Illinois Football: Illini will continue building into something great

The Illinois football team has secured some top talent for the class of 2019.

This talent has committed to play football for Lovie Smith and the Illini coaching staff. They will help build the program into a Big Ten contender once again. Let’s not forget, just ten years ago Illinois was in the Rose Bowl. Getting back to that point can happen and that is what I am hoping will happen, eventually.

But, we all know the struggles this great program has gone through. In a span of eight months, the football program fired their head coach for player mistreatment. Promoted their offensive coordinator to interim head coach and followed that up with signing him to a two-year contract. The athletic director was then fired later on in the season. A new athletic director steps in and fires the former interim head coach. And that is how we got to Lovie Smith.

That is a lot of turmoil to go through with one program and the class of 2016 reflected what the team had gone through. This was a terrible class as far as quality, quantity and rankings went. This class alone set the team back a few years.

Even with everything that happened with the coaching staff and roster, Illinois still managed to snag a solid head coach. Lovie has received criticism and scrutiny around every corner. Some of it is justified but a whole lot of it is false narratives and lazy reporting.

The 2016 Illini team went 3-9 overall and was 2-7 in Big Ten play. I had hope for this squad like I do every season, but the team didn’t play well and finished even worse. But, Lovie still managed to snag the No. 46 class for 2017 that would help be the foundation for a program rebuild. This class included eight top 1000 players and a junior college transfer who is playing a pivotal role on the team right now.

Illinois’ 2017 campaign turned out to be even worse than the 2017 season. They were 2-10 overall and failed to win a Big Ten game. I attribute a lot of the losing to the lack of talent on the team because there was nothing that came from the class of 2016 and a lot of players bolted after the turmoil back in 2015. Despite the struggles in 2017, Illinois was able to snag the No. 53 class in 2018 which included better quality at the top with two four-star recruits and a bevy of three-stars who were solid. This class included seven top 1000 players.

The Illini are now four games into the 2018 campaign and they are 2-2. They have beaten two teams that were scheduled as wins already, and they should have beaten South Florida and kept the game close into the fourth quarter against Penn State. The progress is clearly there for this Illini team. Now all they have to do is close some games out and put wins on the board, which I believe will happen.

With that being said, and to make a long story even longer, when I hear someone say, “If Illinois loses out the rest of the season will kids reconsider going to Illinois” I think to myself, what is this person even talking about?

Lovie had five wins in his first two seasons and still managed to snag an average of a top 50 class both years. On top of that, players like Marquez Beason and Isaiah Williams committed to Illinois for the class of 2019 knowing that Lovie has only had five wins in two seasons. If they didn’t want to be a part of the Illini and all that comes with it, they wouldn’t have pledged their commitment.

Some recruits and parents might not see what is happening in Champaign. It is their prerogative to do whatever they want to do. But, don’t come after the kids who are already committed to Illinois. Just because you don’t want to be a part of something special at Illinois doesn’t mean you have to try to ruin it for everyone else. You do your thing and let the Illini continue building into something great.