The 90 Illini #38: Jeremiah Warren

I hate that the very first thing I think about when discussing Jeremiah Warren is how he was the offer that went out after Trey Pierce (Brother Rice) picked Michigan.

It was an obvious "if not, then" at the time. Pierce, also a defensive lineman, decommitted from Wisconsin after Paul Chryst was fired. He visited Michigan, he visited Illinois, and he picked Michigan on December 14, 2022. We offered Jeremiah Warren the next day (December 15th), he visited on December 16th, he verballed on December 19th, and he signed with Illinois on December 21st.

I always point to scenarios like that when having recruiting discussions with people. I'll state that recruiting rankings are no longer trustworthy outside of the top teams (the services don't even really try outside of the four-stars anymore), and people will say "what, I'm supposed to just give the coaching staff a pass on every recruit they bring in?", and my answer is always to point to scenarios like this.

We went head-to-head with Michigan on Trey Pierce and lost. That kind of thing will definitely show up in the win/loss column in the future unless we find another player of similar value. Those "this guy picked a blue blood - what did we do with that scholarship?" scenarios tell us almost everything we need to know about the health of our recruiting.

In this instance, the other player, hopefully of similar value, is...