Illini Not Expected To Announce Any Signings Tomorrow

Illinois head coach Lovie Smith is holding back several scholarships for the 2020 season for the transfer market.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- An argument could easily be made Lovie Smith couldn’t possibly care less about Wednesday, the first day of the February signing period. And for good reason. It’s likely how you’ll feel when your football program has nothing newsworthy to share with the public.

“What is Wednesday? Is that signing day? You can see how important that day really is to us,” the Illini head coach said Monday inside the program’s new football facility. “A big class coming in Wednesday? Ah, that’s not going to happen.”

In fact, Illinois is likely to not announce any signings Wednesday and may not produce any signings involving a high school prospect from now until spring practices start in late March or early April.

Just months after becoming bowl eligible for the first time under Smith and the first time in five years, Illinois only signed 12 prospects during the December early signing period and had one verbal commitment, four-star wide receiver Jadon Thompson, decide to wait until February to sign his National Letter of Intent.

Reports have now surfaced via BearcatJournal.com, the 247.com affiliate for Cincinnati athletics, that Thompson took an official visit to Cincinnati this past weekend and may sign with the Bearcats program led by head coach Luke Fickell as early as Wednesday.

Broderick Jones, the nation’s top-rated high school offensive tackle prospect in the 2020 recruiting class, took a surprise mid-week official visit to Illinois a few weeks ago but no indication has surfaced that Jones is expected to further consider signing with the Illini.

247Sports.com has Illinois’ 2020 recruiting class ranked 73rd nationally (one spot above North Texas and two spots above UNLV) and at the bottom of the Big Ten Conference, which would be the lowest-ranked class of the five-year Lovie Smith era. Those rankings still include the verbal pledge of Thompson and if he were to sign elsewhere, it’s likely that ranking would drop even further.

The December period being void of any in-state prospects was noticeably disappointing to Smith and the Illini head coach said Monday his program still has “a few scholarships available” for the 2020 season. Illini Now/Sports Illustrated has an unofficial tabulation of Illinois’ scholarship number at 78, which is seven below the NCAA’s limit of 85 for each Football Bowl Subdivision program.

“Will we fill all of those scholarships before we start playing football (in 2020)? Absolutely,” Smith said Monday. “I think it is a different day on how recruiting goes a little bit. There’s a lot of ways you can add to your program.”

Smith acknowledged that after signing five transfers from Power 5 Conference programs in 2019 after May, including starting quarterback Brandon Peters, leading receiver Josh Imatorbhebhe and leading pass rusher Oluwole Betiku Jr., the Illini will be very active in the graduate transfer market.

Illini Now/Sports Illustrated has detailed in the past has Illinois football has a desire to become the Grad Transfer University for players looking for more playing time or a different system led by a former NFL head coach.

“I think whenever you try something different and like it, yeah, you lean on it a little bit more,” Smith said. “There’s a certain type of guy, when talking about grad transfers in general, we’re interested in but for the most part, these guys have demonstrated they’re serious students and they’re looking for something we can give them.”