Let's go Lou Boudreau revisited.
Matthew Bailey for DC.
Matthew Bailey for DC.
DC Bobby Hauck out at Illinois
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TheFlyingIllini1317
- Chicago, IL
Retired happily in Tucson
Brett really screwed the pooch on this hire as he did with his first OC. The good news is he is dealing with it sooner rather than later. Unfortunately IMO no matter what defense they field many of the defensive personnel is not suitable for B1G play. I also don’t think they can just change up the type of defense they have prepared to run since spring. I hope they can adjust in a positive way, but whatever the reason, this experiment has put the program in a very, very tough spot.
The bolded is the issue I have with cutting ties after 4 games. The question is how low exactly is the talent level. If we rank 64 out of 69 P4 schools, is that the type of talent we have out there? If it's as slow as it looks, only money being thrown at it is going to fix it. I get it that mistakes were made that had to be addressed (9 guys), but far more problematic was the clear and wide difference in talent. In today's game/recruiting, have to fatten up the wallet or it won't matter who they bring in.
Homecoming 2019
- Chicago
Smh...Bret forgot to ask Hauck if he would consider playing 9 on defense, due diligence on Brets part is lacking...
We don’t have the talent to have a #45 ranked defense. We lost Gabe, Rosiek, Miles Scott, James Thompson, Angelo McCollum, Tomiwa, Eli Coenen, Curt Neal, Hood..etc we literally replaced them with FCS back ups. Tomiwa is the #8 ranked dt by pff. We had a lot of talent on defense the last couple years.
Purdue, MSU and Maryland are games we need to win.
I see no problem with potential hires understanding it. Just look at defensive performance in those four games, culminating with a 9-person goal line stand. We don’t want to hire anyone who’d consider such results even remotely tolerable.
JSpence
- Evansville, IN
Sure. I'm not sure how many snaps have seen us actually use three down linemen with backers stacked or ends wide. The problem is the personnel - we can't conjure more B1G-ready DTs from nowhere.
Until someone with knowledge of practices and our depth chart tells us that we have big kids ready to go, we've got to assume that our light 4-man and 5-man fronts are no worse than our best attempt at a normal heavy one.
No experienced head coach would allow a new coordinator to stick his program with a 3-3-5 for pride or funsies, and Bret knows his stuff more than most. In that same vein, he wouldn't need to wait until midseason to fire a coach to get a scheme change. In our situation, he can ultimately only be upset at himself for choice of scheme. What he won't and shouldn't hold himself responsible for is the major flubs and perceived inadequate coaching. He's talked about getting that addressed, and this weekend he took it to the next level.
He's not a perfect head coach, but he's a very good one.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
I get why Bielema was trying for the soft landing, but unfortunately sometimes you just have to be ruthless with personnel moves and do your best to deal with the human issues. I know looking back on times I’ve had to make personnel moves like this, the ones I regret are the ones where I waited too long hoping a situation would work itself out.
Sometimes, you just have to do the hard thing. Bielema made a mistake there.
I mean he also hired him.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Fair. But without a scheme change / staff change, there wouldn’t be confusion on the field, miscommunication, etc. That alone’s worth 20 spots in the rankings.
JSpence
- Evansville, IN
He might have made a mistake there. I truly believe that he sees still sees high potential in Henry as a schemer, coach, recruiter, or all of the above. We all think that he's overly optimistic about that, but it's not blind loyalty if he's setting him up as well as possible for his own purposes, such as a return or reunion.. or just avoiding coaching against him.
We had a ton of miscommunication on the field and blown coverage last year. We ran one of the worst zones I had ever seen. No DC would look good with this talent but I do agree that the coaching was extremely bad. I think just getting rid of Hauck will be an addition by subtract. Roger Cooper has called this defense before and it made no sense that Hauck was calling the plays in to Cooper who would then talk to the green dot on the field.
Anyone worth a darn will realize it’s not the norm for Coach B. It would be concerning if this was his normal operating procedure with how he handled termination of coaches. The issue is with the hiring to begin with and not the timing of the termination.
Hauck coached like a guy that was retired. And I'm sure that was brought up in conversations.
No clue what the upside of this hire was. BB looks like a fool.
No clue what the upside of this hire was. BB looks like a fool.
FWIW Bret and the staff love Roger Cooper… I imagine he gives Roger a chance the rest of the way
CoachB owns this mess. He lost his mind in year 6, at Wisconsin and also Arkansas. They beat teams that the Razorbacks hadn't beaten since their National title in 60's at Arkansas. We have been blessed and fortunate with great 1 score games for 2 straight years. This is a train wreck. I have us at most 4 Wins. No major Portal talent this Winter and all of you, Will be calling for his scalp next Fall. $9 million reasons why.
Illini92and96
- Austin, TX
So maybe he can get more out of this defense and we can improve somewhat?
If BB wants to stick with this defense Tony White will be available this offseason
I get the sense that Aaron Henry had the respect of the locker room, even if he wasn't the best coach. I don't think Hauck ever had their trust. Right move but still shocking.
He can see all sorts of potential in Henry and hope to be reunited, but this was absolutely a mistake. Nice mights about it.
I love Bielema. He just went too far with his loyalty on this one.
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