Give Lovie 3 years and this will be the most experienced teams in the country. The key is to get a stud qb and rb and the Illini will be off to the races. Easier said than done but maybe Lovie finds a few diamonds in the rough. After all Mike Dudek was not heavily recruited and he is a stud wr for the Illini and likely has two more years with the Illini.
Yep, what Lovie had done this year is absolutely unprecedented. The youth is just crazy and asking 4 18 year olds to man an o line against 22 and 23 year old men from big ten programs is a guaranteed outcladding in conference games. That said, anyone knocking the results this year clearly doesn't understand the process. Not saying it' going to work, but this has been the plan all along. And this is not really the second year for Lovie. He was hired in March so he didn' get a recruiting class year one. The true frosh playing now are his first recruiting class. So really this is year one by any measure. And it's a year one with 8 seniors in the entire program. 2-10 was expected. A few more wins next year would be nice. But really it's about looking to 2019 and especially 2020 for substantial results.
Yes, bronco. Well put. All they need to do is get great players, and score more points than the other team, and they will be good.
Not sure that they would even be guaranteed a win in that one.
I know Micah Dew-Treadway was on record basically begging the clowns Beckman and Cubit for an offer. Never got it and went to ND.
No doubt they need to do better in the state overall. However I really think that is low hanging fruit to complain about. I really see Lovies staff focusing hard on player evaluation and looking for the overlooked kids, particularly in the big time prep football states. Can't say I have a problem with that strategy at all. Nor do I have a problem. With going all in on the 18 year olds in the program and doing the slow build, but it will clearly alienate Beckman and cubits recruits and make for a painful few years. Now some of the on field decisions this year were head scratching but that's another story.
Generally agree bones. I just put very little stock into the idea of locking up the state as one of the major things illinois is missing. Look st the 2018 rankings. There are five kids in the whole state rated 4 stars. The rest are all 3 stars. Yes, it would be great to get a handful of those four stars every year. No doubt that would help. But assuming you won' get over half of them, and we won't, that alone is nowhere near enough. 3 stars is 3 stars regardless of where it's from. You have to recruit the nation and find the kids who fit your system best. No need to take a lesser fit solely because of geography. Unless of course its to establish a relationship or get a future player on the radar. And also find kids who want to go there. That's the piece most people forget about. Wisky kids want to go to wisky. Illinois has to win some more to get to that point in getting in on top in state kids vs the blue bloods.
Get the players you want, whether it's Pensacola or Tuscola. It' about finding the right guys. Don't care where they'e from. Obviously targeting a 300 mile radius around your campus is important and they must improve there. But win with who you have first and make kids want to come to the flagship university. Be competitive recruiting illinois kids. But you still need a lot of help outside the border. Best kids who you can get first. And if a staff doesn't like a certain 3 star from the suburbs, you don't offer him.
those 80-90% of lines are likely kids that would go to Illinois but arent being recruited. We have a better chance at getting quality out of those kids than the scraps of what remains from FL or TX.
