Illini Football 2022

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#404      
MustangWally
Jimbo said:
A healthy dose of McCray, Brown, with occasional play action to control the clock. Keep our defense fresh. I see us with a better than good shot in this game. If I were in a casino on November 19th, I would put $50 on us to cover the spread, which will probably be about 10 points. I would love to be in Vegas on that weekend, watching the basketball team in the Vegas tournament, and watching college football on Saturday. What a fun weekend that would be.
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What's stopping you? :)
 
#406      
ChiefGritty
Dan said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1583187061343125504
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Good article and it expresses it well.

I'd almost kind of invert the order of operations though.

1. Bielema hired an excellent staff from top to bottom (except for the OC which was immediately obvious and immediately fixed), with a coherent, cohesive plan in place and managed that great staff teaching to that plan. It's not just Walters. These are top quality people being asked to do a job that is within their capabilities and in which they're all rowing in the same direction. Hard to overstate how rare that is in our recent football history.

2. Sight unseen he bet on the roster he inherited. It's a two-way street, the players have shown themselves worthy of that trust at every step of the way, but that doesn't account for handing Desmond Dan a bonus Covid year full ride not to play at all. The message was clear and public: everyone is welcome back, everyone gets an opportunity for a new beginning with us. It was a unique situation and he took unique methods.

3. Lovie's recruiting was better than you or I realized


(Also, I'm telling you, the hidden force here that it seems obvious to me is a massive factor is Tank Wright. When you've got former walk-ons manhandling Big Ten West teams you are excelling in the strength and conditioning game. When we go crazy with extensions this offseason, he's #3 on the list IMO)
 
#407      
CogDog
ChiefGritty said:
Good article and it expresses it well.

I'd almost kind of invert the order of operations though.

1. Bielema hired an excellent staff from top to bottom (except for the OC which was immediately obvious and immediately fixed), with a coherent, cohesive plan in place and managed that great staff teaching to that plan. It's not just Walters. These are top quality people being asked to do a job that is within their capabilities and in which they're all rowing in the same direction. Hard to overstate how rare that is in our recent football history.

2. Sight unseen he bet on the roster he inherited. It's a two-way street, the players have shown themselves worthy of that trust at every step of the way, but that doesn't account for handing Desmond Dan a bonus Covid year full ride not to play at all. The message was clear and public: everyone is welcome back, everyone gets an opportunity for a new beginning with us. It was a unique situation and he took unique methods.

3. Lovie's recruiting was better than you or I realized


(Also, I'm telling you, the hidden force here that it seems obvious to me is a massive factor is Tank Wright. When you've got former walk-ons manhandling Big Ten West teams you are excelling in the strength and conditioning game. When we go crazy with extensions this offseason, he's #3 on the list IMO)
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Completely agree. It’s been stated that Lovie recruited very athletic guys in the secondary with good measurables(see Nate Hobbs), but they weren’t exactly the greatest football players and therefore required a lot of development/coaching. Our current staff has this ability in spades and it’s showing, especially on the defensive line and secondary. What I love about Bielema is that he has a demonstrated ability to hire great staffs and fill positions with good people. Love it.
 
#408      
redwingillini11
Not that Robert's article makes a different point, but I don't think that the success of Lovie recruits should excuse how Lovie decimated the foundations of our in-state recruiting. With how much goodwill Lovie had in the Chicagoland area and throughout the state when he started the job, there was no reason to give up on the one territory where we can have an advantage entirely and conclude "oh, we will never be able to out recruit ND, Michigan, OSU, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc." This was such a preposterous white flag that has been brilliantly corrected by Bielema, and the fruits of those efforts appear to be coming soon.

Now, that nuance being acknowledged, I do think its very fair to now acknowledge Lovie and his staff did a good job finding good but raw athletes from Florida and Texas that needed the right coaching. Thank God they ended up getting that coaching, and I can't wait to see Illinois players all across the NFL for years to come!

Actually, with the NFL background, it shouldn't have been too surprising that the staff could find success in the scouting of recruiting, but not necessarily the politics of recruiting. Maybe that's how we can make sense of what went right and what went wrong.
 
#410      
Fighter of the Nightman
redwingillini11 said:
Not that Robert's article makes a different point, but I don't think that the success of Lovie recruits should excuse how Lovie decimated the foundations of our in-state recruiting. With how much goodwill Lovie had in the Chicagoland area and throughout the state when he started the job, there was no reason to give up on the one territory where we can have an advantage entirely and conclude "oh, we will never be able to out recruit ND, Michigan, OSU, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc." This was such a preposterous white flag that has been brilliantly corrected by Bielema, and the fruits of those efforts appear to be coming soon.

Now, that nuance being acknowledged, I do think its very fair to now acknowledge Lovie and his staff did a good job finding good but raw athletes from Florida and Texas that needed the right coaching. Thank God they ended up getting that coaching, and I can't wait to see Illinois players all across the NFL for years to come!

Actually, with the NFL background, it shouldn't have been too surprising that the staff could find success in the scouting of recruiting, but not necessarily the politics of recruiting. Maybe that's how we can make sense of what went right and what went wrong.
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Yep, that is always an alarming strategy. Way too many people within our fan base seem to think it is an all-or-nothing thing with recruiting instate, and that's ridiculous. We will never LOCK DOWN the state of Illinois, but we don't have to ... we have the INCREDIBLE advantage of literally being the only school in America that an instate recruit (as in, State of Illinois recruit) would feel the slightest pressure to include in his top 10. That is an insane advantage, because even if we will never get him ... our foot should be in the door without doing a damn thing. If you can get a "B minus" grade at keeping our talent instate for football (and even more so basketball), your FLOOR is a decent team. If you can compliment that with out-of-state recruiting, you have yourself a top 25 squad most years.

We should remember this now, but don't ever let an Illini fan who's down in the dumps say it is hard to win here, even in football ... because it's just not. Sure, our fan base and state is fickle, but they snap back into gear relatively quickly when we have competent leadership. Sky is the limit.
 
#412      
eas23
161 college football programs from FBS, FCS, Division II, and Division III had at least one player receive a Combine invite. Illinois had zero. There's no more damning a statistic relating to the talent in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 classes than zero invites (we're not even talking "drafted" or "make an NFL roster" - just Combine invites) in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Illinois State had three invites in three years. Boston College had 7 invites in 2019 alone. LSU had sixteen players invited to the 2020 combine. Illinois in 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined: zero.

November 28, 2015
"Obviously, it's not ideal but for now, I don't think it'll put a dagger in the heart of the program,"
 
#416      
Fighter of the Nightman
eas23 said:
161 college football programs from FBS, FCS, Division II, and Division III had at least one player receive a Combine invite. Illinois had zero. There's no more damning a statistic relating to the talent in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 classes than zero invites (we're not even talking "drafted" or "make an NFL roster" - just Combine invites) in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Illinois State had three invites in three years. Boston College had 7 invites in 2019 alone. LSU had sixteen players invited to the 2020 combine. Illinois in 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined: zero.

November 28, 2015
"Obviously, it's not ideal but for now, I don't think it'll put a dagger in the heart of the program,"
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It’s still surreal. On one hand, Illinois should be near the top of the league in ever sport most years … but futility is all many of us have known in football.
 
#418      
Boricua Illini
redwingillini11 said:
Not that Robert's article makes a different point, but I don't think that the success of Lovie recruits should excuse how Lovie decimated the foundations of our in-state recruiting. With how much goodwill Lovie had in the Chicagoland area and throughout the state when he started the job, there was no reason to give up on the one territory where we can have an advantage entirely and conclude "oh, we will never be able to out recruit ND, Michigan, OSU, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc." This was such a preposterous white flag that has been brilliantly corrected by Bielema, and the fruits of those efforts appear to be coming soon.

Now, that nuance being acknowledged, I do think its very fair to now acknowledge Lovie and his staff did a good job finding good but raw athletes from Florida and Texas that needed the right coaching. Thank God they ended up getting that coaching, and I can't wait to see Illinois players all across the NFL for years to come!

Actually, with the NFL background, it shouldn't have been too surprising that the staff could find success in the scouting of recruiting, but not necessarily the politics of recruiting. Maybe that's how we can make sense of what went right and what went wrong.
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IMHO The key point that Robert misses in his article is Josh Whitman...

As soon as he was hired, he made the bold Lovie hire... It obviously didn't pan out in the end, but I would argue was possibly as good as any choice that we could hire at the time (remember how we ended up with Beckman, after numerous coaches had spurned us?)

And Lovie DID push this program to a better place than we were. It became obvious though that we needed a change in the speed and move into a different gear or lose the momentum that we had begun to build.

I always felt bad about all of the hate thrown in Lovie's direction in the end. Some of it was probably deserved (Promoting Miles too soon, becoming HC and DC, ignoring recruiting in IL preferring FL), but he deserved some credit too.

Lovie's tenure also faced some bad luck beyond his control that contributed to his team not being more successful... (Bobby Roundtree... NCAA waiver for Luke... COVID years changes...)

In the end Josh, as many others, believed it was time for a change. He gave Lovie the option of retiring instead of firing him, I believe, as a token of appreciation for what he had done for the program.

Perhaps Lovie could have completed the turn around of the program within a decade or he would have eventually failed regardless, we will never know.

What we do know is that Josh made another home run hire with Bielema, and the program has kicked into the next gear...

What will happen next? when Ryan Walters leaves for his deserved HC position... Could Bielema be poached as Bill Self was?? What will happen then??? All I know is that I have full confidence in Josh Whitman and that's why I believe he's the missing key piece in Robert's article.
 
#419      
bluemountain
Boricua Illini said:
IMHO The key point that Robert misses in his article is Josh Whitman...

As soon as he was hired, he made the bold Lovie hire... It obviously didn't pan out in the end, but I would argue was possibly as good as any choice that we could hire at the time (remember how we ended up with Beckman, after numerous coaches had spurned us?)

And Lovie DID push this program to a better place than we were. It became obvious though that we needed a change in the speed and move into a different gear or lose the momentum that we had begun to build.

I always felt bad about all of the hate thrown in Lovie's direction in the end. Some of it was probably deserved (Promoting Miles too soon, becoming HC and DC, ignoring recruiting in IL preferring FL), but he deserved some credit too.

Lovie's tenure also faced some bad luck beyond his control that contributed to his team not being more successful... (Bobby Roundtree... NCAA waiver for Luke... COVID years changes...)

In the end Josh, as many others, believed it was time for a change. He gave Lovie the option of retiring instead of firing him, I believe, as a token of appreciation for what he had done for the program.

Perhaps Lovie could have completed the turn around of the program within a decade or he would have eventually failed regardless, we will never know.

What we do know is that Josh made another home run hire with Bielema, and the program has kicked into the next gear...

What will happen next? when Ryan Walters leaves for his deserved HC position... Could Bielema be poached as Bill Self was?? What will happen then??? All I know is that I have full confidence in Josh Whitman and that's why I believe he's the missing key piece in Robert's article.
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In hindsight, Lovie and his staff were pretty good at identifying overlooked talent. That's about it, and that's an awfully low bar. He was godawful at player development, terrible at game planning and in game decision making, he had possibly the worst staff in D1 football at any level and was terrible at building relationships at any level. We could have hired just about anyone other than Tim Beckman and we would have been at least as well off.
 
#420      
Pfillini43
bluemountain said:
In hindsight, Lovie and his staff were pretty good at identifying overlooked talent. That's about it, and that's an awfully low bar. He was godawful at player development, terrible at game planning and in game decision making, he had possibly the worst staff in D1 football at any level and was terrible at building relationships at any level. We could have hired just about anyone other than Tim Beckman and we would have been at least as well off.
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I’d also add that the Transfer portal was key with the addition of TDV and others. We have not had the consistency at the QB position in a long time, maybe ever.
 
#423      
TheGMan
I know I'm getting way, WAY ahead of myself right now...but I just had a random thought pop into my head today.

Wouldn't it be cool if we got Donavan Leary's brother, Devin Leary, to transfer from NC State to Illinois for one last season next year? I think he'll have one left, though I could be wrong.
 
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