1. Ke’Shawn Vaughn
There wasn’t much positive you could say about the Tim Beckman era, but the one thing I can say is that the coaching staff was able to land a great running back in Ke’Shawn Vaughn.
Vaughn was a big-time running back coming out of Pearl-Cohn High School in Tennessee. He was rated as a four-star recruit who was ranked as the No. 235 player in the class of 2015. Despite other power-five offers, Vaughn picked Illinois as his landing spot.
Before Vaughn’s freshman season began, Beckman was fired. Vaughn still stuck with the Illini and had a great first year of 157 carries for 723 yards and six touchdowns. In stepped Lovie Smith, and everything changed.
Vaughn only received 60 carries as a sophomore. He upped his yards per carry to 5.0, but there was clearly an effort for Vaughn not to be the starting running back.
After his second season in Champaign, Vaughn bolted and ended up with Vanderbilt. He blossomed with the Commodores. In his first year with Vanderbilt, Vaughn rushed for 1,244 yards and 12 touchdowns. He averaged 7.9 yards per carry.
Vaughn went on to the NFL and is still carrying the rock. If he would have stuck with the Illini, we would have won a lot more games. Just think about the duo of Reggie Corbin and Vaughn in the backfield. That would have been deadly. Also, the bowl season in 2019 would have likely been even better with Vaughn in the backfield.
Illinois lost a special running back when Vaughn transferred out. I think at the end of the day, he was the most painful transfer portal loss in program history.