Offensive coordinator Mike Locksley didn’t have to look far to find more running back talent. Locksley helped nab Mikel LeShoure, a Champaign Centennial graduate and friend of his son, Mike Locksley Jr. LeShoure is a three-star recruit according to Scout.com. He completed high school early and joined the Illini for the spring semester.

The Daily Illini met with LeShoure last week.

Daily Illini: What ultimately brought you here?

Mikel LeShoure: First of all, I loved the coaching staff. I thought he was a real coach. Not only was he recruiting me, but he was being real with me, and I thought most of the stuff he was telling me, I felt it was true and legit stuff.

After talking to a lot of players, he is one of the few coaches that is still the same person once you meet him. And then coach Locksley, I had a relationship with him before I even got here through his son, Mike Locksley Jr. He was my best friend through high school, so before I was even recruited by Illinois I had a relationship with Locks.

So that helped me out coming here, too, and then, having a friend on the team and telling me about the things they were doing.

Meeting his friends and becoming friends with them made the environment a lot better for me.

DI: Zook says his best recruiting tools are his players as ambassadors. You agree?

ML: I would agree with that. He treats his players just like his kids he invites us over to his house – not all the time – but there is time he will invite the whole team over to his house just to chill out and hang out with him. There are not too many coaches that do that.

DI: How can you be sure a coach is “real”?

ML: You really don’t. You really can’t. The only way you can find that out is after talking to players who have been coached by that person.

But having Locks here to tell me that Zook is really what he portrays himself to be helped me believe that he was the person I thought he was.

DI: What’s it like to be inundated with phone calls and texts and letters?

ML: You just got to get adapted to it; it’s going to be different at first. They stopped the texting now. That’s a big help. Overall, at first it might seem pretty cool and everything, but sometimes it can be headache.

You get phone calls all the time, during night time when you’re doing homework and stuff like that. You just have to learn to deal with your time management.

DI: What’s the biggest adjustment from high school to college?

ML: I’m more on my own now. I have to be responsible for things that I do. It’s going to fall back on me whether it’s good or bad. And one of the main things is the time frame – getting up for workouts on my own without my mom coming into my room to wake me up, going to class when I have to.

Now you don’t have someone telling you that you have to go to class. You don’t have teachers writing you up detention minutes.

If you don’t come, you don’t come, and its going to show come the test. It’s just more responsibility.

DI: If you could tell someone going through the recruiting process anything, what would you tell them?

ML: Take your time, man. Don’t go somewhere or visit and fall in love with and think that’s where you need to be. If you’ve the opportunity to see more than one campus, do that. You have to be good with the players.

It’s not all about the coaching staff. If the coaching staff is cool, and you’re not cool with the players, it’s not going to be good for you.

I didn’t know how much time you’re going to spend with your teammates until I got here. You’re going to be with your teammates all the time, not even just for football but when you’re hanging out on the weekends and stuff.

You have to be cool with your teammates.

And you feel like they have their heads on right to keep you out of trouble and everything like that.

DI: Anything else you want to say?

ML: I’m psyched about the season. I can’t wait for the season to start.