Mike Svetina
Linebacker
6′-2″, 215 lbs.
True Freshman (on scholarship, 5 years to play 4)
St. Ignatius HS / Brunswick, Ohio

ALE Ranking last year: NR

What I Know About Him:

Svetina was originally committed to Miami (OH). But he had an offer from Toledo, and when Tim Beckman took the Illinois job and was looking to fill several scholarships in his first month, he contacted Svetina and Svetina made the switch to the Big Ten.

Svetina played a lot of safety in high school. And when you play safety in high school but then accept a scholarship offer from a Big Ten school, you bulk up and move to linebacker. And when you bulk up and move to linebacker, you take a few years in the weight room and film room learning your new position. And when you take a few years in the weight room and film room learning your new position, you attend your own funeral as a guy named Phil Shifley.

What I Expect From Him:

As a high school safety, and being only 215 lbs, I think there’s a chance that we’ll try Svetina at the Star linebacker position (similar to Koenning’s Busseybacker position). We’re fairly deep at the other linebacker positions – Brown and Bates will start, we added Cooper and Dickinson in the 2011 class, we added Neal and Monheim in the 2012 class – so I think we might start Svetina at Star and see if he’s a fit.

If not, and if we plan on moving him inside, that’s probably three years of weights and film before he cracks the rotation. So, like most players down here in the 80′s, you’ll hear his name now… and then you’ll hear about him again in 2015. You know, when we win the Rose Bowl.