Everyone said that giving Bill Cubit only two years on his extension would torpedo recruiting and that’s exactly what happened. 2016 National Signing Day in Champaign-Urbana yielded very poor recruiting rankings (24/7 Sports have Illini football 69th nationally, 12th overall, Rivals places them 69th & 12th, and Scout went 60th, and 12th) and a sleep-inducing press conference.
#ItsNotIdeal to be 12th in the league, but at least Illinois isn’t Purdue, who seriously resemble a school that’s given up on football.
Summing up Purdue's #NSD2016 in one picture. pic.twitter.com/kk040esB5f
— Hammer and Rails (@HammerAndRails) February 3, 2016
Nothing exciting, unexpected or interesting really happened in terms of the latest recruiting class. Cubit’s 40 minute signing day press conference didn’t offer much other than buzzwords, boilerplate, coachspeak and other mind-numbing cliches.
The Illini football coach was asked about all the de-committing happening across the nation.
Cubit called it “an epidemic all over the country.”
Cubit: I think it's an (recruits flipping) epidemic around the country. You got to go out there because that's the way the game is played
— Michal Dwojak (@mdwojak94) February 3, 2016
Cubit was also asked about that ridiculous circus sideshow Michigan elected to host today. I don’t know what the Illini football coach was supposed to say in response, or what he really even could say about Jim Harbaugh’s show-business extravaganza thrown by Derek Jeter’s propaganda website.
No coach is going to blatantly slam a conference rival’s shindig. (Well, Tim Beckman did, but we’ll get to that later) Cubit’s response to the Michigan question was just shop talk and platitudes.
Penn State Coach James Franklin seems to have taken a veiled swipe at Harbaugh’s recruiting tactics though.
James Franklin on what he thinks of some coaches' recruiting strategies: "We want to be creative, not creepy."
— Josh Moyer (@ByJoshMoyer) February 3, 2016
Yeah, I wouldn’t call sleeping on a kid’s coach, or stalking him at his classes “creative” recruiting methods. There was an upside to having a boring, tedious Illini football national signing day however. The last two years brought unintentional comedy-drama.
A year ago today Tim Beckman used his signing day presser to blatantly beg the media to be his cheerleaders. The year before, Becks took a direct shot at Northwestern and their recruiting class. He did this despite NU’s class having much higher ratings across the board.
So, hey Illini football fans, #ItsNotIdeal but dull/vanilla is still a step up from laughingstock.
Then again, Beckman also hauled in a decent class that ranked in the middle of the Big Ten pack. While today’s bottom line is back down in the Illini football dregs. The most interesting thing that happened from an Illini football standpoint on this signing day:
Impressive: this dude did the double Cliff Alexander…even tossed the Illini hat on the ground https://t.co/mHi30siWwb
— Alex Roux (@a_roux) February 3, 2016
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/694971738526990337
Watching it makes me think- what really immature, pointless and stupid things did I do when I was that age? I thought of a couple that were much dumber than this.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and sometimes writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. The website is also featured on News Now.
Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye. He also appears regularly on numerous television and radio talk shows all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone.
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