DC Bobby Hauck out at Illinois

#152      
lstewart53x3
Illiniguy74 said:
There's speculation that an interim will be chosen from the current staff. Another possibility is that there may be a highly qualified DC who is currently unemployed. Anyone have any ideas about who would fit that bill?
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I would assume someone on the current staff who knows the defense will take over for the rest of the season and Bret will hire a new staff the second this season ends.
 
#154      
ChiefGritty
We've been sold so many just-so stories about all of this by the insiders here, the program itself, about Henry, NIL, Partridge, Hauck, the pluses and minuses of 3-3-5, all of it.

There is something refreshing about just ripping that whole page out of the book and just saying okay, go fix it.
 
#155      
phats22
FloridaMan said:
Unfortunely, Hauck favored the 3-3-3
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#156      
illini0440
Illiniguy74 said:
440 is in the house. Your thoughts on the situation, how things will shake out going forward, etc..
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My guess is Cooper or Bradford will call the defense for the remainder of the season. Then after the season Bret will make a new hire. Probably had to happens, I don’t think Bobby was truly Bret’s first choice when hired, I think someone went back on their word and forced Bret to pivot. Bret has known Bobby for awhile and I think Bobby thought he would be reinvigorated to coach again with just being able to focus on the defense now. Obviously I don’t think that was the case. Too many mistakes that can’t happen at this level, heck even at the high school level you don’t see a lot of this stuff. We will know more tomorrow at Bret’s presser though.
 
#157      
blackdog
IlliniHardwood said:
Is it really ever this clean? My guess is that there were several F-bombs from the "discussion" not mentioned in these statements.
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Yes. These guys are professionals and they've known each other for a long time. I've had to fire people I absolutely did not like and there was no reason for it to ever go that way.
 
#158      
aaeismacgychel
Man, I’ll be real, I don’t think there’s a positive way to spin this one. This isn’t even a “traditional” midseason firing, it’s early season. Not only is this difficult to recover from in the current season but I worry that this quick and early of a firing after 4 games may result in some serious negative recruiting and difficulties in hiring a new DC past this season.

Based on the low talent level of the DL and LB group, such little push and penetration I don’t think there’s really a good answer here. We knew offseason switching schemes without the talent or personnel would be a major issue and it would take time for the players to learn the new system and execute. And while we were clearly far more behind schedule than expected, I do think we have been improving week to week, just our starting point was so low and we have to sell out so much to stop the run, it still looks terrible.

So overall I don’t love the timing of this firing at all even if the poor play of the defense, the communication issues, and the clear lack of player understanding of the defensive scheme and playbook, supports letting him go. I think this is an absolute mess and I pray that this is only going to be 1 season of suffering that we can somehow still eke out 6 wins and not a death blow to our program momentum.

Really shocked by the timing of this.
 
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