The 90 Illini

The 90 Illini #28: Aidan Laughery

Photo Credit: Illinois Sports Information

It's so interesting that we have several players from central Illinois (let's just roughly call it south of I-80, north of I-70 for this exercise) but there hasn't been a Big Ten football player from Champaign or Urbana in a long time.

Aidan Laughery is from Gibson City (population 3,400). Kaden Feagin is from Atwood (1,100). Josh Gesky is from Manteno (9,100), Declan Duley is from El Paso (2,700), Clayton Leonard is from Danforth (580), and Hank Beatty is from Rochester (3,800). Oh, and that juco offensive lineman who is currently injured, Kellen Francis, is from Princeville (population 1,600).

Champaign + Urbana + Savoy = 136,000 people (and that's not including the 44,000 students) and there hasn't been one single Big Ten football recruit for years and years? If I wasn't writing the preview right now I'd sit down and research the last power conference recruit from Champaign-Urbana. It can't go all the way back to Mikel Leshoure, can it? I have to be forgetting someone.

Anyway, Laughery is from Gibson City. Let's talk about him.

The 90 Illini #27: Ezekiel Holmes

The preview is about 3-4 hours away. Really happy with it this year. Saying all I've wanted to say, I think. Grange and Seventeen Club subscribers will get it in their email inboxes this afternoon. And then I'm going to try to figure out how to

The 90 Illini #29: David Olano

The 90 Illini #30: Malik Elzy

I feel like some people get lost when delineating between high-end recruits. I was having a conversation with someone last winter, and they just casually mentioned how they thought Elzy, with all of his recruiting hype, was going to have an Arrelious Benn-like freshman year last year. I get it.

Read next