Illinois Football: Bryce Childress still eyeing Illini as landing spot
The victory over Rutgers this past Saturday was sweet for the Illinois football team, but losing a player from the class of 2019 kind of put a damper on the good weekend.
Right around kickoff of the game against the Scarlet Knights, wide receiver commit Bryce Childress decided to back away from his commitment to the Illini. This sent shockwaves through the Illini Twitter world with speculation running rampant.
Childress is a 5-foot-9, 155-pound wide receiver from Trinity Catholic High School in St. Louis, Missouri. He is rated as a three-star recruit who is the No. 878 player in the class of 2019 and the No. 18 player in the state of Missouri.
Losing Childress hurt the Illini class of 2019 at the time. I saw so much speculation on why Childress backed away from his commitment. Some people said it was because of his size or depth. I saw someone say that it was because Illinois isn’t winning. I even had someone say that it was because the pipeline to Trinity Catholic is dead.
I was able to catch up with Childress to get his thoughts on why he decided to de-commit from Illinois. He gave me the reason and then said the following.
“I was just seeing the fans saying I de-committed for university reasons,” said Childress, “nah, it had nothing to do with the university.”
With his options wide open again, I am sure schools have been contacting him frequently. Childress is a really good player with a lot of talent at the wide receiver position. There is no doubt any program in the nation would love to have this kid. So I asked what is the visit plan and who are you look at now?
“No visits for other schools,” said Childress, “Illinois is the only school I want to be a part of.”
This is huge news for the Illinois football team and their fan base. It looks like they might be getting one of their top commitments for 2019 back in the fold again.
“My next move is to join the Illini family again,” said Childress.
The Illini football family is strong, comprised of players, coaches, staff, alumni fans and non-alumni fans. This community continues to grow by the day and players are starting to see that.
Childress is also still excited about the opportunity to team up with his current quarterback at Trinity Catholic, Isaiah Williams. This combination is going to be deadly in the Big Ten and he wants the world to know.
“Isaiah and I are going to come take over the Big Ten,” said Childress.
From the short interview with Childress, it sounds like Illinois is going to get back a top tier class of 2019 recruit. The recommitment isn’t officially scheduled but Childress says it will be soon.
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Getting a player like Childress back would be huge for the Illinois football program. Having him come back into the fold will only make our wide receiver corps better. This is exciting news for everyone involved with the Illini.