Football Coaching Staff / Coaching Carousel Thread

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#1,301      

Deleted member 649710

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More experience, strength and speed will make this defense better. How many upperclassmen starters did it have last year?
 
#1,304      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
More experience, strength and speed will make this defense better. How many upperclassmen starters did it have last year?

Five. Del'Shawn Phillips, Jamal Milan, Tymir Oliver, Stanley Green and Cam Watkins were all regular starters. Dele Harding also had a couple starts, and Jake Hansen was a 3rd year sophomore who was also a full time starter.

We will probably still see a fair number of underclassmen in the rotation, Quan Martin, Calvin Avery, Delano Ware and Sydney Brown are all likely have big roles along with maybe Beason, hopefully Oladipo, probably Verdis Brown. We've always played younger than people expect under Lovie. Though that changing would probably be good news.

But it's true that everyone is taking a step forward. I can't imagine there's a defense in the country that loses less from their two-deep than we do, literally just Phillips.

We were just so unbelievably bad last year, with a lot of the individual pieces regressing from 2017. Age and experience will help, but that's not going to do it by itself.
 
#1,305      
Five. Del'Shawn Phillips, Jamal Milan, Tymir Oliver, Stanley Green and Cam Watkins were all regular starters. Dele Harding also had a couple starts, and Jake Hansen was a 3rd year sophomore who was also a full time starter.

We will probably still see a fair number of underclassmen in the rotation, Quan Martin, Calvin Avery, Delano Ware and Sydney Brown are all likely have big roles along with maybe Beason, hopefully Oladipo, probably Verdis Brown. We've always played younger than people expect under Lovie. Though that changing would probably be good news.

But it's true that everyone is taking a step forward. I can't imagine there's a defense in the country that loses less from their two-deep than we do, literally just Phillips.

We were just so unbelievably bad last year, with a lot of the individual pieces regressing from 2017. Age and experience will help, but that's not going to do it by itself.
Are you insinuating he might not be a full time starter, or that he might struggle more than other DBs on the roster?
 
#1,307      

TwoElevenEastDaniel

Cochrane's-Orchid-Tonic
Bad as some things were.....Zooker's record at Illinois looks pretty good today. Met the guy a couple of times....great people skills, life of the party type. 3 bowls..right?
I met him before the game in Minneapolis around Thanksgiving in 2011 that wound up being his last game. He couldn't have been a nicer, more polite dude.
 
#1,308      
Either of those things, or he might play offense, who knows.
With AD Miller and hopefully Thomas/Ford, I doubt Beason would have to play offense (and he's stated he sees himself as a CB).

I would be disappointed if he didn't start every game (assuming he's healthy knock on wood). Perhaps he isn't a game changer, but I would hope he is one of our top 2 CB's, and IIRC Adams moved to safety and had a good season there. Of course Martin had a few good games and Hobbs is probably our best DB. I guess this is a good problem to have.
 
#1,309      
Somewhat random thought: with regards to the WR position, I’d love to see Kendall Smith switch back to WR this year. He seems buried at S and will be a junior this year. He was more of a receiver as a recruit and has some size and athleticism.
 
#1,310      

Joel Goodson

respect my decision™
Somewhat random thought: with regards to the WR position, I’d love to see Kendall Smith switch back to WR this year. He seems buried at S and will be a junior this year. He was more of a receiver as a recruit and has some size and athleticism.

Good call. I expect Pearl to be switched to OL. Any other possible/probable switches?
 
#1,311      
Good call. I expect Pearl to be switched to OL. Any other possible/probable switches?
Yeah Pearl seems like a wildcard. Kinda how I see Okpala too. Both are just huge athletes. Try them on both sides and keep developing them. Their natural athleticism at that size gives them a crazy high ceiling.
 
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Deleted member 654622

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...back to a last page conversation / response to 0440. I guess I understand a Texas tie to recruiting as a
position coach, but the step forward on offense came from a fresh new perspective and the freedom
to implement a system based upon our players. I don't see our defense making significant strides
with Lovie implementing the same old same old. It hasn't worked yet. I would hope for a like-minded
DC (to Lovie) who has a track record at the college level, knows how to motivate a defense.
I hope this is clear, Lovie wanted a spread offense with a running QB. What is happening on Offense is what Lovie wanted! It is not like Lovie wanted to run a power running pro offense in college and they talked him out of it despite an old man stubbornness. The dude is smart, he knows football, when he gets physically mature talent on defense, he will be successful
 
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#1,313      

Deleted member 11196

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I won't survey all of FBS, but just in our own conference, Iowa under Fry and Ferentz have consistently won for 40 years and Dantonio has been a home run for a dozen seasons at MSU. Those two, plus Wisconsin, were mediocre-to-garbage programs for decades until everything fell into place.

As has been mentioned countless times here, given fan bases, resources and recruiting areas, there is zero reason why Illinois cannot be as successful a program as Wisky, Iowa or MSU. What has held back the Illini are a lack of commitment from the administration, the right coach and a cracker jack AD. I'm optimistic the latter issue has been resolved by Whitman, but I'm still concerned about the former.

Iowa had been consistently 'good' (not great) for decades under previous coaches, so perhaps Fry had to 're-build, but certainly not Ferentz. Forest Evashevski (1952–1960) 9-seasons 83-games 52-27 record (if the B1G had allowed more than 1 team to attend a bowl, Iowa would have gone many times). I would actually say Iowa was a perennial 'middle-class' B1G team that stayed in the middle of the pack for decades.
I would say the same about MSU actually. Clarence Munn, Duffy Daugherty and George Perles kept the Spartans a respectable middle of the pack B1G for many, many years. And not to forget Nick Saban's 2 years....

My main point was about having to 're-build' over and over and over again... And frankly your examples don't qualify IMHO... Illinois has been a dumpster fire ever since the slush fund, and only recovered in the White/Mackovic years, and then basically went south after that.... again with 2 instances of occasionally catching lightning in a bottle... Sad to say for sure.
 
#1,319      
ron-zook-waterskiing.jpg

Gets my vote
 
#1,324      
We can take West Virginia defensive coordinator Tony Gibson off our wish list. He just took the co-defensive coordinator position at NC State.
 
#1,325      
I met him before the game in Minneapolis around Thanksgiving in 2011 that wound up being his last game. He couldn't have been a nicer, more polite dude.

I am forever a Zook fan. He will always be my favorite Illini coach. He was very nice to my oldest son who was an Illini obsessed football fan at 2 years old. Coach Zook was very accommodating and generous as was his staff and players. If you’re nice to my kid, you’re a winner in my book for life.
 
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