Lovie Smith Named Illinois Football Coach

Status
Not open for further replies.
#1,030      

Stoughton

S
Stoughton
Second and Chalmers said:
That deal was not made with a move like this in mind. It's a tremendous stroke of luck that we happened to hire an AD who has existing connections to the strongest free agent coach on the market and that coach happened to be willing to take the job.

After the last 72 hours, I have every confidence that in other hypothetical worlds, Whitman would have gotten Dino Babers all the resources he would have needed to succeed, or would have made an outstanding hire after firing Cubit in December.
Click to expand...

Speaking of Babers, where would Lovie have fallen in the ranking of candidates in regards to the other college coaches available a couple months ago? Would he have been higher than Babers, Fuente, Fleck, etc?
 
#1,031      

Smacko

S
Lexington, KY
Smacko
Whitman handled this whole thing well from top to bottom. From a PR perspective especially. I would bet that as soon as the leak about Cubit being fired was out, Josh had AD staff leak that Lovie would be the new coach. The word got out so quick that it had to have been purposeful, and was incredibly smart. Instead of people focusing on what a disaster the team is, the narrative was all positive about the potential for Lovie to take over. Great job of controlling the story.
 
#1,032      

South Farms

S
near Ogden & Rt 83
South Farms
Second and Chalmers said:
That deal was not made with a move like this in mind. It's a tremendous stroke of luck that we happened to hire an AD who has existing connections to the strongest free agent coach on the market and that coach happened to be willing to take the job.

After the last 72 hours, I have every confidence that in other hypothetical worlds, Whitman would have gotten Dino Babers all the resources he would have needed to succeed, or would have made an outstanding hire after firing Cubit in December.
Click to expand...

The 2 year deal for Cubit was silly & dumb

That said , in retrospect , not hiring Babers was the best move .

I don't think George nor Tiley gets this deal done . We hired the right AD who correctly to his credit ( with a tiny bit of luck) was able to snag a head coach none of us would have had on our short list this fall , as it would have been Jon Grudenesque.
 
#1,033      

MadSeason

MadSeason
MadSeason
Stoughton said:
Speaking of Babers, where would Lovie have fallen in the ranking of candidates in regards to the other college coaches available a couple months ago? Would he have been higher than Babers, Fuente, Fleck, etc?
Click to expand...

Easily #1

Fuente
Richt
Smart
Mendenhall
Campbell
Babers

Not close
 
#1,034      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
Stoughton said:
Speaking of Babers, where would Lovie have fallen in the ranking of candidates in regards to the other college coaches available a couple months ago? Would he have been higher than Babers, Fuente, Fleck, etc?
Click to expand...

That's a really interesting question. Kind of an apples-to-oranges comparison in a lot of ways.

None of the college coaches we were after would have brought the explosion of interest and credibility we have right now though.
 
#1,037      

mkantor

mkantor
Lattimore Dad
Tampa,fl
mkantor
My son played and graduated from the University of Illinois . As of today, I am a very happy father / fan with our New coach
 
#1,039      

RHITIllini

RHITIllini
Chicago, IL
RHITIllini
CIIF said:
The comparison to Trump comes from the fact that Trump tells a upset and angry population that we are going to return to being the greatest at everything. JFW comes out and tells a very upset and angry fan base that we are going to win.
Click to expand...

Not the place or time.. just.. no.
 
#1,040      

AeroIllini

A
3rd Floor talbot lab
AeroIllini
Any radio stations doing the presser? I was going to listen in during lecture
 
#1,041      

mattcoldagelli

mattcoldagelli
The Transfer Portal
mattcoldagelli
UIGrad03 said:
A few weeks ago you (and others) were mocking me because I said the Cubit deal was a good decision that would kick the can down the road and allow our permanent AD to make a bold move for his own coach. Now here you are pumping up this outstanding hire that was made possible by the very deal you so fervently decried. It's glorious.
Click to expand...

That's like careening through an intersection with several near-misses, having the two cop cars who turn to pursue you crash into each other, and then saying "I told you running that red light was a sound plan!"
 
#1,042      

Second and Chalmers

S
Second and Chalmers
MadSeason said:
Easily #1

Fuente
Richt
Smart
Mendenhall
Campbell
Babers

Not close
Click to expand...

Gun to my head, I might take a couple of those guys. Especially in a world where they could be here in December 2015 and recruit the incoming class.

But honestly, we should look at this based on where we were on March 4th, not November 4th. It's arguably a big upgrade over the possibilities at the end of last season. It's a damn miracle based on where we were a week ago.
 
#1,045      

Clete1

C
Clete1
Second and Chalmers said:
We most certainly do, and it has been delivered often by many outstanding journalists and opinion leaders in the Chicago marketplace.

On the other hand, there is David Kaplan, Dan Bernstein, Steve Rosenbloom, Teddy Greenstein, and David Haugh. That, for me, is the Mount Rushmore of terrible Chicago sports personalities.
Click to expand...

Haugh was more than fair in both columns and very positive on WSCR this morning. I think Ryan has been fair as well.

Rosenbloom is all about snark, and this is an opportunity rife for that due to Lovie's prickly demeanor with the Chicago media.

Greenstein picked probably the two least consequential quotes out of Saturday's press conference and used them to say Whitman is a naïf - probably typed the column from his usual perch on Pat Fitzgerald's lap.

Kaplan was immediately out with a contrarian hot take calculated to provoke a reaction and got the twitter flame war he wanted.

Bernstein certainly understands the move while posing legitimate questions about whether it will work. This afternoon's show should be interesting.

All in all, regardless of the individual media opinions, be happy that we are making news for the right reasons for once.
 
#1,046      

EJ33

E
San Francisco
EJ33
Excellent read from Will Leitch.

We all lament what we have lost. We want it to return to us. I want to be that 14-year-old, screaming with 70,000 fans, feeling pride -- or at least something other than shame -- in the Illini. I don't know if Lovie Smith is going to work out as Illinois head coach. But I believe again that it can happen. All a sports fan needs is hope: We'll put up with just about anything if we have hope. A 14-year-old doesn't need much to have hope. A 40-year-old requires a lot more. Monday, for the first time in a decade, the Illini faithful, so beleaguered for so long, finally got it. I'm ready to start hitting some postgame traffic again.
Click to expand...

Link

Many of you were probably at the CU game in 1990. One of the best game experiences ever (perhaps only topped by a couple Michigan games).
 
Last edited:
#1,049      

EJ33

E
San Francisco
EJ33
Clete1 said:
Greenstein picked probably the two least consequential quotes out of Saturday's press conference and used them to say Whitman is a naïf - probably typed the column from his usual perch on Pat Fitzgerald's lap.
Click to expand...

Greenstein is one of the few who is a pure partisan NU guy and will always take a shot. The reality is that he's not good enough to carry Whitman's water.
 
#1,050      

PaytonHighstep

PaytonHighstep
Downers Grove, IL
PaytonHighstep
robertgoulet said:
670 The Score
Click to expand...

This issue with listening to the Score for this presser...

B&B will be speaking over the feed constantly. It's their thing to do during every presser that happens while they're on the air. I just want everyone here to understand that going into it, if you choose to listen to the presser on the Score.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.