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I am not concerned about the fact they live within the state. It is just that the two QBs are 4 stars, one of which we wanted, and are in close proximity to us. Now I like Collier a lot. And if rankings are the same, give me the Texas kid for sure. It is just the time for us to take that next step in recruiting and hold on to some more players within our "border area".2 of which are quarterbacks and a pretty average receiver. Also ones a soft commit. I think recruiting Illinois is super overrated. Sorta like what twangers said. Hell the university isn’t even attracting Illinois students. That’s something we should be talking about more.
Nice article...nice swagger...Look forward to him being effective for our team!
Zook was born and raised there and played for Miami of Ohio, plus I think he had staff with ties there also. So yeah, we had connections there, just like we did to DC/Maryland with Locksley and hence why we got a number of really good players from there (Rejus Benn, etc).I wish we made some sort of effort in Ohio/PA/MI - we did during the Zook years and got some really good players especially from Ohio.
I try to follow all of this as much as I can, but at the end of the day, I have to rely on the main people from this thread to just lay it on me straight.
Did we do well yesterday or not?
Once Illinois high school coaches push Illinois like they do Wisconsin and Iowa then we will start focusing in-state.
I mean just look at what sunket did to Corey. Find me another coach in America that would call out the flagship school for pulling a scholarship on Twitter. They expect Illinois to take their kids but send their best to the SEC. I know kids make the decisions but it’s still a fact.A bit of a chicken-egg thing, no? Regardless of the reasons (no rehash here, sorry /s), hoping we establish a beachhead with in-state 2021 recruits. I certainly expect it.
It's not talked about because it isn't realistic for us to recruit that area and hope to land multiple P5 guys. Cory Patterson was the staff recruiter for Indianapolis but they gave up on that area because they couldn't gain any traction there. His secondary area is now in Georgia.
Indiana has three P5 schools and many B1G East schools have easy access to Indianapolis. It's very over-recruited and we're not going to breakthrough there in the near future.
Missouri is the ONLY border school in which we can realistically hope to land multiple P5 guys in each class. We aren't getting P5 recruits from Iowa and Wisconsin. We've had minimal success recruiting Kentucky (Louisville) but that state has two P5 schools and Brohm has obvious ties to Louisville.
The first part of your post is spot on and it's why it's important for us to recruit Illinois better. A kid like Beason is a unicorn. Almost every other kid in his situation is not coming to a school like Illinois.
Recruiting should always start here in Illinois. The state produces 20-30 P5 guys in each cycle and it should not be unrealistic for us to be able to land 7+ of these guys in each cycle. If we can't do that then it's going to be very hard for us to move our program forward through conventional recruiting.
Me too. Great rant.I agree with Robert's take: https://www.illiniboard.com/story/2019/12/18/signing-day-rant/
I agree with Robert's take: https://www.illiniboard.com/story/2019/12/18/signing-day-rant/
I mean just look at what sunket did to Corey. Find me another coach in America that would call out the flagship school for pulling a scholarship on Twitter. They expect Illinois to take their kids but send their best to the SEC. I know kids make the decisions but it’s still a fact.
He did nice analysis in the comments of his most recent article:Robert sees it exactly how I see it. Class size is everything in the rankings. I don't look at the accumulated score. I only look at the average of the recruits. Once the staff achieves class balance and has more schollies each year, I will still look at the average. IMO, it's the only way to look at the ranking.
What Sunkett did really surprised me. I thought Lovie was building a relationship there. these must be more to the story. Is there info that can be shared about this???
He did nice analysis in the comments of his most recent article:
"I looked at the 13 Beckman/Cubit players who are graduating and the 11 high school players coming in. I originally looked up their composite rating, but there's been clear grade inflation over the years. So I decided to look at player rank. Where were the outgoing players ranked and where were the incoming players ranked in their classes?
Players graduating: Dre Brown #457, Dele Harding #721, Jamal Milan #898, Kurt Gavin #1098, Trenard Davis #1112, Kenyon Jackson #1219, Justice Williams #1305, Caleb Reams #1353, Reggie Corbin #1534, Stanley Green #1723, Tymir Oliver #1872, Griffin Palmer #2159, Ayo Shogbonyo #2841
Average ranking: #1406
High school players in the 2020 class (can't use the jucos because they're ranked differently): Thompson #351, Frenchie #408, Love #430, Riggins #810, Davis #903, Spann #905, Newton #1024, Griffin #1342, Tyler #1374, McCoy #1652, Sparks #1951
Average ranking: #888"
That shows pretty clear improvement in recruiting from where we were when he took over. And also, just look how some of those guys graduating turned out to be. Milan, Harding, Corbin, Green, Oliver, Palmer, and Shogbonyo definitely outplayed their rankings.
Powell was a solid prospect as a underclassmen but really struggled the last couple of years. We thought we could get AJ and Powell in a package deal. Once AJ was gone and Powell didn’t establish himself the offer was off the table. Sunkett seems to think we owe him something and called out CP. Sorta ridiculous considering how it’s your flagship school and we’ve offered guys out of his school and they picked other schools constantly.
What it means is that with the elevated average recruit ranking, we will now finish middle of the pack in B1G West, where in the past we were at the bottom. Bumping that average up in small increments wont show a clear advantage, but will allow for occasional spikes in wins. We need more wins, and better recruiting, to up that average and solidify us as an upper tier B1G West team... Time will tell, but we appear to be on the correct path.Great.
Now, to complete the statistical process, please complete a similar analysis for each of the B10 teams in the West league. Just like the above analysis "shows pretty clear improvement in recruiting" that our recruiting has improved over those two data years, it does not prove that we are more competitive in B10 West - yet. So, our improvement in recruiting has no real meaning WRT B10 West, UNLESS our recruiting improvement beats the other members in the B10 West. For us to represent the B10 West (with some consistency) we need to beat the rest of the B10 West in recruiting (with some consistency).
We've been awful their whole lifetimes? Wonder how we landed in 2 BCS bowls this century then? BTW, how many B1G schools can say they've been in 2 BCS bowls this century?And why should they? We have been awful their whole lifetimes. That’s why I’m saying it’s ridiculous people care about how many in-state kids we get. Give me Missouri, Florida and Texas kids.
We are 91-150 since 2000. With a overall program record of 602-598-49. So yes since 2000 we have been awful. And we haven’t had a winning season since 2011 when most of these recruits were in elementary school. So yes we haven’t been good and we need to re-evaluate on our expectations a tad as a program.We've been awful their whole lifetimes? Wonder how we landed in 2 BCS bowls this century then? BTW, how many B1G schools can say they've been in 2 BCS bowls this century?