By Kedric Prince/IlliniGuys Director of Recruiting

Aidan Laughery, a 5-foot-11, 183-pound athlete from Gibson City, Illinois, is a wanted man on the recruiting front these days.

The three-star running back does hold an offer from the Fighting Illini but several other Big Ten opponents as well: Minnesota, Iowa, Rutgers, and Michigan State.

The new Illinois coaching staff is on a roll right now, especially with in-state recruits; head coach Bret Bielema said he was going to put a wall around the state to keep other schools from coming in and taking them without a fight.

"Illinois is definitely a top option for me right now. I can't put a number on it, meaning where they rank, because there's a lot of things I like about all the schools recruiting me. But for sure, Illinois is really high on my priority list right now," Laughery said.

The one glaring difference for most of these recruits in-state or out of state is that the majority of them all have the same common theme: they are very aggressive at Illinois.

"It's crazy the amount of love the entire coaching staff is showing me from both sides of the ball, offense and defense. It's a different feel there now. I'm planning to attend the Illinois spring game tonight. The plan right now is to take my official visits before I make any decisions," Laughery said.

The most recent recruits, Clayton Leonard and Hank Beatty, are a group of guys that have a master group text session going along with a group to play video games. Laughery has been recently added to that group.

Laughery told us at IlliniGuys.com he hopes to give us a brief assessment of tonight's scrimmage, tonight or tomorrow morning.