Illinois Football: Anthony Solomon keeping tabs on the Illini
The Illinois football connection to St. Thomas Aquinas High School is real.
Illinois currently has four players on the roster from this prestigious high school with more likely to come down the road. Lovie Smith is going to be utilizing the talented players from St. Thomas Aquinas this upcoming season, and into the future, to help the team win on the field.
James Crawford is a senior this season and will be moving to defensive end. Look for him to make an impact replacing two talented players who went to the NFL. Dominic Thieman is going to start being a bigger contributor at wide receiver for the Illini. He is a nice 6-foot-3 pass catcher with tremendous ability. James McCourt will be the kicker for the Illini in a few years. And Mike Epstein is the newest addition to the roster. He is an underrated running back who will emerge as a weapon for Lovie moving forward.
This connection to St. Thomas Aquinas is going to help Lovie and the Illinois coaching staff with recruiting. It has already helped with the class of 2019 as well. There are players eyeing the Illini from this class and one of those talented recruits is Anthony Solomon.
Solomon is a 6-foot-1, 190-pound outside linebacker from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is rated as a four-star recruit who is the No. 120 player in the class of 2019 and the No. 9 outside linebacker in the nation.
The talent Solomon brings to the table is tremendous. He is one of the highly rated recruits coming from the class of 2019 and there will be a lot of top programs after his services. Michigan is one of those talented teams who have been after him for quite some time.
“Yes, as of now, Michigan is tabbed as my number one,” Solomon told the Writing Illini, “but you are right, I’ve seen a couple of players take their career to Illinois.”
With the Wolverines as Solomon’s number one program right now, usually it isn’t worth the resources to recruit this kid, but by no means is his recruitment over. He hasn’t made a commitment and isn’t taking the Illini off the board.
“I would like to keep Illinois in my sight as I come closer to making a decision,” said Solomon.
Solomon clearly likes Illinois or he would have tossed them aside and moved on. He wants to keep the Illini around for a while and one of the reasons is that pipeline that is being created with St. Thomas Aquinas.
“Illinois grabs my attention because my school has had a couple of guys go there,” said Solomon.
There is no doubt in my mind Solomon will be a tremendous player at the college level. This kid knows what he wants to do in the recruiting game and is a great player on the field. He is smart and can see where he excels and what he needs to still work on as well.
“Some of my strengths in football in my game speed and agility,” said Solomon, “a weakness of mine is that in man-on-man coverage, I would get too aggressive with the wide receiver.”
In-game speed is a huge bonus for whoever lands Solomon. Having that speed to keep up with a wide receiver or tight end is extremely important and is something that made Brian Urlacher the all-time great he is today. The aggression in man pass coverage isn’t a bad thing either. Coaches would rather have you too aggressive than not aggressive enough. He just has to hone that talent and a coaching staff like Illinois has can help him with that skill.
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Of course, since Solomon is a class of 2019 recruit, the recruiting process is going to take some time. He doesn’t have a specific date set for his decision but would like to decide by this time next year. Solomon still has two years of high school football to play and he will only continue improving. Hopefully, when the final decision is made, he will be donning a hat that is orange and blue with a big “I” in the middle.