DC Ryan Walters contract extension through 2024

#1      

Dan

Admin
A week removed from Illinois' second Top 20 road win of the season, Illini defensive coordinator Ryan Walters has agreed to a contract extension that will carry him through conclusion of the 2024 season, Director of Athletics Josh Whitman and head coach Bret Bielema announced. The extension is pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees at its meeting this week.

Walters' contract will move his compensation to third in the Big Ten and into the top 10 nationally among defensive coordinators.


 
#2      
winning charlie sheen GIF
 
#3      

illini80

Forgottonia
Love to see them being proactive, but if an attractive HC job comes along he’s still going to take it. No buyout reported unless he takes a lower position. As it should be I might add.

I do take it as a great sign that we are taking football seriously at Illinois and we will have the money to hire another top candidate when he leaves.
 
#7      

Illini92and96

Austin, TX
A week removed from Illinois' second Top 20 road win of the season, Illini defensive coordinator Ryan Walters has agreed to a contract extension that will carry him through conclusion of the 2024 season, Director of Athletics Josh Whitman and head coach Bret Bielema announced. The extension is pending approval by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees at its meeting this week.

Walters' contract will move his compensation to third in the Big Ten and into the top 10 nationally among defensive coordinators.


Didn’t we pay around 400k in the zoom era? thats inflation!
 
#13      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
Cue a defensive collapse in the last two games of course, but this is still good news.
 
#15      

ChiefGritty

Chicago, IL
Love to see them being proactive, but if an attractive HC job comes along he’s still going to take it.
He's put himself in a place where a lot of top coordinators are, where taking the kinds of HC jobs that they can readily get means taking a big paycut.

And he's not a P5 HC candidate without either being central to a massive, durable elevation in our profile over many years (see Pat Narduzzi) or gaining a reputation as a monster, nationally elite recruiter (see Jeremy Pruitt, Mark Stoops), which he probably can't do at Illinois.

Either way, this is all upside for us, that contract is easily buy-outable if we decide we want to fire him two years down the road or whatever. Good work by Whitman.

I suspect this means we're going to have a darned hard time holding onto Kevin Kane now (who could vaguely sell his position as a kinda-sorta co-DC before this), but that's the business.
 
#16      
It's great to see us investing in football like this. As the article said there are few coordinator jobs that pay better and it seems like most schools are looking for offensive minded head coaches lately which will help us retain him longer than an offensive coordinator with similar success. Now I would like to see us lock in some of these defensive assistants that are making their coordinator look good.
 
#17      
If he gets an HC gig and leaves before the contract is up, then good for him. This wasn't about preventing that. This was about (hopefully) preventing him from taking another coordinator position somewhere else.
 
#18      
It's great to see us investing in football like this. As the article said there are few coordinator jobs that pay better and it seems like most schools are looking for offensive minded head coaches lately which will help us retain him longer than an offensive coordinator with similar success. Now I would like to see us lock in some of these defensive assistants that are making their coordinator look good.
Good on Josh. He is similar to RG in that Illinois football has his heart and deep down he cares about it the most out of all the sports here. unlike RG though he knows basketball butters his bread and he got the basketball hire right.
 
#19      

Illini92and96

Austin, TX
He's put himself in a place where a lot of top coordinators are, where taking the kinds of HC jobs that they can readily get means taking a big paycut.

And he's not a P5 HC candidate without either being central to a massive, durable elevation in our profile over many years (see Pat Narduzzi) or gaining a reputation as a monster, nationally elite recruiter (see Jeremy Pruitt, Mark Stoops), which he probably can't do at Illinois.

Either way, this is all upside for us, that contract is easily buy-outable if we decide we want to fire him two years down the road or whatever. Good work by Whitman.

I suspect this means we're going to have a darned hard time holding onto Kevin Kane now (who could vaguely sell his position as a kinda-sorta co-DC before this), but that's the business.
Show Cane the sugar too and give him a sweet deal.