the recruit: corey lillard

Wide receivers coach Wayne Lineburg is officially listed as Corey Lillard's primary recruiter. This is technically true. Lillard might disagree, however.

Lillard, a junior, made the decision following the Cavaliers' spring game, where he sat with Virginia commits Quintin Hunter (Orange), Dominique Wallace (Chancellor) and Ross Metheny (Sherando).

Lillard and Hunter were AAU basketball teammates and friends before the recruiting process began.

"They were definitely a part of [my decision]," Lillard said of his friends. "They kept saying: 'When are you going to pull the trigger? Why are you sitting there waiting?' I told them to let me think about it."

Upon committing themselves, Hunter, Wallace, and Metheny all stated their intention to make sure Lillard joined them in the UVA class of '09, so it didn't come as a huge surprise when Lillard agreed.

Name: Corey Lillard
Position: S
Hometown: Bealeton
School: Liberty
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 195
40: 4.55

ESPN: 77
Rivals: 5.6, three stars, #55 safety
Scout: three stars, #84 safety

It is not worth worrying about the thirty-spot difference between Rivals and Scout's rankings. Safety rankings are some of the biggest toss-ups in the toss-up world of recruiting rankings. The two players on either side of Lillard according to Rivals are Jay Fullam (#53), Charlie Thomas (#54), Nathan Fellner (#56) and Jray Galea'i (#57); Scout considers them "not ranked", #45, #52, and #15 respectively. So what to make of these position rankings? Nothing, that's what. "Three stars" is about as accurate as you're likely to get.

Further muddling things is the video. He's a safety. Safeties don't make spectactular catches, spectacular throws, spectacular leapfrog runs, or spectacular pancake blocks. About the only spectacular anything safeties do is hit, which Lillard receives praise from his high school coach for doing. That and tackling.

So as usual, we fall back to our old standby: actual offers. Lillard received a number of them, 8 being that number. Besides UVA (well, actually, including UVA) it's a solid list of mostly good-but-not-great programs: Arkansas, BC, Duke, UNC, NCSt, Rutgers, WVU, Wake. Tech? Interested, but were probably never going to offer; they're going to have a small class. (Rivals $). Even without a VPISU offer, it's a good list. Given that, I'm inclined to lean a little more towards believing the ESPN and Rivals evaluations.