Finally Some Illinois Recruiting News!

[Trainer]

From Illinois Preps..... Driscoll Catholic senior athlete Greg Turner (generally considered a safety) couldn't have dreamed of a better high school career while playing for the Highlanders and head coach Tim Racki. Three state title rings, two time consensus All State performer, and Turner is still considered by many as one of the best small school players ever in the State of Illinois. Yet when it comes to his recruiting, Turner is still searching for a school to call home according to his head coach.

"Right now Greg has an offer from Eastern Illinois and North Dakota State" said Driscoll Catholic head coach Tim Racki. "Northern Illinois University is talking about making Greg a greyshirt, and the University of Illinois wants Greg to be a preferred walk-on."

"Greg was sick last weekend, so he wasn't able to make any official visits, plus Greg plays basketball so that makes it hard as well. This coming weekend Greg will make an official visit to Eastern Illinois, then he might take a visit to North Dakota State after that."

According to Racki, "Greg also made an official visit to NIU during the week a few weeks ago. I know that the NIU staff really likes Greg alot, but they basically are full up on scholarships for now, so they have talked about him greyshirting. That could be a possibility for Greg as well."

More stuff - Greg Turner was named as an All State player in 2002 as well as the Chicago Sun-Times Small School POY in 2002 as a junior. Turner had a combined 2,050 yards of total offense in 2002 as well as 10 interceptions for the back to back Illinois Class 4A state champs. A quote from last November ..... "Recruiting-wise I've been missing alot of calls lately because were practicing alot (football) and I haven't been home much. I'm still getting calls from Northern Illinois, Western Michigan, Illinois, Duke and New Mexico. I still have an offer from New Mexico, and I'm going to set an official visit or two shortly."

We'll have to see if more news comes out of Illinois over the next week.....

[Trainer]

And another.... from Edgytim.com

Carmel senior quarterback Mark Venegoni (6-foot-3, 200 pounds) made his first official visit last weekend to North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota.
"Overall I was really surprised at the campus and the facilities" said Mark Venegoni. "Also there are several Chicago-area players at NDSU which I wasn't really aware of and my host for the weekend was wide receiver Mike Dragosavich from Oak Lawn Richards, and it was really great to see so many Chicagoland kids at NDSU."

According to Venegoni, "NDSU didn't offer me, and that was sort of disappointing. They said that they have a few offers out right now, but that they would call me later this week to let me know for sure."

"I'm going to try to set another visit soon, possibly to Northwood or possibly Holy Cross. I have an offer from Northwoods. I've also made an earlier visit to Drake and I'm considering them as well"

[Trainer]

Edgy Tim's evaluation of Mark Venegoni.....

Carmel senior QB Mark Venegoni (6-foot-3, 205 pounds) is a great all around athlete with exceptional physical tools and ability in my humble opinion.

Venegoni is in his second season of quarterbacking the #1 ranked Carmel Corsairs, and overall Venegoni continues to impress as a signal caller. Strengths? Venegoni just does alot of things very well here, from making the right reads in the option attack, to taking the ball and running on the option and more. Venegoni's best skill in running the option is his ability to make the right read after the snap, his thought process and his ability to make reads on the fly are uncanny. Passing? Venegoni has become more and more comfortable dropping back and making the right pass at the right time, seldom will you see Venegoni force a throw. Again, the overall athletic ability and skills are at an extremely high level, and Venegoni is an outstanding all around football player in my opinion.

[tony]

Thanks, JD. Both these guys are great players. Grag Turner set a record for TD receptions in one game in the IL state playoffs. *

I did a Google search on Mark Venegoni and *wow* does he get a lot of ink. Sounds like a great athlete. I wonder if NDSU was interested in him as a QB or db. His HS team, Carmel (Mundelin, IL) was ranked #18 at beginning of the year and after going 14-0 and winning the state championship, they were ranked as high as #3 (the lowest I saw was 12th).

Kind of a weird situation with Mark Venegoni, if NDSU ends up with him, that means somebody turned down NDSU's offer. Then again, tt would not be a bad thing if NDSU had a recruiting inside into one of the top HS football programs in the country.

[Bisonfan1234]

I would equate Carmal with Totino-Grace in Minneapolis.

A good team but doubtful they're one of the best in the nation.