Illini Football 2026

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#201      
mhuml32
Curbelo Fanboy said:
Absolutely. I don't remember the landscape at the time to know who the candidate pool "could have been" but Illini football in 1990, 1991 was a legitimate operation. We consistently went toe to toe with Ohio State (beating them 4 in a row in that time frame) & Michigan. We typically lost to Michigan but gave them many tough games. A legit program that in 1990 were the only team to beat eventual champ Colorado (apologies to Mizzou & 5th down). We were the ABC prime 2:30 game usually at least a few times per year. A player on the national stage.

Given that we clearly had a product that could have been sold to attract a MAC head coach or someone from a similar type of league. Or perhaps even an overachiever at a major conference school that festered at the lower rungs of their league. At the time (pre Penn State coming into the BIG) Illinois was arguably a top 4 program in the league (Mich, OSU, Iowa, Illinois). This is also pre the rise of Wiscy & Northwestern in the mid 90's & beyond.

Instead we did the most Illini football things of all Illini football things. Hired the old school D coordinator at a time when the game was starting to pass by his 3 yards and a cloud of dust mentality. And it took a solid program cruising the road of relevancy & within 5 years turned us into perhaps the worst power conference program in the country by 96, 97 time frame. Turner had a few moments in 99-01 but what he inherited starting in 97 was a bottom 5 D1 program. Just awful.
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Playing the roulette game of coaching candidates in 1991 were Jim Colletto, Curley Hallman, Jackie Sherrill, Gerry DiNardo, Tom Rossley, and Jery Pettibone. Jackie Sherrill would have been preeeeetty interesting considering how his TAMU tenure ended but I cannot imagine Illinois would have hired him. The rest of that list is awful, might be the worst coaching hire year for major schools that I can remember.
 
#202      
Illiniaaron
Let's talk about The Mission, which at Illinois is always to win six no matter what happened last year.

Purdue is of course the most can't-lose game on our schedule with the exception of SIU. With the Duke loss, MSU has become an absolute make-or-break game for our season.

The schedule after MSU is Oregon, @MD, Nebraska, @UCLA, Iowa, @Nern. I'm not banking on beating Oregon or Iowa at home, Nebraska may be coming into their own and UCLA looks pretty tough especially for a West Coast road game. Maryland and Nern look like the most gettable of these. I like our odds of getting two way more than our odds of getting three.

Absolutely CAN NOT lose to Michigan State, which is gonna be a problem because they have a commitment to running the ball and a pretty good RB.
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6-6 doesn't do much for you anyomore.
 
#203      
Curbelo Fanboy
mhuml32 said:
Playing the roulette game of coaching candidates in 1991 were Jim Colletto, Curley Hallman, Jackie Sherrill, Gerry DiNardo, Tom Rossley, and Jery Pettibone. Jackie Sherrill would have been preeeeetty interesting considering how his TAMU tenure ended but I cannot imagine Illinois would have hired him. The rest of that list is awful, might be the worst coaching hire year for major schools that I can remember.
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Jackie would've had plenty of bulls to castrate with the south farms being so close to the stadium back then.
 
#205      
superfan
Curbelo Fanboy said:
Absolutely. I don't remember the landscape at the time to know who the candidate pool "could have been" but Illini football in 1990, 1991 was a legitimate operation.
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mhuml32 said:
Playing the roulette game of coaching candidates in 1991 were Jim Colletto, Curley Hallman, Jackie Sherrill, Gerry DiNardo, Tom Rossley, and Jery Pettibone. Jackie Sherrill would have been preeeeetty interesting considering how his TAMU tenure ended but I cannot imagine Illinois would have hired him. The rest of that list is awful, might be the worst coaching hire year for major schools that I can remember.
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Add Dennis Green to the list of what-ifs. He interviewed for the job in '88. In '91 he took the Vikings job, but still a hypothetical scenario.
 
#207      
bluemountain
mhuml32 said:
Playing the roulette game of coaching candidates in 1991 were Jim Colletto, Curley Hallman, Jackie Sherrill, Gerry DiNardo, Tom Rossley, and Jery Pettibone. Jackie Sherrill would have been preeeeetty interesting considering how his TAMU tenure ended but I cannot imagine Illinois would have hired him. The rest of that list is awful, might be the worst coaching hire year for major schools that I can remember.
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Ever hear of a guy named Bill Snyder? He was very interested in the job and would have taken it in a heartbeat. He was coming off a 7-4 season at K-State that was nothing short of miraculous at the time
 
#208      
Juju
Pat Ryan says hello
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If by that you mean the billionaire Northwestern alum and trustee, I mean we have Larry Gies...

Plus, we have plenty of famous and rich alum, so I guess the issue is they just need to cough up more in donations? 🤷
 
#211      
Curbelo Fanboy
bluemountain said:
Ever hear of a guy named Bill Snyder? He was very interested in the job and would have taken it in a heartbeat. He was coming off a 7-4 season at K-State that was nothing short of miraculous at the time
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How that could have changed our fortunes. That guy was just a damn good football coach. He coulda at least had a good run at Illinois even if not a program that could challenge the OSU & Michigans of the world.
 
#212      
mhuml32
bluemountain said:
Ever hear of a guy named Bill Snyder? He was very interested in the job and would have taken it in a heartbeat. He was coming off a 7-4 season at K-State that was nothing short of miraculous at the time
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Is there any evidence to this? I've heard it discussed on here before. I'm just skeptical because Snyder was ESPN Coach of the Year in 1991 and he had three years left on his contract (which was a real barrier back then between bigger conference job openings).
 
#214      
Curbelo Fanboy
superfan said:
Add Dennis Green to the list of what-ifs. He interviewed for the job in '88. In '91 he took the Vikings job, but still a hypothetical scenario.
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I just wiki'd the list of D1 coaches from 1991 and it is primarily a bunch of established "old guys" that were having success. The college game (nor the NFL game) had really embraced the young offensive mastermind type of coach by that point. It wasn't far away but hadn't really arrived yet. It's crazy how much college & NFL styles changed from the mid 80's to say late 90's. The pass first offenses really took hold. Early 90's was just at the start of that transition.

Remember how revolutionary the Houston offense seemed when we had a series with them in the early 90's. Nowadays half the nation throws the ball all over the field but back then it was a real outlier.
 
#216      
fuddrules
Illinois_2_AZ said:
I was doing some research this morning and Bobby Hauck's buyout after this season is only 750K.
I am not trying to stir the pot 2 games into his tenure, but this has to be something BB and Whitman might be discussing soon if things don't dramatically improve.
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His contract was $1.45 Million over 2-years.

700k and 750k so no buyout.

Unless there is some personality conflicts, I hope they keep the new group around. 1 year along with limited $$ on D compared to their peer group doesn't let you know if it works or not. Mississippi State gets their 3-3-5 D to work.

Give it some time and recruit/portal players who fit the system.
 
#217      
bluemountain
mhuml32 said:
Is there any evidence to this? I've heard it discussed on here before. I'm just skeptical because Snyder was ESPN Coach of the Year in 1991 and he had three years left on his contract (which was a real barrier back then between bigger conference job openings).
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I heard it from a few people who were connected to the program at the time. It wasn't like Rick Majerus saying he would crawl over broken glass to get the UI job, but it was serious interest nonetheless. It may have never worked out given the lack of leadership in the AD and Administration, but it's an interesting what if.

One coach you didn't mention who took a job in '92 was Gary Barnett. Ironically, he coached at Colorado the same time Tepper was there. I'm pretty sure if given the choice he would have chosen to coach at Illinois instead of NW
 
#218      
Illini in Italy
Illinois_2_AZ said:
I was doing some research this morning and Bobby Hauck's buyout after this season is only 750K.
I am not trying to stir the pot 2 games into his tenure, but this has to be something BB and Whitman might be discussing soon if things don't dramatically improve.
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This is just . . . .

Kill Me Smh GIF
 
#221      
Calvin
aaeismacgychel said:
Not to nitpick, because yes, these players have spent a long time learning tackling techniques, but even for NFL teams there has been a decent correlation between having a contact light mini camp and early season tackling and defensive execution issues

I think there is something to be said that if you’re not tackling in practice you are basically training yourself to back off from the contact instead of finishing through it. As well if you have developed a bad habit tackling you aren’t being actively coached to correct that prior to game action. So I do think this plays a role in lack of execution during tackling (though I guess we’ll find out in the coming weeks).
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My eye test agrees, admittedly with no data to back it up - just going off the feels from the half dozen games I've this season. I wonder if player safety through practice and the way rules like targeting are enforced are causing it though.
 
#225      
Oracle21
It's not sustainable. Only a few top programs can do this. What exactly is the point of college football if it's just another pro league? I get that on Sundays. Also, get off my lawn!
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As long as there are very wealthy people who would like to own a pro sports team, but otherwise can’t, then owning a college team is the next best option. But owners want to make money, so I think it leads to this:

All major D1 football and basketball universities will sell their schools athletic rights to 3rd parties. The 3rd parties will become the “owners” of the team. They will manage the operation/funding/costs/everything…and in return the colleges will get a yearly fee. So it’s risk free money to the colleges and it’s on the new owners to make the existing business work. Is there enough TV dollars and ticket sales to have 40-50 payrolls at the college level? I think so. NFL salary cap is $300 mils thereabouts. College football at the major level can be worth 20% of that I think.

So I think this will continue. I just think eventually the Universities themselves will have to basically lease their rights out. Absolve themselves of most of the funding risks. Rev Share I don’t think will work. Private Ownership/Mgmt of these teams I think will work
 
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