You can chalk up another big-time official visit for the Illinois football team here in the next month.
The official visit list seems to be growing by the day. As of right now, it seems that the Illini have roughly 17 official visits coming up in the month of June. I honestly don’t remember a group this big doing official visits to Illinois. This is a junior day feel but with way more importance.
Among those 17 official visits is a new addition. On Monday, Matt Fries tweeted out that he would be taking one of his five official visits to Champaign.
Can’t wait! Thank you @UofIllinoisABuh @Coach_BMiller pic.twitter.com/i2pB4J1SfZ
— Matt Fries (@mattfries58) May 25, 2021
Fries is a 6-foot-5, 275-pound offensive tackle from Cranford Senior High School and resides in Cranford, New Jersey. He is rated as a three-star recruit and ranked as the No. 1059 player in the class of 2022. He is also the No. 105 offensive tackle in the country and the No. 30 player coming out of New Jersey.
It looks like Illinois is the third official visit Fries has set up so far. He kicks off his official visit tour at Arizona State on June 11. Fries then heads to Indiana on June 18. The Illini visit is the following weekend on June 25.
Fries is what the Illinois football team has been missing for the past five years.
A part of the issues I had with the past coaching regime at Illinois is with depth. They were able to get some solid high-level recruits, but if you don’t have depth, then you don’t have a team.
Recruits who are ranked around the top 1000 are the gap fillers. They are the players who won’t start right away but have a chance to by their junior year. These are the players who can come into the game and there isn’t a tremendous talent dip when they are needed to play some snaps.
That is how I see Fries. The kid clearly has talent if teams like Illinois, Arizona State, Indiana, Syracuse and West Virginia are wanting his services. Fries has roughly 27 scholarship offers right now. A bad player doesn’t have that many offers.
Illinois has some talented offensive linemen coming in from the 2021 and 2022 classes. These two classes will form the starting offensive line for the Illini for years to come. I see Fries coming in and redshirting in year one. He would then be a solid backup his first two years. As a redshirt junior, I then see him potentially taking the reins for a starting job.
I love that the Illini are in the mix for another talented offensive lineman like Fries. Bielema and his coaching staff are really hitting the ground running when it comes to recruiting. The recruiting effort now will only pay dividends down the road on the field.