Loren Tate has commented on this already, but I think I ought to weigh in. If the eternal wellspring of hope for this football program over the last 5 years has been recruiting, things are getting a little less hopeful.

Tate points out in his recent article that the Illini are currently last in terms of commitments for next years class. We have only nine commitments compared to (as of today) 19 for Iowa. We do still have commitments from 3 very good prospects in C.J. Fiedorowicz, Corey Cooper and Elite 11 QB Chandler Whitmer, 3 of the top 5 prospects for this year in the state of Illinois. The notable not included name being Kyle Prater, the player some still think may be considering Illinois.

Its not a big class, you may say, and it has some real promising players in those three. I would have said the exact same thing to you, say about two months ago. Much has been said about how much a boon to recruiting a year like 2007 could be for Illinois, but don't discount how disastrous a 1-11 2009 could be for this program. Especially when you consider that the best current commitment, the nation's top tight end C.J. Fiedorowicz, recently nearly missed Illinois' homecoming to visit Iowa. He has apparently recently assured his commitment to the Illini, but is going to take his scheduled visit to Iowa soon.

Why? You might say? Is it because he is having second thoughts about going to a place where the offense is sputtering, Where the team has yet to win in conference, and worst of all has had trouble finding the tight end?

I don't know. But it is clear that other Big Ten coaches smell blood in the water and are going to go after what recruiting value this team has accrued so far this year. The likes of Ferentz and Beilema are not going to pass up an opportunity to play up how often their offenses use the TE and how we have yet to really utilize one of our best offensive weapons in Uh-oh.

Nothing has happened formally yet, but this team desperately needs to hold on to what talent is coming in, and get a boost from another good recruiting haul for there to be any hope in this team next year. I fear that already a lot has happened to undo the strides this team had made two years ago.