Illinois football’s list of potential future linebackers has shrunk yet again. Three-star prospect Diego Fagot (FL) announced a verbal commitment to Navy via his Twitter account on Sunday night. The Fort Lauderdale product was scheduled to visit Champaign on Saturday for the North Carolina game, though he failed to show up for obvious reasons.
After much thought and prayer I am blessed to say I am verbally committing to... Navy⚓️⚓️ pic.twitter.com/6O6ZEWnQys
— Diego Fagot (@diegofagot54) September 12, 2016
Fagot is rated as the No. 705 overall player in the country; he had other scholarships offers on the table from Army, UConn, Northern Illinois, Pittsburgh, Toldeo, UCF, Western Kentucky, and Western Michigan.
Illinois’ status was listed as ‘warm’ on 247Sports, and considering they were the only program with that designation, this seems to be a pretty surprising decision. And that seems to be a bit of a trend with this position group because Lovie Smith already lost three-star ILB Micah Awodiran to Yale. But, really, if a player wants to commit to an Ivy League school/service academy then there’s not much the Illini can do about it.
According to Illini Board’s amazing 2017 recruit tracker, the Orange and Blue have room for anywhere between 2-4 linebackers this cycle. While unranked OLB Marc Mondesir (IL) currently fills one of those slots, the outlook on every other prospect appears very bleak. At this point Illinois may be forced to hope for the best while trying to flip committed players later this Winter.