All i want for Xmas is a DC
Football Coaching Staff / Coaching Carousel Thread
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Yesterday was a big step backward,please spend some money and get a DC that can bring players and a solid game plain each week
Perhaps it's time to admit that UI is not ever going to be any more than a door mat in the conference. I love the University as all of us do but it's time to be realistic. The major men's athletic programs are sorely and blatantly outmatched and the prospects of that changing for the better are remote, at best. Why continue to humiliate ourselves in front of the whole nation year after year. It may well be that this situation can't be fixed. In all the years I've been cognizant of what goes on with UI athletics I can't recall a more humiliating period. The basketball program is just marginally better.
Fire Lovie? Can't disagree but who, prey tell, would even remotely consider taking this job. It's impossible to recruit championship caliber players. Hell, it's impossible to recruit average players on a consistent basis. What blue chip athlete coming out of high school would want to be a part of a program that gets knocked around and made fun of week after week, year after year.
I'm sorry if this sounds fatalistic but reality is what it is. Either go into a conference where the level of competition is attainable and the programs can compete or shut them down. It ain't workin' folks, and the two major athletic programs are no more than a source of shame.
Fire Lovie? Can't disagree but who, prey tell, would even remotely consider taking this job. It's impossible to recruit championship caliber players. Hell, it's impossible to recruit average players on a consistent basis. What blue chip athlete coming out of high school would want to be a part of a program that gets knocked around and made fun of week after week, year after year.
I'm sorry if this sounds fatalistic but reality is what it is. Either go into a conference where the level of competition is attainable and the programs can compete or shut them down. It ain't workin' folks, and the two major athletic programs are no more than a source of shame.
I would have agreed with this, and did so for many years, when we were under the small-time budget constraints and investment in athletics dollars that was in place under Guenther and Thomas. When Whitman managed to get the school to commit to spending big money on coaches, assistant coaches, facilities, etc., my thoughts changed.
The problem is, we’ve invested the money but are still getting nickel and dime results. That screams we hired a dud to me. Pay it out and go a different direction.
Khalan tolsons dad lighting the staff up on twitter, and someone related to the Watson seems to be piling on as well
This team has now given up 63 points three times this season.
Giving up 48.25 points a game in the Big 10.
Suffered the worst loss in team history to an unranked Iowa team.
Will be going into a third straight off season looking for a juco or grad transfer to solve the qb issue.
Had the worst home attendance per game since sometime in the 1940s.
I was all for the Lovie hire. At the beginning of the year, I couldn’t conceive of a scenario where he wouldn’t be back for year four. But how do you bring him back after this season?
Giving up 48.25 points a game in the Big 10.
Suffered the worst loss in team history to an unranked Iowa team.
Will be going into a third straight off season looking for a juco or grad transfer to solve the qb issue.
Had the worst home attendance per game since sometime in the 1940s.
I was all for the Lovie hire. At the beginning of the year, I couldn’t conceive of a scenario where he wouldn’t be back for year four. But how do you bring him back after this season?
I would add that the problem with Illinois football coach firings has been waiting too long. Tepper, Turner, Zook and arguably Beckman all should have been let go a year or two before they were. In each case, the coach’s problems were simply allowed to fester, making the job of the next coach that much harder.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Tim Beckman's teams were way better than this.
Illinivek23
- Gurnee
The piece that we seem to not be considering is the commitment of the current young but experienced player base. Will they remain patient? I guess we will see the player vote on the situation if transfers from the core occur at the end of this year.
ILL in IA
- Iowa City
From the start I wondered if Lovie/Illinoiswould be able to attract the type of players to run the Defense Lovie wants to run. That being guys who are disciplined enough to consistently be in the right place/proper tackling for the bend but dont break and force the offense into mistakes/turnovers. And the elite athletes in the key areas up the middle that make everything happen.
Up till yesterday I didnt question guys at least wanting to always play hard for him.
I dont want JW to make a knee jerk reaction off a blow out, but damn that felt like a program breaking performance.
Up till yesterday I didnt question guys at least wanting to always play hard for him.
I dont want JW to make a knee jerk reaction off a blow out, but damn that felt like a program breaking performance.
If that wasn't a program breaking performance yesterday, nothing is.
I can't disagree, but the question that begs answering is how many times can a dud hire be replaced with yet another dud hire before no one will touch the job with a 10' pole. I think the program has reached that depth. The Illini brand is so deep into the crapper that a decent, self respecting high school coach wouldn't lower himself to take the job. It hurts immensely to say that but at some point the truth becomes quite clear and that point may be now. I'm tired of being laughed at and ridiculed for merely being a loyal Illini supporter, I can't imagine how the kids feel. It's hard enough to get top flight athletes to come play in what is often referred to as "a corn field" and when the brand is somewhere south of a good junior college program expectations of winning consistently in the conference is just a bit unrealistic. We just can't sugar coat it any longer.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Always emotionally satisfying to say, but never true.
There is so, so much more wrong with Kansas than with Illinois, and they just hired Les Miles.
But I think you're driving at the right thing by pointing out the "Illini brand". Basketball cannot be left out of this. It's well over a decade of never-ending humiliation and failure for Illini fans now. The question isn't when will we stop finding coaches to take the massive salaries that the BTN funny money allows for, the question is how long can we be viable as a consumer brand like this?
We have the absolute best fanbase in the history of the world. A degree of loyalty and faith that is the stuff of sappy movies, every single one of us. But there's a breaking point. Robert from Illiniboard didn't put up a postgame post. The Illinois Football Breakdown guy on Youtube didn't both with more than a cursory first half defensive rundown and is going to do the Bears game tonight instead. Champaign Room is increasingly a blog for 19 year old students to get some experience covering golf or volleyball. It's just a drip, drip, drip death of Illinois Athletics as something anyone would bother caring about.
The end isn't an inability to find a coach, it's the cable TV money drying up and the Big Ten moving on without us and Rutgers. We're living on somebody else's welfare dollars at this point, and we mustn't forget that.
With respect, those calling for Lovie's head seem to forget about every other coach we have had for about 20 years.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
How so?
Dan
Admin
Colorado’s Mike MacIntyre has been fired
https://twitter.com/ClowESPN/
https://twitter.com/ClowESPN/
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Which was the shining recent example of a long term rebuild that worked. Except it didn't. 14-39 in conference in the end.
Rick George will now make his first revenue sport hire.
Deleted member 4333
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Guest
Which will cost more? Buying out Lovie or an empty stadium for years to come?
Look, our next DC just became available.
Deleted member 631370
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I really hate this notion that our past determines our future.
Sure, we've had crappy coaches over the past 20 years. So what?
Vanderbilt went to 1 bowl game in 28 years before James Franklin took over. Iowa State had one winning season in 11 years before Matt Campbell turned it around last year. Mizzou went to 2 bowl games in 17 years before Gary Pinkel was hired. Washington State went bowl-less for the 8 years before Mike Leach got there. Purdue had one winning season in the 9 years prior to Brohm getting there. Mississippi State went to 1 bowl game in 10 years before Dan Mullen took over.
The list goes on and on.
Coaching matters. Even at traditionally weak programs like Illinois. The right coach can win games. Maybe not make us a national title contender, but we can win 6+ games pretty consistently with the right coach. And Lovie isn't it.
The question is, how much longer do we need to wait to realize that?
Rick George did what Guenther was too stubborn to do with Zook. That next coach coming in has no excuse not to win between 7-9 games next year with the talent they have.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
You should like that notion, because any objective, fair-minded look at our past shows with absolute crystal clarity that in both football and men's basketball the University of Illinois belongs in the upper middle class of the Big Ten and the reason we aren't there is absolutely eye-watering incompetence by a revolving door of people.
We just keep getting worse. And worse. And worse. And worse. In both sports. Looking backward is looking straight uphill.
Deleted member 11196
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You obviously don't remember Jim Valek or Gary Moeller in football...
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