Believe me, I'm all for that. I originally thought Beilein leaving was part of what would help Illinois climbling back up the Big Ten pecking order. And then we go 2-0 last year vs. Michigan and Howard last year, right on track. But now not sure what to think. Is it too much to ask a couple Big Ten teams could hire a coach who underperforms? Might not make all those who talk about wanting the Big Ten to be this insanely great conference happy, but I'm more for what would make Illinois really good year in and year out again. And when teams like Michigan are recruiting and playing at the level they are now, makes it that much more challenging. Wouldn't hurt to have a stretch like the early 2000s when a few Big Ten rivals had so-so (or worse) coaches.
I'm all for IL focusing on doing what it needs to to be its best and not worrying about what the rest of the conference is doing. But considering this is a board where we can chat about hypotheticals, I honestly think we are somewhat in that situation right now. While the big ten overall is a great conference, outside of Howard and Pikiell, i think a lot of coaches are seemingly underperforming - or at least not outperforming expectations. Archie, Collins, Pitino, Turgeon, Pat Chambers (underperform is probably the wrong word there, but along the same vain) - but they're all kinda "eh". good enough to be respectable, but not good enough to be elite. Even more ideally, all seem to be doing just enough to hold on to their jobs (Archie possibly being an exception given their fan base expectations) so they can potentially have a low ceiling for a few years that we can take advantage of. Not a perfect blue sky scenario given Iowa and Michigan doing well (and i guess wisconsin, but it seems they are always who they are), but this should be a pretty good setup for us and MSU is having an off year too.
And we'll see what Painter and Hoiberg will do (both will probably be fine, but definitely not there this year).