The Illinois football team brought in some pretty good players over the last few recruiting classes.
These talented recruits have come from all over the country and have helped build the team we watch on Saturdays.
But, that same team we have watched over the years hasn’t lived up to the standard that we have all come to expect.
Illinois football should have a winning tradition. Instead of a winning tradition we get stuck with mediocre to bad teams more often than not.
I think that could all change with the hiring of head coach Lovie Smith.
Smith brings NFL experience and knowledge of the game that we haven’t seen in Champaign in a very, very long time.
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The recruiting that brought in some pretty good players also hasn’t brought in enough good players and that is one reason we aren’t seeing good results.
This is another area that Lovie is going to help.
When a recruit sees Lovie and his accolades, he will also see a potential future in the NFL because Lovie knows what it takes to get to the next level.
On the recruiting trail, Lovie is going to be looking for the same thing. He wants players who can play and will be targeting these players to come to Champaign.
I counted the number of scholarship offers according to each state starting from the class of 2015 and going through the class of 2018. I wanted to see where most of the scholarships were going and how there have been changes as the leadership has changed.
Class of 2015
This is the class of 2015 recruiting map. You can see how spread out the scholarships are and that really doesn’t change throughout. This recruiting class had a total of 250 offers. Tim Beckman was the main recruiter of this class.
Class of 2016
This is the class of 2016 recruiting map. Nothing much has changed as far as which states to focus on. There were a few changes because there was a new coaching staff in place with Bill Cubit leading the way. This class had 310 scholarship offers.
Class of 2017
The class of 2017 has 257 scholarship offers, currently. This class was a mix of Bill Cubit recruiting and Lovie trying to piece together a respectable class.
Class of 2018
This is the class we will see Lovie’s full repertoire of skills in the recruiting ranks. He will have his fingerprints on this class and ideas instilled in this class.
Recruiting Numbers Based Off Scout.com
Noticeable Changes
Throughout the four recruiting classes, you can notice changes in the recruiting approach.
In the class of 2015 with Tim Beckman as the head coach, the main focus was on the state of Ohio. He had come from Toledo so there were ties to that state.
But, with those ties came Beckman recruiting too many Ohio kids and some potentially not being D1 caliber.
When there was a coaching change between the class of 2015 and 2016, you can see the subtle changes in strategy.
Bill Cubit took the reins and the Ohio scholarship offers went from 37 in 2015 to 34 in 2016. This trend continues after Cubit was fired and as Lovie is integrated into the head coach role.
Illinois Fighting Illini
The class of 2017 currently only has 20 scholarship offers to the state of Ohio and for 2018 Lovie has only offered 1 scholarship to an Ohio player so far.
What this trend tells me is that the focus is going from the Midwest to some other region of the country. That region is actually the SEC states.
The SEC states have been slowly creeping on the Illini radar since 2015.
The class of 2015 only had 103 recruits that were offered scholarships in SEC states. That is 41-percent of the scholarships Illinois offered that year.
In 2016, the Illini offered 151 of the 310 scholarships to SEC states, which is 48-percent. The following year in 2017, they offered 137 of 257 scholarships to SEC states, which is 53-percent.
In the class of 2018, while it is still early, that number has jumped even higher. They have offered 16 of the 28 scholarships to SEC states. That is 57-percent of their scholarships so far.
Illinois has clearly shifted their focus from hitting the Midwest really hard to infiltrating the college football holy land and hopefully bringing some of the kids from the south up north.
I love this strategy by the Illini. Lovie knows where the talent is in this country. There are great players up north and he is focusing on them, but he is also not forgetting about the south.
Another nice change of pace for Illinois football recruiting is the focus on the west coast.
The Beckman era only offered 9 scholarships to California players in 2015. This number increased to 10 in the Cubit era. But, the Lovie era is different.
Lovie has offered 22 scholarships to California players for the class of 2017 and has already offered 2 players a scholarship for 2018 as well.
Next: History is Being Made In Champaign
The recruiting focus for Lovie is something we haven’t seen in a while. He is changing the recruiting map for the Illini and putting the program back on the national scene.