College Football

Illinois Football: Owen Carney Will Replace Missing Defensive Ends

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 7:44 p.m. ET

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Fansided, Rees Woodcock/FanSided via Writing Illini

One of the strong points for the Illinois football team in 2016 was the defensive line.

This line anchored the entire defense and now the Illini are losing all four of the opening day starters plus a backup defensive end who could have started for just about any team in college football.

It is going to be extremely hard to replace three dominant defensive ends

Dawuane Smoot and Carroll Phillips were the two starting defensive ends.  They each had 56 tackles on the season and Smoot had five sacks and Phillips had nine sacks.

The backup to these two was Gimel President.  He had 40 tackles and four and a half sacks last season.

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Finding replacements for these three talented players is going to be difficult, but Illinois took a step in the right direction on Christmas Day.

Owen Carney announced he was committing to the Illini yesterday.  This was a huge get for Illinois and someone who could see snaps day one.

Carney is a high three-star defensive end who is the No. 476 player in the class of 2017 and the No. 65 player in the state of Florida.

The recruitment of Carney was a tough one.  It seemed to have been down to Illinois and Florida State for about a few months.

Illinois then received an official visit from Carney on December 9.  This was only his second official visit with the other one being to Maryland in October.

This visit was huge because a few weeks later he decided to commit to the Illini.

Illinois now sits with 17 commitments for the class of 2017.  This was arguably the biggest commitment so far for Lovie Smith.

Every recruiting site has Carney ranked differently and Rivals has him as a four-star.  This would make the third four-star recruit for the Illini and it also bumped them up to the No. 40 class in the nation.

Carney is going to be a nice piece to possibly replace the three defensive ends that are departing.  He now joins Olalere Oladipo as the only two defensive ends in the class.

Lovie and the Illini coaching staff have done a great job filling the needed positions.  This is going to help create depth and avoid weaknesses in certain areas.

If Lovie can continue to add big-time players like Carney then I think we can get in the top 25 recruiting classes for 2017.

The Illini are on the rise and We Will Win.

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