be talking about this one for a while, and it should be very soon/apparent.
The great thing about it also is this is just the early signing period so there's still time to add (Obviously portal as well).
Now let's get to '27. You get guys like Johnson-Cook, Brown at TE, Wagner, etc. at OL and you're cooking with gasoline. There would be a CFP title for the Illini by '27-'28.
Well sure, but we're also turning over almost the entirety of our current roster, so we have a ton of open positions, and the recruits will be able to compete for them. I mean that's the selling point: "Hey highly rated recruits, you want to play on a B10 team that has averaged 9 wins and have the opportunity to win a starting role?" I mean it almost sells itself.
I'm not trying to be cynical here but that's simple coach speech, not a dissertation on blaming players entirely and absolving coaches for performance. I have confidence Bret is going to be appraising the coaching performances as well, see what his options are, and go from there. But he'll do it behind closed doors, because that's what professionals do. You might want to strangle your assistant coach, but doing it in public just makes potential hires question if you're going to do that and shame them publicly if they come here. No point in doing that.
Not saying the RB room was without some fault however.
He didn’t. He just doesn’t blitz as much
Curbelo Fanboy
BERTBALL IS LIFE
Yes - like I indicated in my post it's a choice the coach has to make to overcome the talent gap. I agree with you that I prefer a bit more blitzing. You can't go all one way vs the other. I think it's best when you blend blitzing with playing coverage. As a layman, I do think we were a bit too tilted to the coverage side this year.
With the modern passing game, imo, you have to hit the QB or make him throw before he is ready some. If you let the qb with 5 receivers to choose from just stand back there he is at minimum gonna ding you for 5 to 7 yards a play. And if they get that yardage on each play at a minimum, you won't be keeping them out of the end zone very often.
Outside of Wiscy, we did seem to be a bit more aggressive after the Washington debacle. Really need to keep that approach. I thought the bowl game last year was perfect mix. We gave up some yards but we also hit Sellers enough or moved him off his target to kill some drives with sacks, turnovers or inaccurate throws.
Because he no longer had 3 NFL talents in the secondary?
I’ve watched him play many times, the kid is a great talent and plays very well on the run, and has a cannon of an arm. Assuming he stays healthy, I think he will be incredible in college.
That said, expecting him to come in as a freshman and play at a level needed to win 7-9 wins at the B1G level would be a stretch. I’d love to see I’m the O&B, but if Bryce Underwood can’t be a world beater as a freshman, I don’t think Jonas will either.
But seeing him live, the kid has a great arm, presence, and is super mobile - kind of like a tall, more athletic Dillon Gabriel - he also reminds me of a young Caleb Williams.
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