Social Media Enthusiasm Suggests Illini Has Commitments But No Announcements Made
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Starting at around 3:30 p.m. CST Tuesday, University of Illinois football coaches and staff members hinted, insinuated and all but implied not one but two verbal commitment announcements were coming.
As we stand now several hours after numerous tweets of anticipation from full-time coaches, staff members and graduate assistants of Lovie Smith’s program, the total verbal pledges of the Illini’s 2021 recruiting class still remains at just two players: Prince Green, a three-star athlete from the Atlanta area, who committed to Illinois last week and Samari Collier, a three-star dual-threat quarterback from Desoto, Texas, who committed to Illinois in early December.
While NCAA rules prohibit coaching staffs from publicly naming recruits until they’ve either signed a National Letter-of-Intent or enrolled in the university, the NCAA loosened restrictions by coaches on social media and therefore, allowed coaches to follow and retweet prospective student-athletes.
The anticipation began when Illinois defensive graduate assistant Aaron Gonzales sent out a tweet of a gif of Lovie Smith raising his arms in celebration of a touchdown. Gonzales joined the Illinois staff this spring as a defensive graduate assistant coach after spending time as a student assistant at Florida Atlantic under head coach Lane Kiffin.
Illinois football director of recruiting Patrick Embleton sent out a tweet of two siren emojis, which is usually the symbol for a recruiting announcement is coming soon either from a high school prospect or transfer portal, Illinois’ more common route of recruiting recently. Minutes later, Embleton sent out another tweet of a gif of late rapper Tupac Shakur holding up two fingers all but suggesting Illinois football would be announcing two football commitments.
Suggestive tweets were then sent out by Illini running backs coach Mike Bellamy (a gif of Heath Ledger’s as The Joker character clapping), offensive graduate assistant Rob Delaney (a gif of actor Richard Schiff playing Toby Ziegler in ‘The West Wing’ counting to two with his fingers), defensive analyst Ilir Emini (a gif of Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker dancing after a made field goal), off-the-field defensive assistant Brent Jackson (a gif of Illinois football players jumping up and down on the field), tight ends coach Cory Patterson and defensive ends coach Jimmy Lindsey (a gif of Leonardo DiCaprio holding up a champagne glass with fireworks in the background).
At 5:08 p.m., Bellamy sent out a tweet saying “Why not do it on a Tuesday....#BuiltForThis #WhosNext #ILLGang” including a photo of rapper T.I. with the words “THANK YOU AGAIN ATLANTA”. Based off Bellamy’s cryptic tweet, it would be hard to envision at least one of these alleged commitments is from the Atlanta area and would join Green as Atlanta prospects in this 2021 Illini class.
And all that excitement is fine, good and honestly much needed for a program desperate for attention and has taken its lumps with failures in high school recruiting and specifically in-state recruiting. The last Illinois residents to commit and sign with the Illini out of high school was the Dec. 2019 group of five early signees of tight end Griffin Moore, tailback Nick Fedanzo, offensive tackle Evan Kirts, defensive back Joseph Thompson and defensive lineman Keith Randolph. However, after all the social media buzz was created, Illinois still has its verbal commitment tracker in the 2021 class at two - the lowest number by far in the Big Ten Conference and a number that is only higher than two Power 5 Conference programs (Colorado and Utah).
Several hours of social media excitement and anticipation with no payoff of an announcement by a prospect. Maybe Illinois fans will learn the identities of these alleged commitments on Wednesday - a full day after all the Twitter enthusiasm.