Great. Illini sports everyone! Once you get some hope and promise and the future starts looking brighter, we shoot ourselves in the foot and stumble back. Never capitalize on successes in Champaign.
Illini football losing momentum like-
Football Coaching Staff / Coaching Carousel Thread
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Great. Illini sports everyone! Once you get some hope and promise and the future starts looking brighter, we shoot ourselves in the foot and stumble back. Never capitalize on successes in Champaign.
Illini football losing momentum like-
I had a feeling based on one of your prior posts it was someone else.
Looking forward to Dude saying how it will be good to get rid of these cancerous individuals who haven't bought into Lovie's nepotism. After all, if assistant coaches are insignificant, other staff must be...?
How so?
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Hurts just a little bit more that he is going to the Packers, too. Damn.
He knows this isn't a good look. He and numerous other people talked to Lovie about how the hire would look and the backlash it would receive. But if he fired the head coach that a lot of the top recruits are saying the are coming here for he would have the let them out of their NLI if they wanted.
I'm interested in the answer to this as well. Is it THAT much different from when RG stepped in and forced Coach Zook to go a specific direction in hiring in DEC 2009? At some point you need to be the boss.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
A significant part of why we're here is because JW is not "green" enough, $12 million not "green" enough to be precise.
Whitman has given Lovie Smith the opportunity to sink or swim with the team he hired him to build. I think that's the right decision, and even all this coaching chaos doesn't change the fact that we have a well balanced and experienced roster next year set to face a very favorable schedule.
However, one other hope of the Lovie era was building a culture of stability and professionalism in the entirety of the football operation. That hasn't happened, to put it mildly. Where Whitman does deserve some tough questions is in his management of that process. What happened to our huge assistant salary pool? Why was the Garrick McGee situation allowed to fester the way it did? How is the Miles Smith hire compliant with DIA, University, and state law policy on nepotism? He should have his feet held to the fire on those things, win or lose.
But anyway, as I was saying yesterday, what all of this provides us is clarity on where we stand. Maybe the roster maturing is going to turn the corner for us and we've got a few good years ahead of us. Or maybe not. But either way, the idea that we're "building" is over. This is not a professional operation, we are not executing a coherent, consistent strategy, we are not maximizing available resources toward future success. We're just whatever Lovie can personally cobble together on the day, so lets take a look at what that looks like and make our decision from there.
Now when you say kind of tied: do you mean financially or his hands are literally tied together? I hope it isn't AHS that leaves. He's been an excellent recruiter for us. Could it be Byrd? We're looking at another non-conventional hiring period, too if this drags out. At least it's after signing day when there seems to be some staff shake ups across the county.
Financially and with our current signees. Don't expect it to be those 2 either.
Do we know Butkus left because of Miles Smith and not just for a chance to jump back to the NFL?
Well I guess all we can do is hope that Lovie hired Miles because he legitimately is a rising star and that we have success next year.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Hmm. Byrd, Liggy Stardust, and AHS are dyed-in-the-wool Lovie guys, and the first two don't really have better options anyway.
Hudson and Miles Smith just got here, they aren't going anywhere.
Rod Smith would have many other options, but he also just got big time paid, now would not be the time for him to leave most likely.
That leaves Austin Clark and Cory Patterson.
Timing suggests it was possible. I doubt the Packers would hire a coach on a few days notice. I would imagine there had to have at least been some interest there prior. Now it's possible that this was the deciding factor for Butkus...
SampsonRelpenk
- Edwardsville, IL
And Lovie did it anyway. Wow. Pretty bold for a 9-27 coach entering a Do Or Die season.
Well, yes, obviously. But back when he was supposedly sending people to Lovie to re-think this and to let Lovie know about the backlash this would receive JW had the power to flat-out veto the hire. Just because you hire a head coach and "give him the reigns" doesn't mean you personally lose all power within the program. You are the AD. You're there to support and advise. Especially when you are a football guy yourself.
And, Illini0440 - I wasn't implying you fire Lovie. I'm saying you call him into the office and say "this is clearly broken, but not dead. With the appropriate moves and tweaks we can get this thing moving again". I can't believe he said "Lovie, this is all you. Whoever you hire (whether I agree or not) I will ultimately bless and support". That's bad management, JW.
I can't imagine Clark would leave. He was basically Miles Smith a year ago. Unless even he thinks that Miles Smith is nowhere near qualified. Patterson scares me but he just got a ton of his high school players. I don't think he would leave them high and dry. Rod Smith really scares me. If he's gone, we are finished.
Illinivek23
- Gurnee
Did Miles' presence with the DBs have something to do with Donnie A's sudden departure? Nepotism can be really nasty to a management team and environment.
Had this happened after a 10 win season then this would be basically insignificant. But this combined with the loss to Iowa, the lack of a DC, the lack of defensive improvement (injury aided or not), and the coaching turnover in general....I mean he’s just exponentially increasing the pressure on himself for almost no reason at this point, let alone the pressure on the kids if they feel like they have to save his job...and history tells us that doesn’t work out too well.
Nate McNeal to Temple? Per Twitter...no clue on validity
JFGsCoffeeMug
BU:1 Trash cans:0
- Chicago
Not too impressed with Lovie's judgment at the moment.
correct
I doubt Coach Butkus would leave because of Miles Smith. Coach Smith staff with the Bears gave him his first big job (assistant to coach Hiestand). Also you could make the argument that without the Butkus name he wouldn't be as far as he is now (This is not indicative of his actual talent to coach).
I have a theory (albeit a bad one). Coach Smith knew that coaches would be leaving (Ward and now Butkus). Maybe hiring his son was because he can help and cut cost to open more of the budget to replace the 3 (currently) open positions. They are going to have to pay a good amount of money to poach some coaches. Just a theory and it is probably wrong.
Man just over a month ago things were looking up with the class that was brought in and now? Now we're ded
So, Lovie overrules all others to hire his own son, or any hires for that matter? Seems a bit off, imho.
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