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Jeff Thomas’ recruitment

Martycane

Martycane

Sophomore
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Who gets the credit for finding and bringing this guy in?
Was it Kul with his Midwest connections from his Missouri days?
JT committed late in the process, if I recall...Who’d we beat out?
 
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Martycane said:
Who gets the credit for finding and bringing this guy in?
Was it Kul with his Midwest connections from his Missouri days?
JT committed late in the process, if I recall...Who’d we beat out?
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Kool and Dugans. Kool was obviously at Missouri before Miami and had a lot of East St Louis kids on the team. Dugans did his thing and closed.

Idk if it was Dugans or Richt but when Jeff was going through that rough patch where he wasn’t going to class, got suspended and all that, a lot of teams cooled on him but Miami kept tabs on him then threw the book at him once he got his stuff in order.
 
Bama was on him early, but they're interest faded as they moved onto other targets. It seemed to have to do with a combination of grades and some issues with his high school team. I remember Louisville being up there as one of his other top teams..
 
Plzwork4 said:
Bama was on him early, but they're interest faded as they moved onto other targets. It seemed to have to do with a combination of grades and some issues with his high school team. I remember Louisville being up there as one of his other top teams..
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Bama, OSU, Illinois, Louisville, and Missouri were the top teams then Osu and Bama faded. He wasn’t interested as much in Missouri. Illinois has a lot of East St Louis connections and I think the qb committed there and then bailed and ended up at Minnesota.
 
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Do I count for bringing him in lol? I would drop his name now and then in 2017.

He had an offer since May I believe but for some reason we had him on the back burner(academia stuff maybe). Bama was in on him initially but they cooled which left him with Illinois, Mizzou, Louisville, and Oregon. I personally think that we had Devonta Smith but Bama surged and killed it then we went to him.
 
Zbrod95 said:
Do I count for bringing him in lol?

He had an offer since May I believe but for some reason we had him on the back burner(academia stuff maybe). Bama was in on him initially but they cooled which left him with Illinois, Mizzou, Louisville, and Oregon. I personally think that we had Devonta Smith but Bama surged and killed it then we went to him.
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Never in a million years I thought Miami would get involved. I’ve followed him since freshman year and I knew he was gonna be a stud. Kept saying who the **** is this Jeff Thomas guy? He’s putting up crazy numbers and looks legit.

Knew he was gonna be a top 50 guy and SEC bound or Osu bound.
 
Am I crazy or was there a rumor about him being a package deal with some other kid on his highschool team and Illinois was the only school offering it?

Anyways, I remember Dugans and Kool flew up there and made the big push to get him. Louisville had a real shot towards the end but most people thought he was coming to Miami in the month or two leading up to NSD.
 
John77 said:
Am I crazy or was there a rumor about him being a package deal with some other kid on his highschool team and Illinois was the only school offering it?

Anyways, I remember Dugans and Kool flew up there and made the big push to get him. Louisville had a real shot towards the end but most people thought he was coming to Miami in the month or two leading up to NSD.
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He was tight with Ray Estes who actually was committed to Missouri. Sorry I said Illinois in a previous post. Estes was their qb and flipped to Minnesota. Illinois is always a player for East St Louis kids along with Missouri.
 
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John77 said:
Am I crazy or was there a rumor about him being a package deal with some other kid on his highschool team and Illinois was the only school offering it?

Anyways, I remember Dugans and Kool flew up there and made the big push to get him. Louisville had a real shot towards the end but most people thought he was coming to Miami in the month or two leading up to NSD.
Click to expand...

ESL coaches told Illinois to get JT they'd have to take 3/4 borderline FBS guys, at least that's what Illinois's 247 reporter said at the time.

Obviously, they weren't going to get anywhere trying that with Miami, Oregon, etc
 
Mklein13 said:
He was tight with Ray Estes who actually was committed to Missouri. Sorry I said Illinois in a previous post. Estes was their qb and flipped to Minnesota. Illinois is always a player for East St Louis kids along with Missouri.
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Yeah, I remember reading on here that the deal with Kul was that he had a relationship with the East St. Louis coach from his Missouri days.
 
Mklein13 said:
He was tight with Ray Estes who actually was committed to Missouri. Sorry I said Illinois in a previous post. Estes was their qb and flipped to Minnesota. Illinois is always a player for East St Louis kids along with Missouri.
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Illinois hasn't landed a big-time ESL kid since Terry Hawthorne.

Mizzou has gotten most of them recently, but Odom did something to **** off JT so he dropped them
 
RVACane said:
Yeah, I remember reading on here that the deal with Kul was that he had a relationship with the East St. Louis coach from his Missouri days.
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He pulled Terry Beckner who was a top 5 player in the country coming out of high school.
 
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TheRichtShow said:
Illinois hasn't landed a big-time ESL kid since Terry Hawthorne.

Mizzou has gotten most of them recently, but Odom did something to **** off JT so he dropped them
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The top 4 guys to come out of ESL in the last decade were Hawthorne, Thomas, Terry Beckner, and Kraig Appleton. Appleton left Wisconsin after his first or second year, Hawthorne should have played WR, Beckner has been injured most of his career and Jeff is doing great here.

Hawthorne was absolutely ridiculous but I honestly think Jeff was better coming out of high school.
 
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All I know is the second he got offered and in reality he was always a stud idk why more people didnt get on JT early but once we offered it was a wrap
 
John77 said:
Am I crazy or was there a rumor about him being a package deal with some other kid on his highschool team and Illinois was the only school offering it?

Anyways, I remember Dugans and Kool flew up there and made the big push to get him. Louisville had a real shot towards the end but most people thought he was coming to Miami in the month or two leading up to NSD.
Click to expand...

I dont think it helped his cause when he went ghost on his team for a couple weeks - it ended up being a huge break for UM, lol
 
Mklein13 said:
He was tight with Ray Estes who actually was committed to Missouri. Sorry I said Illinois in a previous post. Estes was their qb and flipped to Minnesota. Illinois is always a player for East St Louis kids along with Missouri.
Click to expand...

Rey Estes was ranked the number 12 signal caller in the midwest by scout. I didn't even know they ranked signal callers lol.
https://gophersports.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=1070
 
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