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With National Signing Day nearing, you can expect to see semi-regular updates about how the 2015 Illinois Fighting Illini football recruiting class is turning out. Today's post will be fairly basic, mostly just looking at what we've got in the pipelines right now positionally and what still needs addressing. But first, we have to start with some bad news.
WR A.D. Miller decommitted from the Illini last week. Miller committed way back in July and was a fairly big get, choosing the Illini over offers from Michigan State, Tennessee, Arizona State, Michigan, Oregon, and a host of others. It's looking like he'll end up at Kentucky though, which raises a lot of questions but oh well. We wish him the best.
As it currently stands, the class has 19 members and should add a few before things wrap up. That's good. Of those 19 though, 14 play offense. That's just a wee bit unbalanced. For comparison's sake, the 2014 class had 17 members with 9 playing defense. 2013 had 23 members, ten of whom are on offense. Those three classes were far more balanced than our current class and it's 26% defensive player layout.
Here's the full positional breakdown with their 24/7 composite ratings-
QB: Jimmy Fitzgerald (.8485)
RB: Dre Brown (.8744), Reggie Corbin (.8245), Henry Enyenihi (.8242)
WR: Sam Mays (.8588)
TE: Caleb Reams (.8217), Andrew Davis (.8141), Ainslie Johnson (.7744)
OT: Gabe Megginson (.9132), Adam Solomon (.8563), Zeke Martin (.8283), Jordan Fagan (.8156)
OG: Connor Brennan (.7885)
OC: Zach Heath (NA)
DE: None!
DT: Nobody!
LB: Justice Williams (.8339), Julian Jones (.8148)
CB: Desmond Cain (.8426), Frank Sumpter (.8200)
S: Patrick Nelson (.8459)
The offensive line direly needed help, but so do the defensive line and linebacking corps. If Tim Beckman & Co. don't land at least a couple defensive linemen, this class will have a glaring hole right where some giant nasty men should be.
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