The decision for Illinois football target Antonio Doyle Jr. is about to be made in the coming days.
On Thursday night, Doyle announced on Twitter that he will be committing on Monday, December 16 at 3 PM CT. This announcement was accompanied by a video of his dominance on the football field. For Missouri, Texas A&M or Illinois, this will be a huge pickup.
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. 99 player in the class of 2020 and the No. 8 outside linebacker in the nation. He is also the No. 4 player in the state of Missouri.
Who will Doyle pick? That is anyone’s guess right now. 247Sports has Texas A&M as the landing spot, but their “experts” made that selection back in May and August. A lot has changed since those predictions have been made.
Doyle’s high school coach, Coach Reed, talked with Doyle yesterday according to his Twitter profile. They apparently discussed the options for Doyle’s future and where he wants to play. I am also intrigued by the late push by new Missouri head coach, Eliah Drinkwitz. He visited Coach Reed on Thursday.
Honestly, I think it still comes down to Illinois and Texas A&M. I like the Illini coming out ahead in this recruitment. I think we have the location. We have the ability to win and that was proven this season. Illinois also has the playing time available for someone like Doyle to come in and start early on in his career.
Here is how I see Doyle’s career going with Illinois. He comes into the program in 2020. We have enough depth at linebacker next season to enable Doyle to redshirt his first year with the program. When 2021 rolls around, Jake Hansen and Milo Eifler will have departed. Doyle would then move into a starting role during his redshirt freshman season.
The starting linebacker corps would consist of Shammond Cooper (4-star), Doyle (4-Star) and Khalan Tolson (3-Star) in 2021. This would be, arguably, the best linebacker corps I have seen since the early 1990s.
December 16 is a big day in the history of Illinois football. This program started winning this season and showed the nation the proof that what we are cooking in Champaign is tasting good. Let’s capitalize on this and land another big fish in Doyle.