Why is Illinois so bad at recruiting the Chicagoland area?

[L. Deezy]

Makes no damn sense

Chicago public schools might be up there as the best amateur sports league in the country

From the basketball stars, to the football stars, there is no reason the Fighting Illini shouldn't be in the Final Four/CFP or elite bowl game every year. There is no reason D. Rose & AD shouldn't have been in blue & orange.

They got Lovie Smith at the helm of the football team & they still ass

Bro, it's like this in all big cities. Hometown kids leave.. DMV probably the most successful hot bed in America. Maryland and Georgetown get stiff armed yearly..

 

[DropTopDoc]

when has chicago ever been a hot bed for football recruiting?

There’s talent just not a lot of 5 stars, 3-4 range usually

Football wise Illinois has too many major universities surrounding Chicago to survive. Notre Dame,Ohio State ,Michigan State,Wisconsin and Iowa (O-line wise) can walk in and take whoever the hell they want.

If you want to stay in state well...Northwestern is a better school academically and has been better on the field...which leads them to have to battle with Minnesota for scraps in their own state

Illinois is a quality academic school, not northwestern, but it’s higher admission standards, but northwestern is finally getting the big idea to invest money into sports, or as @Lucky_Lefty says best they are fully committed

My home state school, but they can't get right for shyt.

I live like 35 minutes from the assembly hall. I might check out a few games this upcoming season.


On a side note, Ohio State got commits from DJ Carton & Alonzo Gaffney

shyt, Illinois should be able to go into Iowa and get DJ Carton.


I just thought about it. If you took Chicago out of Illinois, the state would basically be Iowa

I’m going to read through the rest of this thread, but to me the issue was lack of importance to get the talent in the state, Illinois seems to take the notion of fukk it let’s see what we can do, and a damn near, lack of will to recruit city talent, they rather go after deep suburban kids, zook did decent, when Illinois had juice, and i believe mendenhall was there too, they had decent talent, they needed to build off that, Illinois also needs city guys on the staff, and run that check up to convince them kids, to stay in state. Illinois needs a commitment to sports period, and they need to go hard in the city period, the bigger named schools don’t recruit heavy in Chicago(football wise), a good-decent talent here or there, but i feel if Illinois brought the pressure it could lock the state down, it’s no way in hell you shouldn’t see more Chicago kids on their rosters

 

[Buckeye Fever]

There’s talent just not a lot of 5 stars, 3-4 range usually



Illinois is a quality academic school, not northwestern, but it’s higher admission standards, but northwestern is finally getting the big idea to invest money into sports, or as @Lucky_Lefty says best they are fully committed



I’m going to read through the rest of this thread, but to me the issue was lack of importance to get the talent in the state, Illinois seems to take the notion of fukk it let’s see what we can do, and a damn near, lack of will to recruit city talent, they rather go after deep suburban kids, zook did decent, when Illinois had juice, and i believe mendenhall was there too, they had decent talent, they needed to build off that, Illinois also needs city guys on the staff, and run that check up to convince them kids, to stay in state. Illinois needs a commitment to sports period, and they need to go hard in the city period, the bigger named schools don’t recruit heavy in Chicago(football wise), a good-decent talent here or there, but i feel if Illinois brought the pressure it could lock the state down, it’s no way in hell you shouldn’t see more Chicago kids on their rosters

In regards to the hoops squad, as mentioned earlier, relationships were damaged when Jimmy Collins didn't get the job. He would've definitely got a lot of Chicago talent.

Bill Self leaving in 02-03, ultimately hurt as well. He would've mended a lot of those fences.

Bruce Weber was NOT the personality they needed. He had NO shot at the top preps in Chicago. You gotta get in good with the coaches, and they weren't feeling him.

I bet many Illini fans would trade that title game appearance in 05, for a string of sweet 16s, some elite 8s, and a steady influx of talent flowing thru Champaign.

 

[DropTopDoc]

In regards to the hoops squad, as mentioned earlier, relationships were damaged when Jimmy Collins didn't get the job. He would've definitely got a lot of Chicago talent.

Bill Self leaving in 02-03, ultimately hurt as well. He would've mended a lot of those fences.

Bruce Weber was NOT the personality they needed. He had NO shot at the top preps in Chicago. You gotta get in good with the coaches, and they weren't feeling him.

I bet many Illini fans would trade that title game appearance in 05, for a string of sweet 16s, some elite 8s, and a steady influx of talent flowing thru Champaign.

They would

 

[Buckeye Fever]

They would

Talk about dropping the ball in recruiting. Weber signed the same type of player he could've gotten at Southern Illinois.

Couldn't even sign Scheyer and Weber's brother was his high school coach.

I THOUGHT he was turning the corner when he signed Richmond, but we see how that turned out.

His recruiting pitch at KSU probably involves Brandon Paul and Meyers Leonard, since they're NBA players who are "his" recruits

 

[DropTopDoc]

I'm staying in the Midwest for life, bucko

Bruh, i couldn’t do it, i graduated hs went to bama then Atl, and Louisiana, dude the weather and what not is flames, that brief stint i did back home, after school, showed me, i had to go, i take my hat off to you

I went to DePaul myself. My theory: it has nothing to do with the cold. Nothing to do with kids dying to leave the city. Nothing to do with Champaign being boring. Kids leave Chicago for cold schools, schools in the middle of nowhere, and schools like Notre Dame that are 90 mns away. I think its because Chicago treats its HS ball like college and doesnt care at all about Chicago sports. These kids dont grow up wanting to play for Illinois nor do the people around them care about Illinois. Theyd rather see a kid play for Kansas or Duke than IU

This, they need to change their approach, and target kids, and build a “this will be the Chicago squad” type thing, if kids will role put to Syracuse or Kansas or Bloomington they will go to champ-urb. But it will take a commitment from them and they gonna have to drop a few bags off

cuz illinois has NEVER been known as a football powerhouse.

it's been well over 10 years since illinois pulled any of the high recruits from this state. maybe their bball program has no luster. plus compared to powerhouse teams, why would u pick illinois?

I have seen schools in the middle of no where convince kids to go, year after year, if you make it a point to fence off the state, recruit/drop bags off, they will come, especially basketball, it’s a what 3 hour or so ride from the chi, your parents could see most home games, and a few road games, it’s easy to go home on breaks etc

Illinois should have never fired Ron Zook. He wasn’t a good X’s and O’s coach, but he greatly elevated the program’s talent level. He had a unique ability to connect to black athletes. I remember reading an article about a visit he made to a public school in Chicago that had a top football prospect, and they said he spent a lot of time just talking to regular students that he had met on an earlier visit. They said he even remembered all of the kids names, and these were students that he wasn’t even recruiting.

This, zook got talent into Illinois, they should not have gotten rob of him, or paid him to recruit

Oh, I actually love a lot of cities in Illinois. It's just what outsiders would think.


When I lived in Ohio, I still had my Illinois plates on my Caprice. A lot of ppl would ask me "You from Chicago? I got family there" and I'd tell them that I'm from Decatur.

Dude, i know a girl that went to my chiropractic school from Decatur, she went to U of Illinois, she in Florida now.

cats be naming some of these cities, in Illinois, and i can’t imagine what it’s like growing up there.....

Man how many kids today remember Illinois going to that 1 Rose Bowl and losing to USC
I mean u gotta have some kinda track record to show these kids

Red Grange ain't galloping thru that door

It just takes the right kid and money and they will come, look at ole miss, look at Clemson, look at Stanford kids will go anywhere if you recruit it right, if you can convince kids to go to Iowa, Minnesota, Utah, you can convince them to come to Urbana

Imagine an Illinois school trying to scoop an Ohio native.

"We know you're a premier running back, and we know @smitty22 and his OSU crew have offered you a full ride, unlimited boosters, thick pawgs, class clout and top draft exposure, but please come to Northwestern. We've got hippies and a quad with glow sticks."

Kids with talent get drafted from Illinois

 

[Notorious 1 E.Y.E.]

also, its a whole generation of kids that aint seen u of i be any good, so thats part of it

like, why would they go there

 

[Shadow King]

I went to DePaul myself. My theory: it has nothing to do with the cold. Nothing to do with kids dying to leave the city. Nothing to do with Champaign being boring. Kids leave Chicago for cold schools, schools in the middle of nowhere, and schools like Notre Dame that are 90 mns away. I think its because Chicago treats its HS ball like college and doesnt care at all about Chicago sports. These kids dont grow up wanting to play for Illinois nor do the people around them care about Illinois. Theyd rather see a kid play for Kansas or Duke than IU

So natives are casual towards the Bulls/Bears/Cubs/Sox?

 

[Floyd Pinkerton]

Its probably not that big of a difference but

Lets just say that me and my nikkas was treated like kings outhere


I went outhere some years ago...me, my brother, 2 cousins one that had a childhood friend on the Iowa football team. We was outhere for a couple weeks

nikka had all the white bytches going for us...coming in getting smashed, trying to stick around, we Kicking em out and trying to fukk more bytches. It was like this almost every day. Tinder was also poppin

Even a 40 year old mother got smutted out....bytch enjoyed it way too much

This was like at the height of the drill era so my brother lied about being from Chicago and was pulling bytches like that. They love Chicago nikkas apparently.

White hoe -" You know Cheef Keef"?

Bro - "Yeah I know him. We kicked it a few times"

Me -" "

But they was beleiving it.

Long story short...my brother ended up leaving because he was missing his girl and wanted to get back with the bytch and I was tired of white girls at the point so i left with him. One cousin knocked a bytch up and is now engaged. The other met a white chick that was the plug to some deep shyt and she ended up getting busted and caught up in murder with her baby daddy allegedly.

Plus the area was lowkey getting hot with too much fukkery going on so he was the last one to dip.

What a horrible turn of events for all involved

 

[Verbal Kint]

So natives are casual towards the Bulls/Bears/Cubs/Sox?

We're talking about college here. And no, Chicago folks don't care about DePaul, UIC, Loyala, Northwestern, NIU, ISU, Bradley, OR Illinois. DePaul was a perennial top 10 team in the 70s and 80s and we'd have games with like 2,000 people in the stands of a 12,000 seat arena.

 

[Shadow King]

We're talking about college here. And no, Chicago folks don't care about DePaul, UIC, Loyala, Northwestern, NIU, ISU, Bradley, OR Illinois. DePaul was a perennial top 10 team in the 70s and 80s and we'd have games with like 2,000 people in the stands of a 12,000 seat arena.

I know college was the topic I just figured since you said "Chicago sports" that applied to the pros also which I would find odd.

 

[DropTopDoc]

Watching this Illinois vs Ohio hs football game, it’s a Te 6’5 225 number 4 Illinois prospect and he’s committed to Alabama which i get, but imagine getting him on Illinois campus, instead bama, where he may have to wait just to sniff a field, btw, the 3 in front of him, #1 undecided, 2 Minnesota number 3 Missouri and number 5 behind him undecided, this is a crying shame

 

[Chrishaune]

Watching this Illinois vs Ohio hs football game, it’s a Te 6’5 225 number 4 Illinois prospect and he’s committed to Alabama which i get, but imagine getting him on Illinois campus, instead bama, where he may have to wait just to sniff a field, btw, the 3 in front of him, #1 undecided, 2 Minnesota number 3 Missouri and number 5 behind him undecided, this is a crying shame

Gotta do better, can't let Bama come in there and take players from you....

 

[DropTopDoc]

Gotta do better, can't let Bama come in there and take players from you....

Smh you can’t say no to bama

 

[hcobbland84]

Watching this Illinois vs Ohio hs football game, it’s a Te 6’5 225 number 4 Illinois prospect and he’s committed to Alabama which i get, but imagine getting him on Illinois campus, instead bama, where he may have to wait just to sniff a field, btw, the 3 in front of him, #1 undecided, 2 Minnesota number 3 Missouri and number 5 behind him undecided, this is a crying shame

It was ultimately between Florida and Alabama for Billingsley. They got two of his teammates from Phillips Academy committed though.

Illinois has been recruiting/offering mostly Texas and Florida kids the past two years anyway.

On the plus side, they got the #1 player in Missouri and the #11 player in Texas as commits.

Illinois 2019 Football Commits