Illinois Football Recruiting Thread

#78      
LFOD
therealmiket86 said:
Who says we get blown out by Alabama. I definitely don’t think we win but it would be a competitive game

Money wouldn’t be taken from basketball. More donations came in after the final 4. That money was donated for basketball. When football gets to the next level of success bigger donations will start coming in

I don’t think it’s crazy to ask for better performances in the Washington and Wisconsin games. We got our embarrassed in games 2 winnable games. Obviously Indiana was a lot better but you can’t get your !!! kicked like that on national tv.
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I take full responsibility for the Wisconsin loss. My son and I attended that game, and I had a bad feeling about it all week leading up to it. I obviously cursed the game. What an embarrassment. It was one of the worst games I've had the misfortune of watching in person.
 
#80      
Battle89
bluemountain said:
Wow...I can't say I agree with this. I love Luke, but it's not often a "generational talent" goes undrafted. Given our talent level vs our competition, the fact we won 19 games the past 2 seasons is pretty amazing. We were by no means a CFP playoff caliber team
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Maybe not if you are applying 'generational talent' to the entire football landscape, no. But in Illinois football history, Luke Altmyer was absolutely a generational talent. Best QB in 10-20 years (since Juice / Nate era) and best 3-year Illinois QB ever.

And he is the primary reason we won those 19 games. All credit to Bret and Barry for finding him, getting him, and retaining him of course.

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#81      
217sports
Josh will make sure that the football team has what it needs from revenue sharing. We are going to be middle of the big ten when it comes to funding, Bret is thinking long term (5/5, portal) with the use of those funds right now which has led to the class we have now. We're not poor
 
#82      
therealmiket86
217sports said:
Josh will make sure that the football team has what it needs from revenue sharing. We are going to be middle of the big ten when it comes to funding, Bret is thinking long term (5/5, portal) with the use of those funds right now which has led to the class we have now. We're not poor
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We are a middle of the pack payroll wise. People are acting like this is a poverty program. For where we are at as a program it doesn’t make a ton of sense to spend crazy on prep recruits.
 
#83      
pvaughn8
therealmiket86 said:
We are a middle of the pack payroll wise. People are acting like this is a poverty program. For where we are at as a program it doesn’t make a ton of sense to spend crazy on prep recruits.
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I don't get the sense we spent crazy on the portal either though. Obviously houser was the big one but I can't imagine the Colorado State or FCS guys cost a lot.
 
#84      
therealmiket86
pvaughn8 said:
I don't get the sense we spent crazy on the portal either though. Obviously houser was the big one but I can't imagine the Colorado State or FCS guys cost a lot.
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Bringing back guys like X, juice and Matt Bailey isn’t cheap. They are spending money on retention. It’s not like guys like Dixon, Henderson..etc are taking pay cuts to come back

Also those guys cost a lot more than you think. Obviously a guy like Sullivan from wsu doesn’t cost much.
 
#85      
BretMyBeachHouse
Battle89 said:
Maybe not if you are applying 'generational talent' to the entire football landscape, no. But in Illinois football history, Luke Altmyer was absolutely a generational talent. Best QB in 10-20 years (since Juice / Nate era) and best 3-year Illinois QB ever.

And he is the primary reason we won those 19 games. All credit to Bret and Barry for finding him, getting him, and retaining him of course.

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Of course you apply generational across the college football landscape.

If you're applying it just to illinois than Luke's generational talent did indeed produce generational results for illinois.
 
#88      
Battle89
BretMyBeachHouse said:
Of course you apply generational across the college football landscape.

If you're applying it just to illinois than Luke's generational talent did indeed produce generational results for illinois.
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No you don’t. You apply it to whatever criteria you choose to make your point.

If he is the best QB in a generation, he is generational. For Illinois or otherwise. Don’t see why this is controversial.
 
#89      
mhuml32
therealmiket86 said:
Bringing back guys like X, juice and Matt Bailey isn’t cheap. They are spending money on retention. It’s not like guys like Dixon, Henderson..etc are taking pay cuts to come back

Also those guys cost a lot more than you think. Obviously a guy like Sullivan from wsu doesn’t cost much.
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The retention under Bielema has been excellent, much better than other, similar programs. This offseason was the first time they didn't keep everyone they wanted and there has been some fan anxiety. It's not going away, you can only hope that the retention resistance under Bielema stays higher than expected and the program can push it to blue blood levels if/when they are on the precipice of a special season like 2025.

LFOD said:
I'm seeing disappointment in our NIL budget, not our coach.
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I don't have disappointment in the NIL budget. That's partially because I have no clue of the actual number. That said, I do have questions about the budget (don't we all!), but mostly about choices. The outcomes in prep recruiting have been miserable for 2027, but great in 2026 - what choices are impacting that difference? Is Lopati muuuuch better than the staff realized in the winter or did they miscalculate the QB prep market costs? Are the coaching staff changes having this much of a negative impact on recruiting or is this just noise?
 
#91      
BretMyBeachHouse
Battle89 said:
No you don’t. You apply it to whatever criteria you choose to make your point.

If he is the best QB in a generation, he is generational. For Illinois or otherwise. Don’t see why this is controversial.
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The original point someone made was that he was a generational talent that was wasted. As an Illini generational talent he clearly wasn't wasted. I think the original poster was claiming he was an overall generational talent, thereby 19 wins over two seasons was below what should be expected.
 
#94      
IlliniCaboose
It is very possible to hold two things to be true true at the same time.
You can be appreciative of the success we've had the last few years AND concerned about our relative money/ talent acquisition compared to our peers going forward.
 
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