A name to keep an eye on...Sterling Gilbert. New head coach at McNeese State (2-3 so far). He may need some more seasoning and experience so it might not line up with Illinois' (potential) timing right now, but he's someone to keep an eye on. He was Dino's OC at EIU, followed Strong to Texas (eventually) and then South Florida, and now has his own gig. He's a bright offensive mind, a young coach and would potentially find the Illinois job attractive.
2019-20 Coaching Discussion/Carousel
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ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Freeze was paying kids and hiring escorts and the like. That's not as easy to set up at Illinois as it is at Ole Miss, and isn't as easy to get away with the second time around, but I wouldn't have any moral qualms about hiring him. His association with Liberty University would probably be my bigger problem and maybe a problem for people in our administration as well.
Art Briles was recklessly enabling acts of violence against the campus community by his players. He shouldn't be a college head coach again, certainly not in Champaign. Hard pass.
Kendal Briles was involved enough in the situation to be pretty gross, but even beyond that, that resume is pretty light for a position like this. This is his first year as a P5 OC away from Daddy, and it's not going all that well. There are better, more proven offensive minds without the baggage that we could find.
Statements that make Gritty’s head explode for $400, Alex.
All good points with a lot to leave us thinking about but to the bolded section, this is accurate but misleading. For starters, his average annual player ranking is among the highest in the history of that University, truly. Doug Marrone never had a class AAR over .827. Babers has never had one under .83. He's done better than your number (Which is always highly misleading, as it heavily weights quantity) will show and then of course there's the real meat and potatoes of what those efforts truly tell you....he's at Syracuse. This is an incredibly difficult place to recruit football players.
I commend him for what he's done there recruiting wise, he's exceeding most reasonable expectations.
Was actually in place after Thomas was canned....Paul Kowalczyk was set to hire Babers.....Barbara Wilson said he couldn't then there we were with the 2 year Cubit deal.
Bolded: How so? I'm asking for pointed evidence, for note, not "He was there so he had to know". That's hogwash.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I want to quote a slightly larger portion of it than Matt Coldagelli did, and emphasize a different part of it:
Across both sports, this attitude that what's fun about college sports is pleading for 17 year olds to give you validation and choose you as a fanbase, as opposed to and even INSTEAD OF winning, pervades this board.
It's like watching someone wear pants on their torso and a shirt on their legs. I don't just disagree, I can't even begin to engage with the broad framework of how someone could begin to think that way. It made me so angry for a long time, but now I just don't even bother trying to wrap my brain around it.
Don’t worry, they are just making a stance on something based off loose/shaky/ignorant/uninformed/whatever arguments.
I guarantee if Illinois was playing for the B1G championship and a chance at, say, a Rose Bowl birth and was 10-2...all while running the TO, they’d tune in.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Quantity is important! Depth is important!
My recollection is that he was named as having involvement in some of the cover up stuff. I don't want to slander him if I'm wrong, but that's what I remember from reading those stories.
That's....that's really upsetting.
Ugh, that is really opening some long-dormant wounds for me.
I'm aware. However, 247 puts significantly more weight into those raw numbers that it does the quality of the players which is a major, major flaw in the sport of football where the outcome of a particular game is so often impacted by higher end, singular players.
Depth has to have a level of quality. Otherwise, you're just running a guy out there. There's nothing positive about that.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I don't agree with this. I would rather have a two-deep of decent three stars who fit the system and have experience than half Bama starters and half Marchese brothers (a reductio ad abusurdum, but you know what I mean).
Good opponents will find and exploit your weaknesses ruthlessly.
Then agree to disagree. I'll take the latter scenario and I'll beat you every Saturday.
Purdue's offense isn't hurting without Rondale Moore because they're thin at WR. They're hurting without Rondale Moore because they don't have another Rondale Moore type talent.
0440 I really appreciate your insight but this one could have been kept in the bag. This is the ultimate nut punch.
My stomach actually hurt reading it. Ouch.
SampsonRelpenk
- Edwardsville, IL
There is no rationale in the world to justify that decision. If the worry was that they wouldn't be able to attract a top-tier AD without the carrot of hiring your own FB coach right off the bat, well we ended up with an alum working at a D3 school who certainly would have still taken the job. If it was about "stability", we've seen the decidedly unstable results of hiring a coach in March when the recruiting class is already signed and good assistants are generally unavailable.
This raises a harebrained notion I've never once considered: cathartic as it was dumping Bill Cubit on his rear like that, would we arguably be in a better spot today if Whitman had let him coach the 2016 season while securing a proper replacement?
I mean the only reason she didn't allow it was she wanted to let the AD they hired be able to hire his coach.
Never let a good decision get in the way of process. :doh:
At the time, Mark retired to pursue more endeavors of a religious nature. Not sure he has changed his mind. He went to high school, college, and retired in S FL so, I am not sure a northern school would have a real shot. But, who knows?
This is a very fair point, and it probably opened the door to more choices for AD. Also probably predicated on her (purely speculative) complete lack of football coach knowledge.
Hard to blame anyone for what happened in that time frame. If we did get Babers and he didn't pan out to a similar tune of Lovie, it would've looked like an administrative disaster--you've hamstrung your AD hiring process and his ability to fire the coach for at least a couple years. The period of time between the end of the Cubit led season and the hiring of JW was played as safe as any administration could've played it, for better or worse.
NOT!!!!!
Deleted member 654622
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This is the discussion we all had this past off season. Someone made some awesome charts for us that pointed our recruiting rankings compared to other B1G teams. I was on the side that a few high end talented players could swing a game in our favor over a team with quality depth. I was hoping to see what that was going to look like this year. In particular, when we go up against Northwestern
Not sure how you read that but yes I have decided. They overlooked some terrible stuff in Waco and no one was in a better position to question Art than Kendal.
Deleted member 654622
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Guest
Let me ask this question, as the gnashing of teeth is going on with Dino. If we hired Dino back then, do we have that brand new football facility? If the answer is no, then i am glad it worked out that way.
Would the hiring of Dino affected our ability to get the facility?
1. Call up a couple current P5 HCs to see if any would jump ship.
Dave Doeren
Dino Babers
2. Interview a few young coordinators/assistant coaches and gauge their readiness to lead a program.
Jim Leonhard
Chip Long
Brian Hartline - young and lacks experience but a top recruiter who could be a poor man's Dabo if surrounded by good coordinators
3. Jeff Monken - back to back 10+ wins at Army is enough proof for me
I’ve been tracking football recruiting for most of adolescent to adult life, there is a direct correlation between winning and AAR. Doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions to each rule and of course, not all winning season are created equal but the fact remains that higher end AAR programs are more successful than their counterparts, regardless of the number of kids they sign.
1 Rondale Moore (Composite 4* .91 recruit)will have a higher impact on wins and losses than 3 Trenard Davis’ (3*, composite .84 ranking). There’s simply too much factual data to try and change my thought on this.
Northwestern actually recruits significantly better than we do on an annual basis. They routinely sit in the middle of the Big Ten in AAR.
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