Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
#226      
A few things:

1. I, too, am a bit underwhelmed with the current haul, especially on defense so far.

2. But I refuse to assign a grade halfway through portal season. How many basketball seasons does the portal season look like a disaster, until it doesn’t?

3. The ratings assigned by the recruiting services cannot be trusted. They’re grading thousands of players in a matter of days.

Examples:

Bowick (outgoing) was an average receiver for us, 247 gave him a 4 star rating.
Perry (incoming) accounted for 30% of his team’s yards, 247 gave him a 3 star rating.
 
#227      
Listen to J Leman comments on these 2. Like most of us, he felt they were ready to make the leap, particularly
after the way they ended 2024. It just didn't happen. Way to inconsistent
Hood in particular gave us some really good performances this year and I have no doubt we'd have welcomed either of those guys back, though of course not at any price.
 
#229      
I legitimately mean this — 247, or any of these renowned recruiting site’s transfer rankings are 100% irrelevant. This isn’t like high school where they are covering these guys for years on end. It’s literally just slapping a number on a kid.

The only thing that matters is these player’s stats and production at their previous stops. Bowick compared to our new receivers is a prime example of this.

I do agree our defensive front needs some significant makeover. Give it some time and trust the process.
 
#230      
1. Good because it’s pretty bad right now.

2. It’s not that early tho. We have 12 commits. If you wanna give it a letter grade you gotta account for the papers that have been turned in already.

3. I’d argue they are actually MORE accurate because they have actual college data to go on. Not pure projections.

Wanna guess where the top transfer classes finished this year??

IMG_6444.png
 
#231      
I legitimately mean this — 247, or any of these renowned recruiting site’s transfer rankings are 100% irrelevant. This isn’t like high school where they are covering these guys for years on end. It’s literally just slapping a number on a kid.

For the non-top 100ish guys, I agree. That said, you just have to watch a little football to know a guy like Ian Strong can ball, or Keon Keeley can wreck an offense, or Josh Hoover will have big numbers at IU. While you may find some diamonds at smaller schools, it's still the top guys that are difference-makers. And, for the most part, we're not getting those guys. Not a criticism of the staff....it's all about resource deployment and we need to use ours intelligently.
 
#232      
Trust me I wanted guys like McCollum back but at a certain point it doesn’t make sense money wise. Also we have a program that delivers what they promise financially. Hell underwood even paid out Skyy Clark after he left.
Also, don't forget that Bret said that some players would be allowed to come back from the 2-deep.. IF they could find a HR spot somewhere...
 
#234      
I legitimately mean this — 247, or any of these renowned recruiting site’s transfer rankings are 100% irrelevant. This isn’t like high school where they are covering these guys for years on end. It’s literally just slapping a number on a kid.

The only thing that matters is these player’s stats and production at their previous stops. Bowick compared to our new receivers is a prime example of this.

I do agree our defensive front needs some significant makeover. Give it some time and trust the process.
It’s just the super obvious ones that’ll make sense. For example, a guy like Cam Coleman will be obviously be five star transfer.

After that, it’s just slapping a number like you said.
 
#236      
"FamILLy" and "prioritize on Illinois HS players" is not aging very well. Both these concepts require a level of loyalty that does not exist today on either side. Why? Because college football is a cutthroat business and all sides have to manage it that way.
 
#240      
I legitimately mean this — 247, or any of these renowned recruiting site’s transfer rankings are 100% irrelevant. This isn’t like high school where they are covering these guys for years on end. It’s literally just slapping a number on a kid.

The only thing that matters is these player’s stats and production at their previous stops. Bowick compared to our new receivers is a prime example of this.

I do agree our defensive front needs some significant makeover. Give it some time and trust the process.
I pretty much agree entirely. Bret is the big guy who should be making all of these calls. Trust in Bret. I could/should just stop here and say 'end of story. Period.'


If I were to add a BUT, it would be this. We suffered through ~25 years (or, dare I say 75 years) of mostly total irrelevance just like Indiana, Kansas and Vanderbilt --- where we religiously competed for players with all of the tier 4 schools across the country. We know those programs well. And when we didn't get the players we were recruiting, they frequently went to those tier 4 programs like Ball State, Colorado State, Miami (Ohio), Western Michigan, FAU, Akron, Miami (Ohio), Northern Illinois and FIU.

So the guys we're presently getting just don't have the pizzaz of recent transfer signings like Josh Imatorbhebhe (USC), Luke Ford (UGA), James Thompson (WIS), or Luke Altmyer (Ol' Miss). After back-to-back highly successful seasons under BB, our brains are saying 'let's go BIG this off-season!' Hence, the incoming transfers seem particularly underwhelming on the surface, especially given that 70% of our roster is turning over in 2026. We have a critical need for talent capable of starting in 2026. Our collective thought two weeks ago was probably that we'd be getting 8-10 players from the P2 to fill those gaps. And up to this point, we're not.

Meanwhile, Indiana is getting high-profile transfers and difference-makers like Fernando Mendoza (Cal), Pat Coogan (ND) and Josh Hoover (TCU).
 
#242      
I don’t wanna put a % on it but not having an NFL announcement yet is certainly not nothing …

And it’s not going to be a $$ issue …
I'm uncertain if this matters, but Xavier's mock draft position has dropped from 40 to 100 since the injury. And I think you are right. Whatever the decision, it won't be based on $$.
 
#245      
For the non-top 100ish guys, I agree. That said, you just have to watch a little football to know a guy like Ian Strong can ball, or Keon Keeley can wreck an offense, or Josh Hoover will have big numbers at IU. While you may find some diamonds at smaller schools, it's still the top guys that are difference-makers. And, for the most part, we're not getting those guys. Not a criticism of the staff....it's all about resource deployment and we need to use ours intelligently.

There are 3000 players in the portal and it’s impossible to rank them. Rusk being a 4 star shows that. Last year we added Coenen who didn’t start at his d2 school. Now he’s leaving us for a lot of money. There is a lot of talent at lower levels it’s all about identifying it
 
#249      
There are 3000 players in the portal and it’s impossible to rank them. Rusk being a 4 star shows that. Last year we added Coenen who didn’t start at his d2 school. Now he’s leaving us for a lot of money. There is a lot of talent at lower levels it’s all about identifying it

I think we're saying something similar. There are plenty of good depth pieces to get from smaller schools, and they are hard to identify. The top group in the portal isn't hard to identify though as they've been successful players at this level already. We seem to be allocating our resources to prep recruiting (as evidenced by our best class in....forever?), which is perfectly fine. Now, ideally those kids stick around, at least the good ones
 
#250      
There are 3000 players in the portal and it’s impossible to rank them. Rusk being a 4 star shows that. Last year we added Coenen who didn’t start at his d2 school. Now he’s leaving us for a lot of money. There is a lot of talent at lower levels it’s all about identifying it
I like the players we have picked up. We have added size, speed and athleticism which we needed. Our OL will be better, our receiving core is very deep. On defense, we have added speed. I trust Bret on finding the right fit for what we need.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back