Illinois, Notre Dame and Northwestern fans get flustered because they want their football teams to accumulate a lot of early commitments. Fans of every school want to see action early. If not, they get impatient, not realizing it is a long recruiting season. The goal is to get the best players, not to get as many early commitments as possible.

At the moment, Illinois has three commitments--lineman Shawn Afryl of Niles West, quarterback Chandler Whitmer of Downers Grove South and safety Corey Cooper of Proviso East. Notre Dame has five commitments, including offensive lineman Christian Lombard of Fremd. Northwestern has no commitments at all.

But local fans get out of sorts when they learn that Texas as 19 commitments, Alabama 15, LSU 13, Florida 12, Oklahoma 11 and USC eight.

Remember when Iowa scored a slam dunk in football recruiting in the Chicago area five years ago? When coach Kirk Ferentz signed five of the top six players, including two starters on next season's squad, tight end Tony Moeaki of Wheaton Warrenville South and offensive tackle Dan Doering of Barrington?

Well, the Hawkeyes haven't done well in the Chicago area in recent years--Illinois and Notre Dame have landed a majority of the elite players--but Ferentz and his staff, including chief recruiter Les Erb, are showing signs of making a major comeback with the class of 2010.

Iowa bounced back last season, finishing in a tie for fourth in the Big 10 with a 5-3 record and winning its last four games in a row for a 9-4 slate, closing with a 31-10 victory over South Carolina in the Outback Bowl.

There are many recruiting services and hundreds of college recruiters and everybody has their own method of evaluating and rating football prospects. But you can take one thing to the bank. You can't rate a kid based on the number of scholarship offers he has received. Or, in my view, you shouldn't.

For example, Fremd offensive lineman Christian Lombard had 32 offers as of Jan. 1, far more than anyone else in Illinois. Then he chose to commit to Notre Dame. He didn't opt to continue his recruiting, as some do, and visit more schools. So he didn't receive any more offers. If he had remained uncommitted, he would have more than 60 offers by now.

But he didn't so he doesn't. Instead, he was dropped off the chart by some recruiting services while uncommitted players received more attention. It's all about the political games that are played on the Internet. The recruiting websites get mad when kids commit to someone other than themselves or they choose not to play footsy with them.

The recent allegations about grade-changing and fraudulent test-taking in the case of former Simeon and current Chicago Bulls basketball star Derrick Rose aren't surprising in this age of high-pressure recruiting. And they certainly aren't reserved for basketball. Football has known its share of academic scandals.

If you read Michael Lewis' best-selling book, "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game," the story of former Mississippi offensive lineman Michael Oher, who was the 23rd pick in the 2009 NFL draft by the Baltimore Ravens, you learned that somebody is always trying to figure out a way to skirt around the rules.

I have been evaluating high school football players for 30 years, long enough to know that these illegal and unethical and immoral practices have been going on long before Oher--and they'll be going on long after his career is over.

Every high school athlete who goes through the college recruiting process should be as smart as C.J. Fiedorowicz of Johnsburg.

The 6-7, 250-pound junior is the biggest, fastest, most athletic and best tight end in the country in the class of 2010.

He knows who he is, what skills he possesses and how he wants to use them. He is a tight end who wants to play in a passing offense where he can catch the ball, not just block for ball-carriers.

I wish all kids did as much research about colleges, to see where they fit in best. It shouldn't come down to a personality contest between assistant coaches. Most Chicago kids commit too early. A lot of them make mistakes. They don't check out all the schools to determine all the options they have.

This is one of the best years for Downstate talent in a long, long time. No, there isn't anyone as good as East St. Louis' Terry Hawthorne, last year's headliner. But the class of 2010 has more depth and more good prospects outside the Chicago area than I can remember.

The leaders are quarterback Sean Robinson of Rochester and wide receivers Matt Milton of Mascoutah and Jimmie Hunt of Cahokia.

In fact, Robinson is the No. 1 quarterback in Illinois. The 6-4, 215-pounder is a great athlete, not one-dimensional. He has a great arm, can throw on the run or from the pocket or the spread. He is a legitimate big-time prospect even though he plays at a small school. His coach is Derek Leonard, son of Springfield Sacred Heart-Griffin coach Ken Leonard.

It is very early in the recruiting process, of course, but Michigan and Ohio State have taken an early lead in the annual sweepstakes. So what else is new?

Michigan has two five-star commitments--quarterback Devin Gardner of Inkster, Mich., and safety Marvin Robinson of Eagle River, Fla.

The Wolverines also are in on several big-time prospects, including defensive lineman William Gholston of Detroit, linebacker Jordan Hicks of Westchester, Ohio, and offensive lineman Seantrel Henderson of St. Paul, Minn., the nation's top-rated player. Gholston and Gardner are the top prospects in Michigan. Hicks may be leaning to Texas.

Running backs are always underrated and run under the radar in the Chicago area. They usually have to prove themselves more than ball-carriers from other regions because the city and suburbs are known for producing linebackers and linemen, not running backs.

Despite the oversight, Chicago has produced a lot of outstanding running backs, including Michael Turner, Garrett Wolfe, Chris Brown, Mike Alstott, Howard Griffith, Walter Stanley, Dex Jones, Pierre Thomas, A.J. Johnson, Jamil Walker, Joe Montgomery and Cecil Martin.

Sure, the area also has produced some talented ball-carriers who were highly recruited, including Mike Burden, Rashard Mendenhall and Robert Hughes.

But Turner, Wolfe, Brown, Alstott, Griffith, Stanley, Thomas, Montgomery and Martin weren't listed on many college recruiting charts coming out of high school. But they got an opportunity, made the most of it, developed their skills and, in some cases, had outstanding careers in the NFL.

Keep an eye on the promising class of quarterbacks in Illinois for the 2009 season. There are at least seven who have big-time college potential and they will receive more attention after recruiters view their film and size them up during the May evaluation period.

Quarterbacks are overlooked a lot in the recruiting process. Remember, Wheaton North's Chuck Long wasn't offered until Iowa came along at the of his senior season. He became a star at Iowa, was a Heisman Trophy runnerup and played in the NFL.

It is a tough position to evaluate. College coaches look for height and arm strength. They overlook prospects who simply can play better than taller, stronger guys. Who would you rather have, Joe Montana or Jeff George? Coming out of high school, George was the better prospect at 6-5 with one of the strongest arms anyone had ever seen.

Notre Dame lost a prized recruit to Penn State and another to Stanford, is battling USC and Florida for the leading prospect in California, isn't sure if it will land the son of former Irish star and NFL legend Joe Montana and continues to wait for Chicago area stars C.J. Fiedorowicz of Johnsburg and Chance Carter of Loyola to make up their minds.

Penn State wooed 6-3, 190-pound wide receiver Adrian Coxson of Baltimore, Md., away from Notre Dame. Credit Penn State assistant Larry Johnson, the Big 10's best recruiter, for pulling it off. Johnson turned down $400,000 to be Illinois' defensive coordinator to stay as defensive line coach at Penn State.

Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh, recruiting the school's best class in 20 years, lured wide receiver Tai-ler Jones of Atlanta, Ga., away from Notre Dame and North Carolina. Last year, he caught 80 passes for 1,000 yards. Jones' father Andre played on a national championship team at Notre Dame and his mother attended the South Bend school.