The golf cart shuttles run pretty regularly through the game-day pay lots. If you arrive early you shouldn't have any problem catching a ride over to the stadium. May face some congestion returning to your car after the game.
Pregame: Illinois vs Purdue, Saturday, October 12th, 2:30pm CT, FS1
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While Lovie ended in a disappointing thud, I would argue that Whitman needed to bring in a calm, stabilizing and professional leader for the football team, after the mayhem Beckman caused and Lovie was just that. The football program was taking on water faster than the Edmond Fitzgerald and Lovie needed to stabilize things and bring the ship safely into dry dock.
danielb927
Orange Krush Class of 2013
- Rochester, MN
It was also a hire that said to the fanbase, "We can hire a big name coach with a proven track record." Even though the end product was mediocre for 5 seasons, it was still a step up in both quality of play and program reputation, and IMO was a great tone-setting move on Whitman's part early in his tenure.
Important to remember when this hire happened - extremely late in the coaching cycle. It wasn't like we had a whole lot to choose from at the time. Not the greatest hire in school history, but I'm not sure there were any better options at that moment.
In hindsight, Cubit's record was better than Smith's turned out to be. Whitman might have been better off waiting until the normal hiring cycle.
Illini in Italy
- Illini HQ, Florida Panhandle
You are such a Thespian
First time hearing Stepp and Miller - those are two intelligent sounding hires by BB.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
That was not a feasible option. Cubit was on the stupid 1 year contract. It would have been a completely wasted recruitment year. The options were either extend Cubit or make a "splashy" hire like Lovie. Leaving status quo for an entire season would have set the team back even further, so it really was not an option.
Whitman absolutely made the right choice. The Lovie hire brought in energy, and Cubit was the survivor of the Beckman disaster. The fans would have been furious if Whitman’s first move was to extend Cubit...so in hindsight, the correct move was still made.
As far as I recall, we only had the Army ROTC cannon ("Pete's gun" named for Coach Pete Elliott) until the late 60's when anti-Vietnam activists forced the University administration to ban it from the football games.
Cubit was on a two-year contract,
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
You are correct. It is still not long enough for recruiting purposes, though (the contract extension by administration was widely ridiculed as really bad decision). It reeked of serving like a 1 year contract where Cubit was not going to be around after the next year. What recruit would want to sign on to that? Cubit would have been dead in any recruitment efforts.
I stand by status quo not being a viable option. Whitman would have still needed to work a contract extension to a 4 year deal if they were to retain Cubit.
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mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
Lovie's first class ended up being excellent (Kendrick Green, Owen Carney, Del'Shawn Phillips, Tony Adams, Alex Palczewski, Bobby Roundtree, Kendall Smith, Vederian Lowe, Bennett Williams, Nate Hobbs, Blake Hayes, Alex Pihlstrom). Missing out on that would have meant an roster talent deficit approaching mid-2010's Kansas and an impossible job for whoever would have been hired that following off-season.
Still blows my mind that Lovie initially viewed that 2017 recruiting approach as a failure and changed course.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Correct, the announcement of which is where the legendary "not ideal" came from.
The idea was to limp the program along to the following offseason where an actual non-interim leadership structure could perform a real coaching search with adequate preparation and institutional buy-in.
It's hard to know where that path would have led us. Possibly to the exact same place, of eventual disappointment, perhaps even to Lovie himself. I think the idea that a further extension of Cubit was needed to avoid the detonation of the roster is probably overstated (remember, transferring was different then), but roster catastrophe was definitely possible.
I think the right way to look at it all in retrospect is that the move was fatally flawed in the conception, but offered the benefits of reenergizing the athletic department and especially its relationship with its fans at the all-time lowest ebb, and that surge of energy and hope brought money and credibility and institutional buy-in that pays dividends to this day, AND in the fullness of time Whitman learned from the mistakes he and Lovie made, and that learning has guided the whole department since.
So I guess that's where I differ from some. The Lovie Plan was not a stepping stone means to an end, it was simply a failure that came from two guys who were out of touch with the day-to-day reality of college football in 2015-16. But the AD was willing to learn and improve his understanding in a way the Head Coach proved unwilling and unable to.
We had to slog through some failure and embarrassment to get there, but it has been a win-win in the end.
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I won't argue about the quality of that first class---yet that group finished 2-10, 4-8, 6-7 and 2-9 over their four-year tenure (8 conference wins over 4 seasons). Would Cubit have fared worse than Smith's 3-9 record that Smith had in his first year? Would there have been competent coaches available to Whitman during the normal hiring season had Cubit been allowed to coach that first year? Attendance fell to Slush Fund levels during Smith's tenure (in the 30k's in the three years leading up to the pandemic). Recruitment of Illinois high school graduates slowed to a trickle (2017-9 recruits, '18-4, '19-6, '20-1). Bielema has had to fight tooth and nail to rebuild relationships with the Illinois high school coaches who felt spurned. Cubit's only recruiting class was very poor (13/14 in conference), compared to Smith's 10/14, 12/14, 13/14 and 14/14. We'll never know what might have happened if Whitman had waited - maybe good or maybe bad. We do know what happened as the result of the Smith hire. Hindsight.
Interesting analogy considering that Thomas and Robespierre both got the guillotine.
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
The better question is what competent coach would want to come to the dumpster fire program that Illinois became? You can play this hindsight game all you want, but the program was in absolute shambles when Lovie took over in spring 2016. Cubit had to go by association to Beckman's clownshow. The reality is that Illinois was not in the position to land a Coach B caliber coach after the 2016 season...facilities were behind, complete rebuild, etc. (we would have likely ended up with a Lovie, another MAC coach, or a reclamation project coach). Attendance had been long trending down since the end of the Zook era (not like it was Lovie specific phenomenon).
Anyway, on to a beatdown of Purdue and a reclaiming of the Cannon!
Oh...Don't you worry, Bert. You'll experience all of these things on Saturday. We finally get our revenge game! The only score that would make this a perfect FU Walters game is...33-13
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We were at that game. The four Maryland students in front of us loudly deriding the Illini for our benefit drifted further away from us as the game progressed. It’s a shame they still weren’t around when that final field goal was kicked.
I think that game broke the Terps. Their season went south after that.
Updated Sellout Watch for Purdue:
I'm a little surprised we're not a bit further along given the buzz around the program and the extra time to buy tickets. I suppose most people are getting their tickets to the Michigan game if they are wanting to come out to a single game in the next few weeks.
The tracker is showing just over 51,000 sold, but in comparing it section-by-section with the Central Michigan tracker, it appears the Purdue game has sold slightly more tickets in most sections. The exception there being the Horseshoe which was sold out for Central Michigan and still has 167 tickets still showing available for the Purdue game.
At this point, I'm confident attendance will exceed Central Michigan (51,498), but not sure 55,000 is in the cards.
I'm a little surprised we're not a bit further along given the buzz around the program and the extra time to buy tickets. I suppose most people are getting their tickets to the Michigan game if they are wanting to come out to a single game in the next few weeks.
The tracker is showing just over 51,000 sold, but in comparing it section-by-section with the Central Michigan tracker, it appears the Purdue game has sold slightly more tickets in most sections. The exception there being the Horseshoe which was sold out for Central Michigan and still has 167 tickets still showing available for the Purdue game.
At this point, I'm confident attendance will exceed Central Michigan (51,498), but not sure 55,000 is in the cards.
Illinicpa14
- Chicago
Purdue being awful also means they will not have any fans coming for a game within a couple hours of their campus.
For the Michigan game, I know of several Michigan alum going down from Chicago because it was easier to get tickets to our game vs their stadium for a decent team.
There will be die hard Pu fans. If they had a better record Pu fans will show up. There is nothing like a beautiful fall Saturday in Champaign, Illinois.
What's the magic number for the stadium appearing "full" due to the overhang?
redwingillini11
White and Sixth
- Batavia
Based who was hired that next cycle, looks like we could have been choosing from P.J. Fleck, Luke Fickell, Matt Rhule, or Jeff Brohm... Maybe even Lane Kiffin...
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