Illinois Football: Antonio Doyle Jr. keeps Illini in top 3
The Illinois football team keeps striking good news as a big-time recruit officially cut his list.
On Tuesday night, Antonio Doyle Jr. took to Twitter to announce that he has cut his list down to just three teams. The three programs vying for his commitment are officially Texas A&M, Missouri and Illinois. These were the three teams that I was expecting to be in the final three, but his post confirms this speculation.
Doyle is a 6-foot-4, 230-pound outside linebacker from Lutheran North High School in St. Louis, Missouri. He is rated as a four-star recruit who is the No. 142 player in the class of 2020 and the No. 10 outside linebacker in the nation. He is also the No. 4 player in the state of Missouri in 2020.
At one time, Missouri was the landing spot for Doyle. He committed to the Tigers after an official visit back in June. He then backed away from that commitment on August 29. After he reopened his recruitment, Doyle took official visits to Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Illinois. Now it is just down to three teams.
Honestly, I have a hard time seeing Doyle recommitting to Missouri. Once you leave a commitment, it usually means you aren’t going back. But I have seen weirder things. Obviously, Missouri is in the mix until he says otherwise.
If I had to take a bet, I would say this commitment is down to the Aggies and the Illini. Doyle originally committed to Missouri because it is closer to home. The reason he wanted to stay closer to home is the fact he had his first child just about a month ago.
The fact he wanted to stay closer to St. Louis because he can be closer to his child could mean Illinois has the edge here. Champaign is a lot closer than College Station. But, even if location isn’t a factor anymore, Illinois still has a lot to offer Doyle.
Playing time is something the Illini will have plenty of if Doyle commits to the Orange and Blue. I figure Doyle can redshirt year one and then be a redshirt freshman in 2021. By this time, Milo Eifler, Dele Harding, Dawson DeGroot and Jake Hansen will all have departed the program.
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Can you just imagine a linebacker corps of Doyle, Shammond Cooper and Khalan Tolson? That would be a serious force to deal with. That isn’t even considering the solid depth behind these guys. The future would be extremely bright with the addition of Doyle to the mix.