Pocic Expands on Commitment

Last night Scout.com broke the commitment of Graham Pocic to Illinois, however we were not able to bring home quotes at the time as to why the Lemont, Ill., native made the decision he did. We caught up with Pocic today to talk about his commitment and find out what set Illinois apart in the end.

Graham Pocic had narrowed the field to Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida and was thought to be a Wisconsin lock month ago, but ultimately ended up deciding to attend Illinois. We spoke to the 6-foot-6, 313-pound offensive tackle today about how he came to the decision he did.

“I went to Illinois on Wednesday with my mom and then yesterday with my dad and when I came home I told them that was what I wanted,” Pocic said. “My family was very excited, so I called Coach (Ron) Zook to let him know and the entire coaching staff was together at a coaching clinic or something, so they were all yelling and screaming when I let them know. It was just a really exciting thing and I’m happy to have found the school I’ll be attending.”

As for why Pocic chose Illinois, there ended up being many different things that brought him to the decision he made. Some of those things were what Illinois did well, but others were things that other teams could have done differently.

“Some of my finalists were very negative about the other schools I was looking at and only pointing out what was bad about the other schools to me,” Pocic explained. “That really turned me off quickly because the Illinois staff always told me that all of the schools I had offers from brought something great to the table. They just told me what was good about their school and stuck to the positive side of things which really helped.”

“Relationships with the coaching staff also played a big role,” Pocic added. “Coach (Curt) Mallory had been recruiting me since last year and then both Coach (Ron) Zook and Coach (Eric) Wolford did a great job with me this year. All of the coaches were very down to Earth and they interact with their players off the football field as well as on it. They care about your life away from football too and that shows what they are all about.”

“The opportunity to play early, how close they were to home and the fact that Illinois is a program on the rise also played a big part,” Pocic stated. “They have brought in two great recruiting classes in a row and are on the way to having another great one this year. I am going to do my best to help the staff recruit guys like Garrett Goebel and Tyler Sands or whoever they want me to help with going forward and hopefully we can bring some more great players here.”

Pocic benches 350 pounds, squats 455 and has a 29-inch vertical jump, but also excels in the classroom, sporting a 2.8 core GPA and a 22 on his ACT test.