Football Coaching Staff / Coaching Carousel Thread

[GForce]

Well, could be worse...

http://www.startribune.com/p-j-fleck-and-his-gophers-look-lost/500761741/

 

[FeelYourPaign]

He was my number one choice too. UI is going to have to take risks in any coaching search because of their place in the collegiate landscape. I think this holds true for basketball now too, it didn’t use to.

Leach is a wildcard but the dude can coach and recruit to his system. He plays an exciting brand of ball too. Lovie’s style is like watching paint dry.

We needed a guy with some edge. I’d take a guy like Leach who tells it like it is.

That's exactly how I saw it then and still do. Need to take some risks and have some fun. Rinse repeat until it clicks

 

[Deleted member 16340]

This board can be funny. Lovie took over with no opportunity to recruit his first year. The next year he had the youngest team in the country. He will have replaced both coordinators in his first 3 years. On the basketball side, folks ravaged JFG for his refusal to make coaching changes. Can't have it both ways folks! I've got to believe that JW and Lovie talked about his lack of recent college experience. I'd bet that an agreement was put in place to give Lovie room to find the right the combination of coaches and players. I believe that JW wants to build sustainable, continued success. I think that Lovie gets 2 more years. More with noticeable improvements. I would also say that JW knows enough about college football to start to see the progress thus far. I believe that the over/under at the beginning of the season was about 3.5. Based on that and the slight increase in wins, I think moon that JW, may not be extatic but does not see failure here, despite the outcome of the last game.

 

[illini0440]

Kliff Kingsbury is likely done at Texas Tech a guy I wouldnt mind here.

 

[RedRocksIllini]

Would have been interesting to see if Tre Watson, Ke'Shawn Vaughn, Patrick Nelson, Desmond Cain, Dominic Thieman, Tito Odenigbo would have made a difference?

In a hypothetical world, we certainly would have seen those guys playing a lot of minutes this year considering how all the injuries have played out.

To paraphrase my Navy friends, no matter how many bells and whistles are on the plane, a bad pilot is going to find a way to auger it into the deck.

 

[ILL in IA]

Kliff Kingsbury is likely done at Texas Tech a guy I wouldnt mind here.

As an OC?

I would rather roll the dice on an up and coming coach having success, vs the post-hype name that was just forced out.

 

[mattcoldagelli]

Here's the thing. I honestly can't muster up enough emotion to have a Lovie take.

Maybe that's it in a nutshell - you're actually starting to beat some of the few remaining arch-diehards into a catatonic state.

 

[illini0440]

As an OC?

I would rather roll the dice on an up and coming coach having success, vs the post-hype name that was just forced out.

I think with Kliff you should be 6-6 to 9-3 any given year and thats all Illinois fans should hope for. It's simply hard to win here.

 

[ChiefGritty]

I think with Kliff you should be 6-6 to 9-3 any given year

Kingsbury went 5-7 with Patrick Mahomes throwing for 5,000 yards and 41 TD's.

 

[Illinibatt]

6-6 to 9-3 any given year and thats all Illinois fans should hope for. It's simply hard to win here.

 

[champaignchris]

34-51 in 7 years at Illinois. Basically the same record as Ron Turner (35-57 in 8 years), but without a Big 10 Championship.

 

[oldschool51]

Right now I am curious, do pirates like lasagna? Anyway, I was never a Lovie fan and thought he was a bad hire at the time. I would still give him at least one more season. But what do I know. I thought firing Zook and Weber was a bad idea when it happened

Kliff Kingsbury is likely done at Texas Tech a guy I wouldnt mind here.

That would still be a big Defensive problem

 

[ChiefGritty]

6-6 to 9-3 any given year and thats all Illinois fans should hope for. It's simply hard to win here.

Let's not pretend every Illini fan who still pays any attention wouldn't bite your arm off for a Glen Mason-type era. They might bite even further for Joe Tiller

 

[KenR]

You obviously don't remember Jim Valek or Gary Moeller in football...

Oh, I obviously do. As bad as those coaching era's were it wasn't as bad as the persistent humiliation we've been subjected to over the past decade.

 

[Score105]

My replacement guy is Seth Littrell, young (40 year old), comes from the Mike Leach tree and runs his air raid offense. At North Texas he took over a 1-11 team and has gone 5-8, 9-5 and 8-3. They beat Arkansas and Southern Miss this year and his offense is ranked 18th overall and 10th in passing. Their defense is ranked 38th.

 

[BRucks]

Lovie arguably inherited the worst situation any Illini coach has ever inherited.

Jim Valek

 

[Deleted member 631370]

I think with Kliff you should be 6-6 to 9-3 any given year and thats all Illinois fans should hope for. It's simply hard to win here.

He couldn't win in the Big XII with Texas talent all around and a conference that played no defense. In what world would he win in the Big Ten with strong defenses all over the map?

 

[MarkyMarkTrestman]

My replacement guy is Seth Littrell, young (40 year old), comes from the Mike Leach tree and runs his air raid offense. At North Texas he took over a 1-11 team and has gone 5-8, 9-5 and 8-3. They beat Arkansas and Southern Miss this year and his offense is ranked 18th overall and 10th in passing. Their defense is ranked 38th.

I’d rather have his mentor, Larry Fedora- after he is dismissed.

 

[Deleted member 631370]

I’d rather have his mentor, Larry Fedora- after he is dismissed.

Yuck, hard pass. That dude drove UNC into the ditch in record time. Granted, he did take UNC to an 11-win season, but he pulled off a Ron Turner-like turnaround in the other direction that squandered his gains with some epic losing.

 

[Deleted member 631370]

We don't have the lowest ranked class if you go by 247 and we are that low because we only have 10 commits. Our per player ranking is about 7th.

The transfer issue is a big deal if they come from our 2 deep. If we start out again young next season then I cannot see the sense of continuing with Lovie.

On the other hand if we make a move and don't hire coaches whose systems fit with our personnel, we are starting from scratch again. You certainly don't want to handcuff your search by style of offense and defense they run, so that cannot be deciding factor. At that point you are looking at another 3 year build.

At this point I'd rather give Lovie the chance to hire a couple of strong assistants and see what happens in 2019.

Ironically, today's commitment from Evan Kirts pushed our average rating down to .8590. We are now 9th in the Big Ten in average rating per recruit, and with our next recruit rated at .85 or below (which is very likely), we'll fall to #11 or 12 in the conference.

that was the problem with our "average rating" metric. We had 2 guys -- Beason and Williams -- bringing up the average for a fairly small class. With each additional recruit, that average rating drops. But whatever the case, we need depth. I'd rather see that average rating dip a bit if it means we're adding quality depth, than keep a high average and land a 10-man class.

 

[bombayIllini]

How good are all these guys at recruiting. Apparently they can coach - at least so I assume.

 

[Deleted member 746094]

When we hired Beckman, my choice was Mike Leach. In his first 3 seasons at Washington State he was 3-9, 6-7 and 3-9, so not much better than Beckman. Since then he has gone 9-4, 8-5, 9-4 and this season he is 10-1. They gave him four seasons to become a winner. I think we can give Lovie another season. I would rather have Lovie at the podium than Leach or Beckman in any case.

Leach was a proven winner at Texas Tech winning 2/3rds of his games while head coach with a very high powered offense. So you knew the potential was there to turn Wazzu around. Lovie was an average NFL coach that was blessed with NFL HOFers and a tremendous supporting cast to run his defense. Other than that Lovie was a flash in the pan hire that has proven to be a mistake. We aren’t just losing, we are getting embarrassed and as of this past weekend the kids are checking out. One more year may put us three to four more years behind from where we are right now.

 

[ChiefGritty]

Granted, he did take UNC to an 11-win season, but he pulled off a Ron Turner-like turnaround in the other direction that squandered his gains with some epic losing.

A process facilitated by losing Littrell as OC (and Gene Chizik at DC).

Littrell is definitely a good candidate, though the chances are good he'll be snapped up by somebody else this offseason (maybe UNC) if we stick with Lovie and in general guys at the top of the mid-major food chain might say no to Illinois and either take or wait on something "better". Or they might not. Nobody thought Matt Campbell would take the Iowa State job. The point is you can't get too locked in on one guy. What we're looking for is someone with good qualifications who understands what the Illinois job requires, has a well thought out plan to succeed and relishes the challenge.

 

[Deleted member 631370]

Leach was a proven winner at Texas Tech winning 2/3rds of his games while head coach with a very high powered offense. So you knew the potential was there to turn Wazzu around. Lovie was an average NFL coach that was blessed with NFL HOFers and a tremendous supporting cast to run his defense. Other than that Lovie was a flash in the pan hire that has proven to be a mistake. We aren’t just losing, we are getting embarrassed and as of this past weekend the kids are checking out. One more year may put us three to four more years behind from where we are right now.

Exactly.

Is Lovie a more professional and statesman-like presence at the podium? Sure. But he's not even remotely on Mike Leach's level as a college football coach.

Leach has a bit of baggage that made me uncomfortable, but the dude can flat out coach. I strongly doubt we'll find somebody of his caliber when our coaching search eventually commences, but we don't need the next Mike Leach or even the next Matt Campbell. We just need the next Joe Tiller or Glen Mason -- a guy who might not put us on the national map, but can go to minor bowls pretty consistently and go to a bigger bowl now and then.

And the last point is my big concern. It's not the 4-7 record that bothers me. It's the absolutely epic manner in which we are getting destroyed. And Lovie is supposedly a defense guy. Imagine Mike McCarthy -- who has benefited from having Aaron Rodgers for so many years -- get fired, go to the college level, and see his team routinely score 10 points a game. That's the equivalent.

 

[ChiefGritty]

I don't agree at all with the idea that Lovie wasn't a good NFL coach. He was a very good one in fact and was a huge coup of a hire for Illinois that we were rightly very excited about. There were question marks, but that's true no matter how good of a hire you make.