DC Bobby Hauck out at Illinois

#376      
Hingle McCringleberry
Second place is 1st loser said:
I haven't a clue. It's painfully obvious, but I think it's a form of self soothing. They want to find someone to blame versus addressing the problem, which is significant. They are hoping that one decision fixes the problem and don't want to accept the fact that that entire side of the ball needs an upgrade and that can't be fixed this year.

There is no way that a reasonable person can't see that the guys we throw out there are slower, less athletic and can't physically match up with the opponent. These other teams a just bigger, taller, faster and have better athletes.....on defense.

We spent our money on the offense. If the reverse was true, these same people would want Lunney fired.

This is not an easy fix when we have no financial answers. That's the crux of the issue.
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I don't think that anyone is saying that "one decision fixes the problem" at all. There are multiple problems, but the one problem you can fix is the disaster DC that can't even get the correct number of players on the field consistently.

Would you rather that nothing was done and keep Bobby ineptly managing our D? He didn't have the chops or commitment to do the job, not even close.

Kudos to Bobby, he got a solid payday and his kid a shot at a job he never would have had any other way. But that came at a cost to our program.
 
#377      
Second place is 1st loser
Hingle McCringleberry said:
I don't think that anyone is saying that "one decision fixes the problem" at all. There are multiple problems, but the one problem you can fix is the disaster DC that can't even get the correct number of players on the field consistently.

Would you rather that nothing was done and keep Bobby ineptly managing our D? He didn't have the chops or commitment to do the job, not even close.

Kudos to Bobby, he got a solid payday and his kid a shot at a job he never would have had any other way. But that came at a cost to our program.
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If he walked in and shut down his career because he felt overmatched schematically and he felt the defense regressed because of his coaching, then you have to cut bait. No doubt. You can't have a guy who's not 100% in. Is that what happened?

Or did Brett tear him up and strongly "hint" that it wasn't going to work out? Not sure how you can come to that conclusion after four games, but whatever. That's fine. The issue here is that this is on the heels of Henry getting run out and people thinking that was going to help the results. What makes us think that a third DC in four games changes anything?

We had a couple of NFL caliber players on D last year, most notably Jacas and Bailey. Having just one defensive lineman that was worth a salt made a big difference because he was doubled. As a DC, you can work with that to some extent. This years roster has nobody remotely close to having that type of physical impact.
 
#378      
Hingle McCringleberry
Shut down his career? The guy was retired! He shut down his own career 🤦‍♂️
Second place is 1st loser said:
If he walked in and shut down his career because he felt overmatched schematically and he felt the defense regressed because of his coaching, then you have to cut bait. No doubt. You can't have a guy who's not 100% in. Is that what happened?

Or did Brett tear him up and strongly "hint" that it wasn't going to work out? Not sure how you can come to that conclusion after four games, but whatever. That's fine. The issue here is that this is on the heels of Henry getting run out and people thinking that was going to help the results. What makes us think that a third DC in four games changes anything?

We had a couple of NFL caliber players on D last year, most notably Jacas and Bailey. Having just one defensive lineman that was worth a salt made a big difference because he was doubled. As a DC, you can work with that to some extent. This years roster has nobody remotely close to having that type of physical impact.
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#379      
Illini-Rule
The thing that frustrates me is that for the last 3 years we have known that we lacked speed and talent on the defensive side, and yet here we are in the same boat.
 
#380      
ChiefGritty
therealmiket86 said:
I’m not sure how people can’t realize how bad the talent on defense is.
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That perspective was deemed unwelcome here as the roster was being assembled.

Second place is 1st loser said:
We had a couple of NFL caliber players on D last year, most notably Jacas and Bailey.
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That's true, but it hard to overstate how central to our prior defensive strategy the constant deep rotation of big bodies was. Both in terms of performance of those guys, having different packages for situations, and managing the tempo of games.

Individual stars made big impacts, but the defense was depth-based up front at the basic theoretical level.

I think that played a big role in the decision to change philosophies. It's not that we couldn't find another Gabe Jacas in an ideal world, it's that we could never afford Gentle Hunt's and Jeremiah Warren's as depth guys anymore.
 
#382      
therealmiket86
ChiefGritty said:
That perspective was deemed unwelcome here as the roster was being assembled.


That's true, but it hard to overstate how central to our prior defensive strategy the constant deep rotation of big bodies was. Both in terms of performance of those guys, having different packages for situations, and managing the tempo of games.

Individual stars made big impacts, but the defense was depth-based up front at the basic theoretical level.

I think that played a big role in the decision to change philosophies. It's not that we couldn't find another Gabe Jacas in an ideal world, it's that we could never afford Gentle Hunt's and Jeremiah Warren's as depth guys anymore.
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Jeremiah Warren has only played like 30 snaps this year for Pitt so I’m not sure now much he cost. You are right though we will never have the defensive line depth we had last year.
 
#384      
Illiniindian
illinois_hustle said:
What happened?! I mean all Hauck would say is that he fell in love with coaching again, etc. I know the defense has been poor but honestly we didn’t get rolled like we did last year against Indiana. This is strange for Bret. Must’ve been some verbal disrespect somewhere between Hauck and Bret and or the players or Josh... If someone knows please spill it!
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Agree. The defense was better than expected against OSU. I don’t understand why Hauck was not given the season to play it out.
 
#386      
illini0440
Illiniindian said:
Agree. The defense was better than expected against OSU. I don’t understand why Hauck was not given the season to play it out.
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Better than expected doesn’t mean it’s going in the right direction. Had 9 guys on the field one play, communication issues all season. Hauck didn’t want the season to play it out.
 
#387      
BretMyBeachHouse
I think there is some rewriting of history here. Pretty much the entire board was down about our talent level on defense, from the time we started losing guys to the portal up into the season. Obviously, we have our share of ThaKids, but the consensus was that we were down on defensive talent, likely because we didn't have the money.

As to the midseason firing, you do it because you just can't have screwing up fundamentals like tackling and number of men on the field. It demonstrates a lack of discipline. Will it make a difference? Who knows. I came into this season hoping for six wins and I still do.
 
#389      
Username
Are we unable to grasp nuance?? Some of these statements are just over the top. How often in life is a negative outcome solely due to a single factor? I suppose that's what is to be expected from a message board, and I am probably guilty of it too at times,

From my perspective (which I know all of you are just on the edge of your seats with popcorn and cottage cheese anxious to hear):

-We under projected the cost of DL and let some guys transfer out that in hindsight we likely would have paid their market rate or at least closer to it and would have made a stronger effort to keep them - McCulloom,Tomiwa, Coenen, and Neal are all arguably better than what we have now.
-The handling of AH's departure from the staff (which is potentially great for BB's brand in the coaching industry and hopefully lands us a rockstar DC this offseason) set us way back in the coaching hiring cycle and then we got left at the altar by the Seahawks/former uOFm guy so we scrambled and got Hauck which did not work out nearly as well as the most optimistic projections.
-The DL we brought in after getting some unanticipated defections into the portal are not at the same level as the guys that left.
-this is was a drastic scheme change and even if Hauck had been the rockstar hire we hoped, we were bound to have some issues due to scheme change as well.
-While BB does get involved in the day to day, he is probably a little bit more CEO. So did he have awareness of what was being done by the GM, he likely largely relied on Patrick Embleton to have an accurate feel of prices in the player market. Clearly that was a huge miss, and I'd like to hope that we consider a change at that or other related positions involved with those decisions next offseason.
-Even with all of the benefits of the doubt given and factoring in that the D has arguably improved to some degree - having things as glaring and embarrassing as having 2 guys not on the field is pretty bad. I'm sure before and after that BB had been and continued to think about what direction he would go with Defensive coaching immediately and in the offseason.
-Hauck is an older un-retired accomplished coach who gave it a shot and saw that a lot of the things that he liked and was comfortable doing at the lower level and as a HC were not successful here with him as a DC, and he simply decided for in his own best interest and possibly in the best interest of the players and the coaches that he brought with him that it would be better for all parties that he step down now.

I'm in no way plugged in other than I read articles online, watch the press conferences and pay more attention to certain posters here than everyone else, but that's my overall summary/thoughts....and I'm pretty sure all of the factors above account for some percentage greater than 0 and less than 100 for the Dline makeup, overall Defensive performance, and Hauck's separation 4 games into the season.
 
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