'And how should I know you?'

Illini football news and notes...

*Illini football land commitments...

-Bret Bielema's program pick up some much needed transfer depth along with a top 2025 in-state wide receiver...

Kellen Francis offensive line Butler (Kan.) Community College-Illini beat out Houston and Arkansas for the 6-foot-6, 320-pounder fall enrollee.....played one year at Butler/has three years of eligibility with a redshirt possible....originally from Princeville (Ill.) High School….small school north of Peoria/west of Galesburg,....played seven games at guard last fall for Butler....recruited off a strong spring highlight tape playing right tackle.…. film showed an excellent foot athlete/should develop into a quality pass-protector....plays too upright in the run game....more push than pop which can be corrected by coaching/S&C development....quality late pickup that should develop into a dependable o-line swingman next fall.

Carson Goda tight end-6-foot-3, 225-pounder with one year of eligibility.......Played at D-2 St. Anselm College....de-committed from Oregon State to play for Bielema's team....excellent route runner/hands....not a physical in-line blocker so likely will be used as a 'move' tight end creating match up advantage vs. linebacker/safety coverage...should be an impact player next fall.

Torrie Cox Jr. cornerback-Originally from Miami (Fla.)....two years of eligibility…,,,,,,transferred from Ohio University where he was a two-year starter...feisty man cover cornerback tiny...5-foot-8, 175-pounds....nickel back?.....quality depth if he doesn't win a starting job.....all three positive adds that should see plenty of playing time next fall for Illinois.

Brayden Trimble wide receiver Mt. Zion (Ill.) High School-2025 three-star recruit committed to the Illini last month...6-foot-3 boundary X type of receiver had several B1G offers....keeping the top local players local always a positive.

*’What could have been’…

-It’s football summer camp season…..High school prospects head to college camps all over the country in June working out for coaches trying to land that scholarship offer….one of my first ‘stories’ at an Illini summer camp.

Late 90's...early days of the internet recruiting websites....Brian Monk and I would hit Champaign for Illini one day of camps....football program would have their quarterback/linemen camp/7-on-7 tournament on a Saturday....great thing could figure out the recruits Ron Turner’s staff most interested in....could go from game to game/camp to camp and figure out by who the Illini coaches were watching...who they were recruiting.....example summer 1998 Monk had discovered the Turner staff all watching Brandon Lloyd's Blue Springs (Kan.) High School team win the 7-on-7 tourney….wasn’t a surprise when signed with Illinois the next winter.

Summer 2000....linemen camp....those days the indoor facility/east practice fields were used for the QB camp/7-on-7 tourney so they held the linemen camp across the street from stadium/west side parking lots next to the soccer fields/find a flat surface in the tailgate area....at times some poor lineman would get pancaked into the gravel over there...anyway....big defensive lineman that camp throwing o-linemen around….He caught are attention...huge kid...all the Illini coaches coming over to watch him.

Prospects name?  Calvin Coffee....class of 2001 recruit with a very interesting back story.....6-foot-4, 330-pounder was from Milwaukee...born in Chicago, his mother moved him and his brother up north....a talented singer/musician Coffee attended the Milwaukee School of Arts...played football at Milwaukee Pulaski High School...only played one year of varsity...guy from Milwaukee living in Champaign had ties to School of Arts and told a member of the Illinois staff about Coffee....then d-line coach Peter McCarty stopped by to see Coffee previous spring and invited him to camp with Turner's program.

Coffee growing up in and out of foster homes...juvenile detention...was living with a guardian who brought him down to Champaign....He first threw around then four-star Illini tackle commitment Rob Needham in one-on-one drills....hit Needham so hard one rep that we all thought the o-lineman had shit his pants (he did) after being driven into the ground.…..wasn’t a fluke….Coffee also threw around Matt Lentz in drills….Lentz a three-star prospect from Michigan who ended up signing with the Wolverines/two-time All-Big Ten guard.

After the workout....defensive coordinator Tim Kish/McCarty escorted Coffee into Turner's office…..Monk and I followed the group over to the football offices…..Illini offered/Coffee verballed.....talked to the guardian got all the contact numbers.....Coffee played sparingly maybe two games his senior season for Pulaski....got hurt or so the guardian said...in reality Turner's staff didn't want the Badgers/Hawkeyes/Gophers coming in to take their 'sleeper' they had 'found' away....Coffee only camped at Illinois....other Big Ten schools knew little of him.

Whenever other schools did call...Coffee's guardian told them 'Calvin is committed to Illinois' not interested in anyone else....because of his past...Coffee was going to have to be an academic pass to get into Ilinois...had missed so much school in his younger days....tried to make up all the classes needed to have a chance at admission….in one school year/summer school....Coffee didn't sign a letter of intent February 2001....young man/guardian knew he would not be able to sign till he got all his grades later in the spring...working towards that goal when....football staff screwed up.

Safety Chuckie Moore (Elk Grove) and defensive end Lionel Williams (Addison Trail) did sign with Illinois February 2001...both along with Coffee were going to be 'academic passes' getting into school....staff felt they could get Moore/Williams/Coffee in as 'learning disabled' students (which they had used successfully earlier classes)...problem was someone at Addison Trail tipped off Sun-Times prep writer Taylor Bell about what Illini football was doing to get players accepted....how admin types at both schools would not classify either player as LD....it was half the story of what was going on...UIUC admissions/admin took heat for article...told staff 'nope' not getting any of the three into school.

Moore placed by Illinois at Joliet (Ill.) Junior College for a year never to be heard from again....Williams had a solid career at Southern Illinois playing defensive end for the Salukis...Coffee at the end of summer 2001 when final word came he didn't make it past UIUC admissions....guardian said the ‘recruiting process’/not getting into UIUC was so hard on the young man…..he decided not to play football in college…..took a music scholarship to the University of Northern Iowa....google search says Coffee now 40 years old 'mentor/coach' in the Milwaukee area...'what could have been'.

FYI…hedging their bets on Coffee….class of 2001 staff signed Dixon (Ill.) High School defensive tackle Ryan Matha….Ironically the Dixon Duke was committed to Northern Iowa when then Illini recruiter Osia Lewis called late January offering him a scholarship….Matha three-year starter….He is now an NFL agent working for the Rosenhaus group.

*'Do better'...

-Maybe I only hear about the negative...write about this subject a few times....Illini athletic department has to do a better job in their out-reach to former football players....two recent examples that got me going….again.

Former player brings a group of prospects (including a transfer portal recruit) in from the southwest to Champaign for a visit....Illini head coach asks the former player, 'and how should I know you?'....former player, 'well you passed on me when you were an assistant at Iowa....your staff came in too late on my son'....during recruiting process...former player’s son signed with another Big Ten program....head coach embarrassed tried to talk his way out of it...didn't take...no one in the football offices knew much if anything about the former player….all the ‘veteran’ support football staff who would have known those players replaced by ‘Bielema’s guys’.

Earlier in the spring another former player and family visiting campus...call over to the athletic department want to take a tour of the new football facility...'sure we will set it up just check in at the desk someone will meet you'....sure as shit...person at the desk no idea who the player was/anything about anyone giving a tour...no one working in the football facility knew the former player.

DIA will insist, 'we have plenty of people who know/reach out to former players'...yeah they all work in the Bielfeldt building not the football offices across the street....unless it's a specific former player they know...shit just doesn't get taken care of...have to do better or....it's not a priority unless the former player is giving money......cynic in me says that…I know I know am the only person writing about this but each time I do…get a few notes from former Illini players that agree 100 percent with my view.