As a member of Illini nation, I take exception to the notion that basketball is king. Illini football is my passion and I'm not alone. Don't judge the small gameday crowds at Memorial Stadium as a leading indicator. Even small football crowds are greater than the capacity of The Assembly Hall (AKA State Farm Center). When Illini football recovers. and I belief it will recover, you will see a passion at least equal to basketball.
Scott Frost Fired
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This just isn't true. By all appearances, these hires across the country are something of a crap shoot. Many bright ADs have made bad choices, even with lots of resources. I don't think there's a "likely" good hire for any program across the country. Success from program to program doesn't even transfer well.
There's a handful of names that I think you can count on, and even with those, you always have to wonder if the next stop is where the adrenalin and enthusiasm for the tough job wanes.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
This is a fun narrative but I'm not sure how well it lines up with the facts.
Firing Frank Solich and hiring Bill Callahan was an attempt to reconcile themselves with modern football and revolutionize the program, it was just a panicked-ill considered one.
Then Bo Pelini was quite successful running exactly the sort of spread-ified option that seemed like the obvious blend of old and new for that program. More Macy's than Sears.
And after the baffling Mike Riley hire, wouldn't you know it, the QB of their last national champion was running that exact synthesis of an offense to a literal(ish) national championship.
Nebraska will be fine. They're in a better position for the college football world that's coming than the one that's leaving.
did you see Lovie to Illinois?
DeonThomas
- South Carolina
Embarrassed to say that I was enthralled with that hire. Mistakenly thought it was a great fit, and I thought JW was a genius.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Why embarrassed?
Every Illini fan was enthralled with that hire (that's a really perfect word for it actually), and anyone claiming otherwise is lying. The weird circumstances were part of the reason for it, but it was a massive, universal jolt of positive energy at the time.
And we should be able to relate to Nebraska fans here, because Frost received a similar reaction, and like Lovie it was very obviously not working and fatally flawed basically immediately and it just became the difficult process of an athletic department and fanbase coming to terms with that reality.
We're better off having gotten through that and Nebraska will be too.
Homecoming 2019
- Chicago
From a recruiting stand point sure, from a coaching stand point not so much. Turns out he wasn't all that interested in recruiting and all we got was his Cover-2.
AKA the UNCover-Anyone.
To be fair, everyone thought we'd get some version of Lovie-ball and that his system could hold up to the spread and we'd have teams full of Peanuts and Urlacher-lites.
He was mad the NFL got rid of him and that he'd be successful here and make his way back after 5 years.
We were so wrong, but he ultimately got what he wanted. To coach in the Pros closer to home. We got nothing out of our deal.
I do see the fire we wanted from Lovie in BB though. He wants the respect back on his name in college. Idk if this is his terminal stop but I have no doubt Illinois will be better when BB leaves than when Lovie left.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Kerby Joseph, Tony Adams, Sydney Brown, Devon Witherspoon, we did get some of those players thankfully.
I think both Lovie and Whitman believed the NFL was an objectively higher and more sophisticated level of football, and therefore anywhere you applied NFL methods in tactics, coaching, or scouting you were gaining a step up on college football.
This concept was coming from two guys sitting in a suburban Tampa rumpus room who hadn't been working hands-on in major college football since 2000 and 1995 respectively. And they were just wrong about that NFL > College idea.
The NFL has mastered the best ways of winning in professional football with adult players and parity and salary caps and all of that. And college football has mastered its version of the game.
So instead of gaining a leg up everywhere we were doing things the "NFL way", we were in fact becoming deficient in those areas.
And then the oldest message board trope in the book is Idiot Old Coach did X and Y all wrong, and now Savior New Coach is doing those things the opposite, correct way.
Unfortunately for the trope I think Bielema would tell you he learned a lot of new things about football during his detour to the NFL and he's trying to implement some of those ideas back in college, where he obviously has a ton of natural background in the way things are done, as does his staff.
So I think in the end I'd say the same thing I do about similar Groce vs Underwood discourse: it's ultimately not about doing things different, it's about doing things better.
That's the same advice I'd give Nebraska.
This seems history revising, to me.
This CBS article and this ESPN article (including Mike & Mike segment), exemplify the major coverage of the Lovie hire at the time, and I wouldn't characterise either as 'enthralled'. All the hype quotes are from Whitman, not outsiders. Local buzz was happy for his fame and success, but a whole lotta people were pumping the brakes on how well he would do as a college HC. He hadn't been a college HC or coordinator, ever, and his last college experience was '95. That gave reasonable people pause.
Not me, of course, I was holding parades. I was convinced he would make us relevant, competent and consistent, but not sexy. I got the last one right.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
National coverage was appropriately skeptical (though positive and sort of amused by the quirky match and timing of it). The Illinois fanbase was enthralled.
You can't separate the kick in the nuts of Not Ideal from the way we reacted to Lovie, it was all one saga, but the perception in February 2016 was that Illinois football was dead forever, we were Kansas now, and that the University would never provide any money or resources or even care for the program ever again.
And then this smooth-talking inexperienced AD dropped a bombshell on us out of nowhere changing everything in an instant. Of course we all latched onto it, what sort of stone hearted cynic wouldn't? (Not even the stone hearted cynic whose post you're currently reading!)
Anyway I'll always remember Dave Wannstedt's reaction when asked about it on some sports talk show, a guy who had made the same transition, he said it can work, but you have to respect the differences with the college game, and you need to build your staff with a bunch of "fire breathing" young guys who will work their tails off on the recruiting trail for you. Suffice it to say that wasn't the way Lovie did it, and things might have gone better if he had.
So did Charlie Weis with his schematic advantages. He flopped too - even worse. To me it's pretty clear, as you say, each level has a way of winning and it's not the same design.
I'd stay far away from a career NFL guy. I do like coach B with a little NFL sprinkled in but he's a college guy all the way.
I too liked Lovie but had no idea he would be so unmotivated as a college coach.
sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
I actually wonder if it was as motivation thing as much as it's a management style thing. In some ways, I think Lovie failed in the CFB for similar reasons Urban Meyer failed in the NFL. Lovie managed the team as if it's a bunch of adults. Everyone's a professional, knows their roles/expectations, and is expected to perform. Coach sets the strategy, everyone else's job is to execute it. (including recruiting)
Urban took a more heavy-handed approach. Players aren't adults. They're inexperienced, need to be told what to do, and have their hand held.
Obviously there's a spectrum to all of this and it's not in extremes. but i think both of their innate styles were inappropriate for the settings in which they tried to implement them.
Ransom Stoddard
Ordained Dudeist Priest
- Bloomington, IL
This is just simply not true.
sbillini
- st petersburg, fl
There was a healthy dose of skepticism around it. My recollection is probably 70% of fans were excited (including me) and the other 30% were ranging from "interesting.......?" to "terrible hire. His style/system will never work in CFB"
My hope was - he was a decent, not great, coach in the NFL - that must be he could be a decent, not great, coach in CFB, right? right? And decent was a significant step up at the time. Yea, that that logic wasn't right.
This Illini fan was disgusted with the Lovie hire and thought that Whitman was showing his inexperience. Lazy hire. Whitman thought that the NFL cachet would turn Illinois into the Alabama of the the Midwest. Other than Gene Stallings at Alabama and Pete Carroll at USC, I've been underwhelmed by the tenures of NFL head coaches going to colleges. They aren't prepared for the amount of work a head coach in college has to do or they've forgotten.
Makes you wonder if someone like Bennett Williams would've stayed clear of trouble under Bielema vs a loose with the reins coach like Lovie.
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
Under Delaney it was a "I'll make your life a living hell if you poach your next coach from inside the conference". I doubt much has changed.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Given that Bennett Williams has been a productive player in good standing at a better program than ours under multiple head coaches since leaving, I am inclined to believe it was us, not him.
Meh, could have been him. Maturity strikes each of us at different times.
For sure. But for some kids, a nudge in the right direction never hurts.
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
I understood the hire, and it might well have been the best we could do at the time. Coaches were not beating down our door. I considered it a semi-Hail Mary by Whitman and did hope that the Lovie name would bring in recruits, especially from the Chicago area.
If that is 'enthralled', so be it. But I don't agree. I couldn't stand Lovie's indifferent style with the Bears and I was totally unexcited about bringing a 20-year-old defense, which a competent high school coach could probably scheme around.
One question I've always had is whether or not Lovies hiring helped with getting the Smith Center funded, ie, did it show the JW was going to do what he needed to return things around?
The Lovie experiment clearly failed but at the time did it help get $ into the coffers?
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