Illinois Football: Ralen Goforth could be big for 2019

Illinois football offered a scholarship to another interesting player over the last few days.

Lovie Smith extended an offer to Ralen Goforth. He is a player who will be ranked in the top 300 when the class of 2019 rankings come out.

Goforth is already built for the college game. He is a 6-foot-2, 215-pound player out of St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, California. Scout has him projected as an outside linebacker as well. While the rankings aren’t out yet for 2019, one would assume Goforth is going to be up in the rankings based on his scholarship offers.

Right now, Goforth has offers not only from Illinois but also from Arizona State, Nebraska, TCU, UCLA, USC and Washington. These are some impressive programs and if Illinois could pull him away from the west coast that would be incredible.

When watching what Goforth can do, he reminds me a lot of former Lovie Smith player and future Hall of Famer, Brian Urlacher. Urlacher could cover the entire field and keep up with just about any player as well. If he needed to cover a running back coming out of the backfield, or a tight end off the line or a receiver running down the seam he could do it.

That is what Goforth brings to the table as well. He can stay with just about any player on the field and that is invaluable. He has good technique when it comes to his hands as well. He will be a superstar at the next level, hopefully, with the Illini.

Illinois does have some incentive to offer Goforth to bring him to Champaign. They can offer a head coach in Lovie who has coached Urlacher and Lance Briggs. Illinois also has a defensive coordinator in Hardy Nickerson who played over a decade in the NFL at linebacker.

The Illini can also throw playing time out at Goforth. This will be important because I can almost guarantee he will sit for at least two years with any team on the list of those who have offered him, besides Illinois. They can insert him possibly year one and have him play all four years.

Also, judging by Goforth’s tweet, he also has family in Decatur, Illinois. That is always helpful for a young kid when he has big change. Family is a big pull to a lot of people.

Next: 7 recruits who have Illini on top list

So, hopefully, the Illini can win this year, build a good class for 2018 and win that year as well. This will all help with recruiting Goforth and the class of 2019. The future is bright in Champaign.