Riggins lands first offer

Hamilton (Ohio) 2016 cornerback A'shon Riggins has shown promise since his freshman season, but he just added his first offer last week.

"The offer from Illinois, I got it Tuesday of last week," Riggins reported. "It was a big confidence booster for me going into our last game. I had never really heard too much from Illinois, so I was kind of surprised about it."

In the week since Illinois has offered, Riggins has already begun to build a relationship with their staff.

"When they offered me, I called Coach (Alex) Golesh that night," Riggins said. "He was talking real good and was excited about it. He told me they have 17 players from Ohio and their starting center is actually from my league, so that was real good to hear.

"We didn't talk too much about what they liked about me, I just know they watched my film as a staff and really liked me, liked what my head coach had to say about me."

After some research into the program, Riggins feels he has a good handle on where the Illini are and where they could go.

"They are basically in the same situation my school is," Riggins said. "This is the third year of the coaching staff and they've been having up and down seasons. That's the same thing with my school, so I understand what's going on. They just have to get the players to believe and recruit heavy on what they need for their weak positions and they'll start rolling eventually."

The next step in Riggins recruitment with Illinois is to get down to campus for a game, and he already has that trip scheduled.

"I'll be down there (for the game) against Iowa," Riggins said. "I don't know if I will be there for the Penn State game, but on the 15th I'll for sure make it."

The 6-foot, 162-pound Riggins has also been receiving more interest from other schools throughout the region this fall.

"My head coach just texted me today and (passed along) a message from Purdue about having the head coach evaluate me so hopefully I can get an offer from there," Riggins said. "Eastern Michigan is going to stop by this week and they were really trying hard to be my first offer, so I will really be looking for an offer from them."

Riggins played both quarterback and cornerback, finishing with three interceptions on defense even though he did not play the whole season at that position.