(01-15-2012 02:32 PM)BrianNowicki Wrote: First, I didn't say just this year. I mentioned that he has offered a lot of 2013 prospects out of Ohio already.....a lot more than he has from Illinois. The point is that they believe there is a lot of talent in Ohio and they think they can either recruit with Ohio State, Michigan, and Notre Dame or they will take the leftovers. The leftovers are kids that are going to MAC schools. He won't be successful at Illinois if his base of recruits are MAC level recruits.
I know Beckman and Golesh pretty well. I got to know them both pretty well while they were at Toledo. My comments are not just some casual fan that doesn't know the situation well. With the recruiting they are doing, they will not be anything more than a mid-level Big Ten team. Not to mention they need to stop worrying about poaching three star prospects from MAC schools and start worrying more about keeping their current three star prospects. They already lost one three star commit earlier this weekend to Kentucky. Ironically, the kid was from Ohio too.
Beckman picked up a LB from Pennsylvania last night who, per Rivals, has offers from Auburn, Tennessee, Florida, Nebraska, Texas Tech, West Virginia, USC....amongst others.
Last week he picked up a DT from Florida who, per Rivals, has offers from Wisconsin, Florida, Florida State, Louisville. He himself claims offers from Alabama and LSU, but there's nothing to corroborate that.
Beckman is off to a good start. Gonzales and Beatty are nationally exceptional recruiters and will lead the recruiting charge, but the rest are very good to capable recruiters.
Of course, he will have to get into the Chicago area, but that has never proven easy for Illinois regardless of the coach. You mention the offers in Ohio and seemingly less in Illinois....Zook had offered a number of Illinois kids (Alviti, Pocic, Isaac) prior to being fired and so a lot, if not all, of those rolled over into the Beckman era.
The recruit you mentioned is Cody Quinn. As soon as Zook was fired, Quinn became a soft verbal and began taking other visits. It's not surprising he ended up elsewhere, though of course he would have been a nice addition to the class.