Buffalo Grove's Cornely finds his future at SIU

Mike Cornely started to get a better view of his future possibilities during his junior football season at Buffalo Grove.

Now the senior wide receiver has seen possibility turn to reality. Cornely made a verbal commitment to accept a full scholarship during a campus visit to Southern Illinois last weekend and will sign his letter of intent Wednesday.

"I didn't know what I could do until my junior year when I started getting some offers after that," said Cornely, who also plays basketball and competes in track and field. "During my junior year I figured, 'Maybe I could do this.'

"I put myself to work and I'm happy I could become a Division I athlete."

The 6-foot-2 Cornely caught 24 passes for 436 yards and 6 touchdowns last season in a Bison offense where 63 percent of its yards came on the ground.

Cornely had interest from Colgate but didn't want to go that far away in New York. He also said an offer from Illinois State his junior year had been reduced to a half-scholarship.

He'll join an SIU program that was 11-2 last year, made its third trip in four years to the quarterfinals in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) and was ranked No. 6 in the final FCS Coaches and Sports Network top 25 poll.

"It's a really exciting time to go into a winning program," Cornely said of SIU having the third-most wins of FCS schools since 2003 with 70.

Cornely, who has a 4.3 grade point average on a 5.0 scale and scored 24 on the ACT, plans to study education. He said SIU head coach Dale Lennon likes to have freshmen sit out as redshirts their first year.

"It all depends on what I do in the summer," Cornely said. "I have to play hard and hopefully I'll get some playing time, but being redshirted is not all that bad."

Especially considering how good everything worked out for Cornely.