Several Bowl Championship Series schools, including the University of Illinois, are discovering a solid quarterback pipeline to the Chicago area.
It began two years ago, when Maine South quarterback Charlie Goro, fresh off an unbeaten state championship season, went to Vanderbilt. After being redshirted as a freshman, Goro will report to the Vandy camp in August with a legitimate chance to play.
Another seven quarterback prospects from Chicagoland signed scholarship offers in 2010, including Chandler Whitmer of
Downers Grove South (Ill.) and Miles Osei of
Prospect (Mt. Prospect, Ill.), who both went to Illinois.
Now the Illini have landed another quarterback.
Reilly O'Toole, a rising senior at defending Class 7A champ
Wheaton-Warrenville South (Wheaton, Ill.), verbally committed to Illinois. O’Toole, 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds, threw for 2,119 yards and 24 touchdowns last season for the 13-1 Tigers. He was intercepted just three times. In the Tigers’ 31-24 double-overtime win over Glenbard West in the 7A title game, O’Toole completed 10-of-21 passes for 129 yards and a touchdown. Already, since last season, he has grown one inch and put on 20 pounds.
“I wanted to go to Illinois a couple weeks before I committed. They were one of the first schools interested in me. I liked that,” O’Toole told the
Chicago Sun-Times.
Northwestern and Minnesota were among four other schools that had offered scholarships.
O’Toole and Wheaton Warrenville South, defending DuPage Valley champs, begin their season Aug. 27 at Hinsdale Central.
When O’Toole does hit the Illinois campus in 2011, he’ll notice some familiar faces around the Big Ten. Taylor Graham, who was quarterback at neighboring
Wheaton North (Wheaton, Ill.), is an incoming freshman at Ohio State.
Maine South (Park Ridge, Ill.) running back Matt Perez, who rushed for more than 3,300 yards in two Class 8A championship seasons, is an incoming freshman at Indiana. And perhaps among those defenders chasing O’Toole in future Big Ten seasons will be St. Rita’s Bruce Gaston, a defensive tackle at Purdue.
The Chicago quarterback recruiting class of 2010 also included
Hinsdale Central (Hinsdale) standout John Whitelaw, who went to Yale;
Lake Forest Academy (Lake Forest, Ill.) standout Tommy Rees, who started his freshman year at Notre Dame in January; and Tyler Benz, Goro’s replacement at Maine South, who is about to begin his freshman year at Eastern Michigan.
More recruiting: Naperville North linebacker picks BC*
Nick Lifka, a 6-2, 235-pound inside linebacker at Naperville North, verbally committed to Boston College. “All around, it seemed like a great fit for me,“ Lifka told the Naperville Sun. He turned down 11 other offers, including LSU, Vanderbilt, Indiana and Duke.
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DaVaris Daniels, a 6-3, 190-pound wide receiver at
Vernon Hills, remains uncommitted despite heavy interest from Miami and Notre Dame, among many other high-level programs. Daniels, the son of Washington Redskins defensive end Phillip Daniels, has 12 major-college scholarship offers, but there is one school missing from the list: Georgia. His dad, Phillip, played at Georgia, and Phillip has been quoted as wanting to see a higher interest from Georgia head football coach Mark Richt. DaVaris Daniels had scheduled a news conference at Vernon Hills High School on June 29 to reportedly announcement his commitment to Miami, but canceled it because he still hadn’t decided. Daniels had 221 receiving yards and 344 rushing yards in 2009.
Storylines around Chicagoland:* Many Chicago-area high school football teams are participating in a number of 7-on-7 preseason scrimmages in various suburban venues.
Bolingbrook is the host of a weekly scrimmage, leading up to its annual Raider Passing Jamboree in late July that attracts up to 50 teams. Maine West will host a 7-on-7 scrimmage July 13.
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Jay Harris, a 6-1 guard from
Oswego East (Oswego), will soon be headed for Mexico. A 2010 men’s basketball recruit at Valparaiso University in Indiana, Harris, a freshman who began his college classes during the summer semester, will join the Crusaders in their August trip to Cancun, Mexico, for a series of exhibition games. Harris averaged more than 28 points per game for Oswego East his senior season and was named the Southwest Prairie Conference Player of the Year. “He was one of the best 3-point shooters in the Chicago area this season, but he also does more than just score. Jay is very adept at seeing the floor and making good decisions with the ball in his hands,” Valpo head coach Homer Drew said.
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Minooka baseball standout Mike Foltynewicz, a first-round pick by the Houston Astros in the 2010 baseball draft, has already made three starts with the organization’s Class A team in Greenville, Tenn. But going directly from high school ball to the pros can be daunting. After giving up no runs and one hit in his one-inning professional debut June 26, Foltynewicz has gone no further than the second inning in two other starts and has an 11.57 earned-run average. He won nine of 10 decisions in the spring at Minooka High School and had a 0.58 ERA. Foltnewicz turned down a scholarship offer at the University of Texas to go pro.
* Michael Redlicki, a rising junior at
Lake Zurich High School, will play for an Intersectional Invitational tennis title this weekend in Louisiana, following up his championship win in the USTA Midwest Closed Boys 18 singles tournament at Indianapolis. A fourth-place finisher in the Illinois High School Association tennis tournament in 2009, his freshman year, Redlicki is also qualified for the USTA National Clay Court Championships, which begin July 18 in Delray Beach, Fla.
Paul Bowker, a sports journalist for 25 years who has worked at newspapers nationwide, covers the Chicago area for MaxPreps. He may be reached at bowkerpaul1@aol.com.
