As Lovie Smith takes the reins at Illinois, there’s been some questions regarding how efficient a recruiter he’ll be. Most of the doubts center around the fact that he’s been out of the college game since 1995. As you know already, recruiting kids to play college football is a totally different animal than coaching ’em up as professionals.
Critics think he might be out of touch, at least at first, in this department.
Well, Lovie Smith has a lot more going for him in regards to recruiting than you might expect.
It’s initially going to be a challenge, sure, but he’s a big brand name, and that’s first and foremost. You got to have an aura about you in order to succeed at recruiting, and Lovie Smith certainly brings name recognition to the living room.
The class of 2017 is old enough to lucidly recall the Chicago Bears playing in the 2007 Super Bowl.
It’s not all that long ago. Likewise with the consistent NFL talent pipeline that Illinois used to be.
As recently as 2013, the Illini had the most picks of any Big Ten team (four) in a single NFL Draft class. This happened in spite of going 2-10 the previous college football season. From 2007-2012, the Illini had more first round draft picks than any other Big Ten team. Illinois saw guys taken in both the first and second rounds in both 2011 and 2012; despite going just 14-12 the two seasons preceding those drafts.
Going beyond that, a 2013 Wall Street Journal study found that Illinois was the “quietest football factory” in America, as the Illini led the nation in NFL starters per college wins ratio.
Jihad Ward for sure, and potentially a couple other Illini players, will end Illinois’ recent NFL draft woes later this month.
Thus Lovie has some recent history, and a stable tradition to build upon. He’s got a better foundation than you might think. Smith also hails from Texas, one of the best, if not the best, state for recruiting football talent. In advance of the NFL Draft, I asked NFL Network’s draftniks, Daniel Jeremiah and Charles Davis, for their input on this matter.
Here’s some of the highlights of what they had to say:
“I think the NFL has had a major influence in college football in terms of recruiting and building up. It’s not just going to be Lovie Smith, but it’s being able to hire all those behind the scenes people. A lot of them are former NFL scouts. In terms of setting up their recruiting, it’s almost like setting up a draft board and really dialing in on the process. Not just building relationships, but identifying players.”
“Illinois’s going to have a hard time initially. You’re not going to beat Ohio State on kids, you’re not going to beat Michigan or Michigan State on kids. But what you can do is identify what these guys can become. And we’ve seen the NFL guys go down to college and have a lot of success with that.”
“I think that’s what Lovie Smith will be able to bring to them. “
“These are high school kids that watch a lot of NFL Network, and one of the big questions they have nowadays is what? How do I get to the league? How do you get me to the league? I remember calling games in college, I’m going to say a decade ago, and I would get from college officials all the time, look, we don’t want to talk about the next level.”
“These are college kids.”
“This is all it’s about. We don’t want to hear about them playing on Sunday. Then I’d walk into my meetings with the coaches and before games and you get to their facilities, you’re five steps into the facility, and what is the first thing you see? All the listing of NFL players. So that’s been out of the window for a long time now. I wish Coach Smith a lot of luck, and there is a lot more latitude with staff, which I think Daniel is alluding to now.”
“Staffs are way bigger. You can do it, get your recruiting base set.”
In other words, be patient, dramatic recruiting success won’t happen overnight. However, in time, Lovie Smith is going to do just fine in Champaign when it comes to getting top tier talent. Look at what an upgrade Smith is over Bill Cubit and Tim Beckman. Then think about the poor records of their predecessors, Ron Zook, Ron Turner and Lou Tepper.
Indeed for Illini fans, boosters, alums, donors, students etc. the coaching carousel is basically summarized by this meme:
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram