Illinois Football: Illini getting official visit from Stephon Wright
The Illinois football class of 2019 is by no means set. There is still a lot of work left to do to complete this group of players.
There are so many recruiting targets who have the Illini either on their top lists or could potentially commit to the program soon. The recruiting presence the coaching staff has displayed is nothing short of amazing. Lovie Smith and the rest of the coaches continue to spread throughout the country to recruit some of the best players in the class of 2019.
One player that has popped onto the Illinois radar as of late is Stephon Wright. He is a 6-foot-3, 260-pound strong-side defensive end from Cathedral High School in Los Angeles, California. He is rated as a four-star recruit who is the No. 249 player in the class of 2019 and the No. 16 strong-side defensive end in the nation.
Wright wasn’t on the radar for the Illini fan base for many reasons, one being that he had cut his list down in March of 2018 to just 10 programs and didn’t include the Illini on the list. He had Colorado, Washington State, USC, Arizona State, Arizona, Oklahoma, Washington, Nebraska, California and Utah.
Around that same time, Illinois had actually come in with an offer but seemed to be too late to the party. Wright had already cut his list down. But, now it seems like things have changed. I had a chance to ask Wright why he wanted to take an official visit to Illinois and why they weren’t on his original top 10.
“It’s because Illinois had offered me like the day before I had posted it,” said Wright, “a lot has changed.”
It looks like there has been a lot of change in the recruitment of Wright. He is now taking an official visit to Illinois this weekend, which is the second official visit out of the five he is allotted. Wright confirmed the other official visit was to Colorado, and no other official visits are set up as of right now.
Whenever Illinois is in the running for a high-level west coast kid, I am always impressed by the recruiting ability of the Illini coaches. I had some assumptions on who was recruiting Wright, and he was able to confirm with me who the coaches were.
“Coach Clark and Nickerson, and I think they are great people and coaches,” said Wright.
Austin Clark, Illinois defensive line coach, and Hardy Nickerson, Illinois defensive coordinator, both have strong ties to the west coast. Clark is in his first season with the Illini. He came from USC where he was a defensive graduate assistant and before that spent a year with California where he was a recruiting assistant.
Nickerson is an NFL legend who has high school coaching experience in California and he also played for California in college and coached on the San Francisco 49ers staff before coming to be the defensive coordinator for the Illini.
The strong ties both of these great coaches have with the west coast really helped Illinois recruiting. They clearly have done a great job in drawing interest from some of the big-time west coast recruits like Wright.
Next. Illini commit Marquez Beason “I can’t wait to join them”. dark
This is a big official visit Wright is taking this weekend to Champaign. It would be nice to get a commitment before he leaves, but I am not holding my breath on that one. But, getting him in the building is a big deal. He would be a great addition to what is already a great class of 2019.