mbadger:

russo,  didn't mean to put words in your mouth, but i will add a few more names to the pretty high ranked qbs of of the nineties.  scott lyles, mark zander, scott kavanaugh, mike samuel.  all four were every bit as highly regarded as phillips and budymar.  all but samuel did squat.

 regarding, budymar, the conference he plays in is not a power conference.  the reason i know this is i played football in the conference 20 years ago.  as a matter of fact, i am heading to my 20 year reunion this weekend outside chicago.  the conference has changed slightly, as marion was not in it when i was there.  there were two powers that left b/c they were beating up on everyone else and sought greater competition.  trust me. it is not a conference that i would say is considered powerful.

 You may be right it may not be a power conference but the catholic schools sure do seem to win more than their share of state titles (i.e. Joliet Catholic has won the state title ever year since 1999 on except 2005 and 2006) recently and the 'public' schools started to cry 'foul' so one can assume overall that the competition level in these 'private' school conferences has increased in recent years.  Plus 20-years ago it was just Ohio State and Michigan in the Big Ten and today and in recent years, it is so much more now.

In 2005, private schools claimed 5 of 8 state football titles in Illinois, despite the proportionally smaller number of schools. This prompted heated debates between coaches from both sides. Public school coaches argued that private schools could recruit their players with scholarships whereas the public school already offers free education and thus, no incentive.

Finally, the IHSA decided in order to "level the playing field", a multiplier of 1.65 to the student body of each private school would be applied. Obviously angered, most private schools were forced to play in a class level above their own. A 4A private school would play with 5A public school teams. Though debate is ongoing and talk of cessation again by the private schools exists, the rule stands for now.

 BTW, did anyone else see that rivals.com downgraded Budmayer to 3-stars now?  I think I recall him being at 4-stars earlier.