Recruits are buying into the new brand of Illinois football

A lot of stuff is happening right now in terms of Illinois Fighting Illini football recruiting.

It all started with Reuben Unije, a three-star offensive lineman out of IMG Academy, committing to Illinois at 1:37 p.m.

After that, it seemed like a coordinated movement among Illinois recruits of posting on Twitter and retweeting each other. For a few minutes — and possibly, the future — there’s a huge focus on Illinois football building a successful program in the Lovie Smith Era.

Safety/outside linebacker Dayven Coleman followed Unije at 1:42 p.m. tweeting several pictures of him in his grey Illinois uniform inside of the Irwin Football Facility on campus.

Another 16 minutes went by before Caleb Griffin, an in-state five-star kicker from Danville, Illinois, tweeted similar photos of himself.

With Chase McLaughlin graduating, Griffin would be a huge addition to Illinois’ special teams unit, which already features one of the nation’s top punter, Blake Hayes.

It didn’t stop there, though.

Kievan Myers, already committed to Illinois, tweeted pictures of himself and a few other recruits at 1:59 p.m.

Verdis Brown, a Chicago native who plays with Unije at IMG Academy, has been retweeting several tweets from Unije lately, and he was retweeted by defensive line commit Calvin Avery on Saturday night.

This time it was Brown quoting Unije’s tweet. He said, “Aye ILLINI bout to bit lit.”

Brown, a four-star center, announces his commitment this Friday.

Make what you want out of all of this Twitter nonsense, but this is the medium that much of recruiting goes down in nowadays. Illinois’ 2018 class is not of the caliber of Ohio State, Alabama or Michigan, but it is undoubtedly better than a strong 2017 class.

As we roll toward Wednesday’s early signing day period, the excitement is building around Illinois football, and recruits seem to be buying into the future of the program and brand.