Coaching Carousel (Football)
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He doesn’t currently have a job. KC just hired Demarco Murray. I would imagine the wait is to see if he gets a nfl job. I still think Thomas Hommock is a possibility also
Nua and Fitch would also be home runs. Guys like Eli Rasheed and Walter Stewart would be solid dline coaches
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He fired Tony Peterson after a single year… why do that and then for soft landings for others?
LMK when 19-7 and 2 bowl wins was a "waste" of 2 seasons. In terms of having a program of making the CFP we are $, attendance, number of donors and recruiting of skilled players behind the top 16 programs. BB and Whitman are making progress. But the program's progression in recruiting has been the most impressive part of the transformation. That should start t show next year. We still have a long way to go to be a top 15 program. One other thing to think about. Altmyer would never have started at Ole Miss.
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I was just answering the question regarding what losing 4 championships makes him, with some sarcasm. Settle down my guy.
To be fair we don't know the exact reasons that Petersen was relieved of duty. The next year we win 8 games with DeVito who committed to us before we even made the change to Lunney. The team was already trending upward in 2021 after Lovie regressed heavily in 2020. We beat #7 Penn State and had a rushing attack we have not even come close to with Brown and McCray.
My guess is Bret recognized the importance of QB development and wasn't seeing much out of the QB's we did have. For what it's worth the offense we ran under Petersen was vintage Bielema ball imo.
We have improved every year under Lunney and had our first 3000 yard passer on over a decade.
Bret clearly wanted it to work out with Henry but I think the defensive identity was stagnating. Perhaps Henry just wasn't ready to craft a system yet. Now he is back to doing what he showed the most promise with - coaching DB'S.
The reason I think the Hauck hire is really good is because he had to build something at Montana. Two seperate stints, both long enough to where it was eventually winning with his own guys and not what was left over from before.
There could certainly be some growing pains, but the defense is in the hands of someone who has had to build up a roster twice.
We're just not gonna talk about his UNLV years OK?
For sure on this... After waiting 25-30 years for a 'decent' coach to get hired, and nearly 60 years for a truly significant coach to be hired, then finally getting a coach who not only 'wants' to be here, but enjoys being here, and actually produces winning seasons here, I can't see how 19-7 and 2 bowl wins is a waste of 2 seasons...These nay-sayers have never sat through an 0-fer season - I've been through 6... Never sat through a 0-0 tie with NW... I might be called optimistic, but I'll wager we don't go 0-fer next year...
This is a fair point but not the argument I was making. I think hauck could be a good hire. I’m not sold for some reasons but I will not argue against those who are excited. My issue remains with the soft landing we gave Henry. We didn’t do that for sintim, Finleus, buh, TP. But Henry? We sure as hell did. And it was only because of Bret’s personal ties with him.
Bret didn’t extend that same professional curtsey to other coaches. I love Bret. But his personal feelings to Henry messed up this offseason and has made it to where we have to scramble for staff and players at the very end of the cycle.
Will it pay off down the road? Maybe. But for 2026 Illinois football. It did not help us at all.
When did we become Alabama, where just making a National Championship game and not winning it is considered bad? This is in the realm of fans never going to be happy complaints. I guess how far we've come though to want to complain about that. Yeesh...
Perhaps the phrase "can't win the big one" should be changed to "can't win the biggest one" because you have to win some big ones to get to the biggest one. Or something like that.
The board is acting like if you run a 3-3-5 you're not allowed to recruit or play a 4th or 5th lineman
Ah yes, the winningest two year period in Illinois history being a waste...
Illini92and96
- Austin, TX
Lots of potential reasons. And by the way, I'm not a fan of Henry as a DC. I'm just defending Bret having managed things appropriately with Henry.
1. Bret recognized if he had a string of firing people after one year it could hurt who he could hire in the future. If he had done that with Henry it would have been two times in three years. Not a good look.
2. Petersen was first an OC at Marshall in 1998. He was not an up-and-comer trying to learn how to be an OC, so if it wasn't working it wasn't a matter of getting adjusted to being an OC. Henry was a new DC where you could expect some bumps as he adjusted. Bret gave him three years to figure it out and he couldn't - at least couldn't fast enough. Newly promoted people in organizations often move from a top performer to average performer immediately post promotion, until they adjust and figure out how to succeed at the new level of responsibility.
3. Bret had a relationship with Henry and it is human nature you would give a friend a longer leash.
4. Henry was not as bad statistically as Petersen, using points per game as a rough proxy.
In Peterson's one year he was 116th in the country. We were 113th the year prior, so he took something miserable and made it no better. That's a tough spot to be. Granted you could easily make an argument he needed more time, but he improved nothing in a situation that was in dire, dire, need of improvement.
After starting 96th in 2023, Henry improved the team to 31st in 2024. From an outside perspective that looks like a massive improvement, and you could generically attribute it to Henry learning the DC ropes and getting his system in place. We regressed to 57th this year, and while it felt ugly to us (Indiana and UW - ouch) we were in a much better spot relative to where Peterson had us at 116th in the country (once again, can argue whether he had a fair shake with only one year).
A complaint by Montana fans is they would always keep 3 linemen on the field and even in goal line situations not add more down linemen. We will blitz to stop the run. It helps to have a safety like Bailey that’s basically like a linebacker.
Bret has now achieved Underwood levels of success. Things have been so good people have forgotten they were ever anything but good.
Big Game Bobby
That's why it's good that Hauck will have a boss in BB who just might suggest adding a lineman or two in certain situations.
It’s a lot of fluff here. But your point 3 is my argument and why you don’t hire your friends in results based industries.
The issue is.. we now have the 59th ranked portal recruiting class and multiple staff opening. Was the longer leash better or worse for the PROGRAM. Not Bret, not Aaron, not their egos or reputations. The players and program. Did they get better because of that leash?
Simple answer is no.
What defense are we running if he doesn’t help Ahen get another job. We all know he wasn’t going to move on from him
What defense did we run with Ahen? It was Walters defense and then he couldn’t run that so we created the Bret/ahen defense. Which Bret had to take over because we couldn’t run that. You really think Bobby hauck went “man I was thinking of retiring but the way Bret soft landed his friend really makes me want to go work there”. Lol.
Not being willing to move on is exactly why this program didn’t make the playoffs this past season. And why we didn’t make a bowl in 2023. THIS IS WHY YOU DONT HIRE FRIENDS.
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
My god… I was thinking the exact same thing a split second before I read your post. Very surreal!
With basketball, we can at least reflect upon long stretches where we were a top tier program, with reasonable yearly dreams of making the Final Four (although, in hindsight, several of those dreams could be described as somewhat over inflated). In football, I can count on one hand in the pre-Bret era where I had high expectations entering season (1985, 1990, 1991, 1992, 2000, 2002 and 2008 — okay two hands… but barely). Coming off the Rose Bowl season, 1984 was a year on probation with no bowl hopes. 1985 was the season that really crushed my high expectations as a young fan.
Edit: I also seem to remember having high expectations for the 1994 team, enough so that my brother and I went to see the Illini play at Ohio State. That win was special, but it fell on the heels of Ken Dilger being tackled on the one yard line the week before vs Purdue (PURDUE!!!
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Illini92and96
- Austin, TX
Fluff? You seem to attribute Bret's actions to ego or reputation driven, and not what is best for the program. Bret appears to be setting a deliberate culture of how he treats people, which has an impact on stable long-term success. Not sure what you do, but I have personally seen, and I would think it is intuitive to many, that organizational culture has a drastic impact on long term results or lack thereof. I guess you don't believe that to be as important.
Despite opinions on issues such as acceptable portal rankings, the fact is that we have had our best 2-year wining stretch ever. All I want is Bret to continue doing what he is doing, as it seems to be working, leash lengths and all. More please.
I'm not defending whether you should or shouldn't hire friends. I was explaining why Henry would have been treated differently than Peterson, which you asked.
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