Football Coaching Staff / Coaching Carousel Thread

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#101      
I agree with everything in the first part. I don't get the weird hate for Brohm. He is set to have better teams/seasons in his first 2 years on the job than any Illinois coach has accomplished since the Rose Bowl year. I'd say there's a much better chance of him building a perennially good team at Purdue than Lovie building one at Illinois, and I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise with any legitimate data or evidence.

In the end, for Brohm to have perennial success, he needs to fill the rosters with young players that develop and build a culture. From my understanding, that’s not what is happening at Purdue. But, based on the first two years, I wouldn’t argue that he won’t be successful. I would argue that he will leave Purdue and take a better job and the team will lose the graduate transfer pipeline.
 
#102      
Koenning was probably my favorite assistant in my time following Illini football (didn't really give it much care until I got to UI in 04). I have often wondered what would've happened if they had just gotten rid of Petrino and promoted Brohm to OC, or handed the HC job over to Koenning and see what he would do with the staff. I would guess he would've kept Brohm. The Beckman hire was about as deflating a hire as we could've possibly made at that time.[/QUOTE

Lot of articles on sites .....Purdue coach headed to Louisville.....lots of connections with Brohm.
 
#103      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
Roster management is the only thing here I feel is an issue.

While we have lost a couple of talented players and that's a very bad thing, Gerry DiNardo's specific comments were largely incorrect about attrition reducing the number of scholarship players on the team. It has actually gone in the opposite direction. By my count we have 69 returning scholarship players next year, which would give us only 16 available for this class.

We're probably going to be Creaning a few players to give us room under the scholarship limit for more recruits.

Our overall talent level could use improvement, but the roster composition is in good shape numbers and class balance-wise.
 
#104      

Deleted member 654622

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Our overall talent level could use improvement, but the roster composition is in good shape numbers and class balance-wise.

You would have to explain to me what you mean by class balance. My thought is class balance is referring to the amount of freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors. Within that context, our balance sucks.
 
#105      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
You would have to explain to me what you mean by class balance. My thought is class balance is referring to the amount of freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors. Within that context, our balance sucks.

It sucks at the current moment, and was a disaster last year, but it is on the path to being much better. There is a plan that we're executing.

Which is good for two reasons, one it increases Lovie's chances of winning and two it makes the job more appealing if it opens.
 
#106      

Deleted member 654622

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It sucks at the current moment, and was a disaster last year, but it is on the path to being much better. There is a plan that we're executing.

Which is good for two reasons, one it increases Lovie's chances of winning and two it makes the job more appealing if it opens.
I agree completely that it is going to get much better. But currently the roster management, mainly because of class balance sucks. Which is why (amongst others) I said the roster management was my only concern out of those listed.
 
#107      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
I agree completely that it is going to get much better. But currently the roster management, mainly because of class balance sucks. Which is why (amongst others) I said the roster management was my only concern out of those listed.

I guess I would describe it more as a questionable decision in the past than a concern for the future. They torched the roster to rebuild it more than they needed to or should have, but we are close to the end result of a full balanced roster full of Lovie guys who have seen the field. That's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we'll see whether it brings real results next season.
 
#108      
Lovie's decision to blow everything up has disrupted class balance but that should be fixed heading into 2020.

Werner had tweeted out this link to his scholarship grid that shows a great breakdown of the current class balance - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ykxWCIaRuhfU-ggQ226GBbzpHwd5EMy26CA6Aj6MeCA/edit#gid=0

7 scholarships are currently open plus 7 graduating seniors puts the current available for Class of '19 at 14. Assuming some players are not brought back for a 5th year (Brown, Williams, Reams, Solomon, Martin, etc.) plus a transfer or two and the final class count could easily be around 20.
 
#109      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
Lovie's decision to blow everything up has disrupted class balance but that should be fixed heading into 2020.

Werner had tweeted out this link to his scholarship grid that shows a great breakdown of the current class balance - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ykxWCIaRuhfU-ggQ226GBbzpHwd5EMy26CA6Aj6MeCA/edit#gid=0

7 scholarships are currently open plus 7 graduating seniors puts the current available for Class of '19 at 14. Assuming some players are not brought back for a 5th year (Brown, Williams, Reams, Solomon, Martin, etc.) plus a transfer or two and the final class count could easily be around 20.

And of course we will have several redshirts among the current freshmen so that number will expand. You always want to be a little bottom-heavy, just not as bottom heavy as we are now.

The 30 sophs will be 29 with Boyd's redshirt, but the thing you want to be careful about is growing that number too much with Jucos. You don't ever want to graduate like 35 seniors, because you can only replace 25 of them in one year and that puts you behind the 8 ball.

Maybe like 19 high schoolers and a couple of senior grad transfers (WR and LB?) would be ideal.

We're in good shape overall. The big concern for me is no current OL recruits. You always want young OL in the pipeline of your strength program. I hope that's where Verdis Brown ends up but we'll see.
 
#111      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
Isn’t his the criticism of brohm?

I don't know the scholarship guys from the walkons by name, but just eyeballing it they look okay.

They definitely graduated a ton of impact guys on defense last year and will do so on offense this year, but that's just college football. I don't know how true it is that we were playing worse players last year (and late 2016) in order to give them experience over better guys, but if it was we were only fooling ourselves. You don't want to let talent just languish on the bench of course, but a culture where competitiveness is a core value, game time is precious and its understood that the best guy will play is pretty essential if you want to go anywhere as a football team.

Purdue isn't quite as good on defense as they were last year after losing all those guys, but they're still good enough to keep the team winning because they have that culture.
 
#113      
Has there ever been a worse set of defensive coaches in college football? We are just laughably bad. I don't think it's the scheme; our players are just consistently out of position and take poor angles.
 
#114      
I happen to think the best way out - for everyone - is retirement. A huge group hug, plenty of photos, party and the nine yards. Followed by a new coach. No buy out.

The alternatives are really not good for Coach. I really do not see him get another chance anywhere, college of the NFL (do you?). Leaving, in any year, with pants on fire is not the way we want this picture painted. But, ......................... I think it is up to the Coach.

Either way JW (talk about painting yourself into a corner - BU better deliver) needs to line up a new group of RICH Illini. And, of course, scout out a great coach.
 
#115      

Deleted member 654622

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Realization check for me and a lot of people today. Those were freshman WRs and a freshman QB on the other side. Lovie and Hardy dont want to put the time in recruiting and its showing now. Their freshman are dominating ours. I am just sad...
 
#116      

Deleted member 746094

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Has there ever been a worse set of defensive coaches in college football? We are just laughably bad. I don't think it's the scheme; our players are just consistently out of position and take poor angles.


It is the scheme. Lovie’s D is a bend but don’t break scheme and relies HEAVILY on guys up front to create pressure on their own and the guys in the back to be ball hawks. It’s why Lovie constantly talks about turnover margin being key. We have bad players in a bad scheme. Just watch our secondary tackle. Instead of tackling they come up and try and blow the guy up(and inevitably miss the tackle) or they swipe and rip at the ball(and inevitably miss the tackle).
 
#117      

Deleted member 746094

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We will find out how much JW cares about UofI football and his job. He needs to go back to the same boosters(and a bunch of new ones) and apologize for his experiment. Ask for their support and let them know he is hiring a search firm to assist(bs or not) to hire the next up and comer. Won’t happen, but it is what needs to happen. Love is like a brand new luxury car. We overpaid for it, didn’t like it and want to return it before it’s paid for, but we are so far upside down in the car that we are just stuck driving it until the thing is paid off.
 
#118      

JJE

Bethalto, IL
I’ve put up with so much crappy Illinois football in my life it’s not even funny. The young team crap is worn out. The this is a “big” rebuilding project is worn out. Getting blown out every game is not progress. Giving up 500+ a game is not progress. I get the huge buyout which as much as trust Whitman seems like a big mistake. Lovie has to go. Everyone says what coach would come here and it will only make things worse. I disagree, we’ve been pulling levers and throwing crap at the wall trying to find a coach that will work. Eventually one of them has to pan out!
 
#119      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
The young team crap is worn out. The this is a “big” rebuilding project is worn out. Getting blown out every game is not progress.

Yes. The obsession with tanking in pro sports has made taking a "savvy" removed perspective from horrible play kind of a cool, high-status thing to do.

It's actually kind of a lie a lot of times in the pros, and beyond a first-year scheme-change type situation in college sports, it's ALWAYS a lie.
 
#121      
The whole defensive staff should be fired at the end of the season. Basic stuff (keeping outside arm free, taking good angles to the ballcarrier) that is taught to high school kids is horrendous. Apathy has set in. Amazing that just two weeks ago was a Homecoming game that people were excited about.
 
#122      
If you’re wondering how important Josh Whitman thinks $8MM is, it looks like you’re in luck — we’re about to find out.
 
#124      

3DegreeIllini

Chicago,IL
Lovie seems to look like he can't wait for the game to get over. Seems lost with no sense of urgency. 18- 21 year old wont play hard for a guy who shows no emotion.


Yep, we’re getting to the point where players are going to start giving less than 100%. The Illinois football snowball. Lose out, fire Lovie, mass exodus (including recruits), get (unreasonably) excited about new hire, 2-10 season, 2-10 season, doubts, rinse, repeat.
 
#125      
For having the largest assistant pool of $ in the West at the time we brought this staff in, we definitely aren’t getting our money worth. The money we laid out there could have lured a lot of good coaches.

This thing is a total and utter embarrassment.
 
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