Well but I credit the opposing view here, which is that Bielema wants to do something different on defense than what's common and known to the world of people with same-old P4 credentials. You want people to know how to operate in the world that's coming rather than the world that has been. And that's true of recruiting too, right? Is scouting and evaluation ability, and through that the ability to price players accurately, to know who is worth spending on, now more valuable than "selling" the program? I'm sure there's some of both, but the game is still changing rapidly, there is essentially no one "proven" in that sense, the new college football is being created in real time.
I don't think guys that had filled identical jobs at other P4 schools would be a panacea, not by a long shot. It's bigger-picture than that.
Time will tell whether they are GOOD recruiters, but clearly that's going to be at the center of the job description for both of them. And Wheatley again was on that initial Harbaugh staff, as RB coach, that was transformationally successful on the trail.
I don't think it's as good of a staff as the one we had before, to be honest. But we've changed the plan, I understand the new plan, and I think these guys are qualified to enact that plan (I would say so if they weren't, we've had some wildly unqualified assistant coaches at Illinois over the years). I think if we look back in a year and the plan hasn't worked, the problem will have been what we were trying to do, not the coaches we chose to do it.