Illinois Football: Missouri commit Cooper Davis flips to the Illini

The Illinois football team received some huge news on Wednesday afternoon.

Cooper Davis announced on Twitter that he has decided to back away from his commitment to the Missouri Tigers and, instead, commit to the Illinois Fighting Illini. Here is the full statement by Davis.

"“First off I’d like to thank the University of Missouri for their undying faith in my ability as a football player and as a man. Mizzou was a dream of mine from a very young age but due to changes and much deliberation with my family I’ve decided to decommit. I’ll always have a place for mizzou in my heart but it’s just not the fit for me right now. With that being said however I am beyond blessed and honored to announce that I will be committing to and attending the University of Illinois.”"

Davis is a 6-foot-5, 245-pound strong-side defensive end from Viera High School in Melbourne, Florida. He is rated as a three-star recruit who is the No. 907 player in the class of 2020 and the No. 46 strong-side defensive end in the nation. He is also the No. 119 player in the state of Florida.

I am going to be honest, I didn’t see this one coming. I didn’t even think we were on the radar for Davis. It looks like, from the picture he posted on his Twitter feed, that he visited Champaign this past weekend. That might be why he is now going to be wearing Orange and Blue.

It looks like the reason for the flip was the coaching change that happened with Missouri. They fired head coach Barry Odom just about a week ago. This made a lot of their committed recruits back away from their decision and reassess the landscape.

Illinois now has 11 commits for the class of 2020. Davis makes the third defensive lineman to sign up. The other two are Quinton McCoy and Anthony Shipton, both defensive tackles. The Illini are clearly building a great defensive line. We also have, roughly, six top 1000 recruits.

I have to give all the credit in the world to the Illinois coaching staff. They have done a great job in building this class of 2020. Flipping a player like Davis is huge.