The Illinois Coaching Staff Search

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#576      

Deleted member 747784

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at the end of the day , if we hired Steve Sark or Tony petersen , both are going to have to work with the current roster + a few transfers in .

I expect either guy can coach decently enough for the next 11 months that our results on the field in 2021 would not be all that different if Sark was calling plays or Tony is .

Let’s be happy it’s Tony and no longer Rod Smith . yea , it would have been cool to have a well known name , but lah dee frickin dah .

let’s get over it and focus on the position guys who will be the ones doing the recruiting .
 
#577      

hermie1985

H
hermie1985
So is anyone suspecting an Assistant HC on the offensive side coming on after bowl games or NFL season?
 
#578      

TheDrinkinLincoln

TheDrinkinLincoln
TheDrinkinLincoln
hermie1985 said:
So is anyone suspecting an Assistant HC on the offensive side coming on after bowl games or NFL season?
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Not really, I think if that were the case we would have had a younger OC with more recruiting chops. Petersen is here to run the offense that BB wants him to run which is a ball control offense.
 
#579      

TheChief4Life

TheChief4Life
TheChief4Life
When all is said and done, I want the play calls to make sense. Not to the point of predictability, but at bare minimum to the point where when a play is called, afterwards we aren't all thinking "huh? what was the end goal of that play call?".

I understand not having talent to run certain plays, but looking back at the Rod Smith era it was filled with too many plays calls that were completely inappropriate and mind boggling for the situation.

Petersen wasn't my first choice (or even in my top [insert any number here]), but as long as he doesn't continue the trend of Rod Smith, this is a grand slam hire.
 
#586      

Ubermensch

Ubermensch
BOOM! Feed my ego.
Ubermensch
WeWillWhen said:
I like this Miller hire. He's got the potential to be a very good in-state recruiter for us. I'd like some news from the defensive side -- who's staying, who's being hired, etc.
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I agree. I'll be very surprised if he has trouble recruiting. Moms and dads are going to sit in their front rooms and feel very comfortable sending their o-lineman sons to play for him. Under Bielema, a guy who's known as a coach who develops linemen and is a player's coach. If we don't start getting consistent, competent line play under these guys then it's never going to happen.
 
#588      

Deleted member 747784

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hermie1985 said:
So is anyone suspecting an Assistant HC on the offensive side coming on after bowl games or NFL season?
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no
that’s a nothing title . akin to Lt Gov . looks good on a resume but means nothing to a football team , imo
 
#589      

Kendall Gill’s Uncle

K
Kendall Gill’s Uncle
ChiefGritty said:
It's nine million years ago and it truly doesn't matter in assessing Petersen's qualifications for the job, but because it's interesting, this appears to be the story at Minnesota:

Steve Loney resigned as OC in early 2000 and Petersen took the reins of calling the offense. He and Mitch Browning were titled as co-coordinators.

At some point in the intervening couple of years (after they were bad in 2001 maybe?), Browning became the "real" OC, and ended up being a finalist for the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant in 2003. In 2005 Browning got the title change to just "Offensive Coordinator". And then they all got fired in 2006 after they memorably blew that colossal lead in the bowl game against Mike Leach's Texas Tech.

It wouldn't matter either way, but that appears to be the truth of the situation. And anyway, it brings back memories, I very nearly went to Minnesota during that period. Thank goodness I didn't, imagine having to root for PJ Fleck 🤮
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Who is your source for this?
 
#590      

Mike55

Mike55
Mike55
DaChief4ever said:
The important issue besides recruiting touch, IS....that the staff works together, and blends well. You can have two supremely qualified coaches, but the mix is just not right. I think BB is putting together a staff that can gel together.
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This was not a priority of our last coach. He hired a staff full of egos and hoped they'd all get along. The stories I've been told of the internal arguments and inconsistencies in coaching made for total dysfunction.
 
#591      

CurbeloYourEnthusiasm

CurbeloYourEnthusiasm
CurbeloYourEnthusiasm
Our in-state o line recruiting just got a ton better with Bart Miller and Bielema going after these kids. Big 10 success starts and ends with the line. We'll win by pushing people off the ball, not by extravagant play design. The OC is fine. He's been an OC everywhere in the college game, worked with quite a few NFL QBs, this staff Bielema is putting together is quite well qualified. Far more qualified than Lovie's amateur hour staff.
 
#592      

GILL-INOIS

G
GILL-INOIS
I think Bielema has added the right pieces so far. Ground and pound next year with all the OL and RB depth returning.

Majority on here get the big picture. Illinois football has been history for many years, it is time to make and write some new history. Rather depressing when you look at the record books and you see some on here criticizing every move that a certain guy isn't qualified, etc.

*Last time Illinois has had back to back winning seasons 2010-2011 (2011 also last time we had a winning record)

*Last time Illinois has had 3 winning seasons in a row 1988-90

*Season leader in TD passes for a season Kittner with 27 in 01 and 24 in 99. After that the most TD throws in a season is 22 with Juice and George.

Bielema was not high on my list but there has always been one thing I admire about him. Play to your strengths, play hard and control the line. The strengths we do have on this roster is what Bielema preaches. If we can do this effectively this will also keep the D off the field a lot more.

I put this on a different post but here are some stats during the Lovie Smith era

2016-2020

Offense QB total attempts/completions 809/1564 51.7% TD thrown 58 INT thrown 54


Defense Points Allowed/Game per year

2016 31.9
2017 31.5
2018 39.4
2019 25.4
2020 31.9
 
#593      

Poe's Law

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Poe's Law
ChiefGritty said:
Bielema would have taken the job for 3.5, and probably less, let's not kid ourselves.

Colorado hired Karl Dorrell for 3.2 instead of Bielema.
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But now watch me anchor the argument around the $5.1M that Mel Tucker got last year after one season in Boulder where he lost seven games.

Karl Dorrell may work out in Boulder, but I'm not sure how you look at his resume compared to Bielema and arrive at a premium of 9% (or less) let alone that it has some sort of impact one what Bielema would have accepted.

There were cheaper options, but I think it's highly unlikely that Bielema was there to be had a substantial discount to $4.2M.
 
#594      

Kendall Gill’s Uncle

K
Kendall Gill’s Uncle
ChiefGritty said:
It's absolutely pathetic that this passes for "positivity" and "optimism", especially when it directly contravenes everything Josh Whitman has said publicly about this process.

We have a top 5 assistant salary pool in the Big Ten (and money is basically all that matters), and I'm sorry, but Petersen does not have a good track record. He stepped up from the low-major level of college football to a bigger job at East Carolina and comprehensively failed at exactly the sort of establish-and-build job he's going to be asked to do at Illinois.

He had Gardner Minshew splitting time with someone called "Thomas Sirk" at ECU, and Minshew was totally average there, despite putting up video game numbers both before and after and being a genuine NFL talent.

It's an unimaginably weak hire for this position on this staff for this project for this money. That does NOT mean it can't end up "working", and it's wildly premature to extrapolate the hire to broader conclusions about the staff, but the objective facts of Petersen's resume are what they are. That saying "well, we're a pathetic embarrassing dumpster fire so we deserve to laughably overpay mediocrities to coach here" can be coded as being the loyal good fan is just beyond my comprehension, I do not get it.
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In 2015 pre-Petersen, East Carolina’s offense rank for pts per game was 76th, with Petersen went to 77th in 2016, to 94th in 2017, to 110th in 2018. Their defense went from 56th in 2015 prior to new staff to like 110th in 2016, 130th out of 130 in 2017, and 121st in 2018. I would say there was more going on here than Petersen’s offense. Ultimately a head coach that wasn’t ready or a staff that couldn’t recruit. It seems like kind of spinning your own narrative based on you not liking the hire. Also, Rod Smith wasn’t a proven OC on his own so lets not kid ourselves that he was a hot commodity.
 
#595      

O&B4Ever

O
O&B4Ever
Mike55 said:
This was not a priority of our last coach. He hired a staff full of egos and hoped they'd all get along. The stories I've been told of the internal arguments and inconsistencies in coaching made for total dysfunction.
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If I remember correctly, Lovie put together a staff with mostly NFL guys, hoping that would make kids more likely to wanna come here and it didn't work.
 
#597      

Deleted member 747671

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Deleted member 747671
ProfessorQC said:
Some news on the Defensive side of the staff is coming soon...

One interesting piece I’m being told is that it looks like C Pat will be staying on and moving to the defensive side of the ball 🔙🤞🏽
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Interesting if true. No idea if this is his plan but I kind of assume the dc will be announced before defensive assistants, similar to the oc being announced before oline. Any ideas on dc?
 
#598      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
Kendall Gill’s Uncle said:
Who is your source for this?
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Lemme give you three data points, because I think connecting them is genuinely unclear.

February 7, 2000:
Following offensive coordinator Steve Loney’s resignation Thursday, the Pioneer Press reported that head coach Glen Mason is expected to give quarterbacks coach Tony Petersen the duties of running the offense.
The Pioneer Press also reported that Petersen, not Loney, had been the one calling the offensive plays for the Gophers throughout the 1999 season.

2003 Broyles Award Finalist (top 5 assistant coaches of the year, in virtually all cases playcalling real-coordinator OC's and DC's): Minnesota co-OC Mitch Browning

From Minny's website: Gophers all time coaching staffs. Browning and Petersen were co-OC's from 2000-04. Then in 2005, Browning became "Offensive Coordinator/Tackles & Tight Ends" and then "Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator" in 2006, whereas Petersen was just "Passing Game Coordinator/Quarterbacks".

It SEEMS from googling around at various articles from the period that Petersen was the "real" playcalling OC at least until around 2001, and that Browning had taken over by 2003. I can't find ironclad proof, but the media is going to Petersen for quotes about the offense at the beginning of that period and Browning by the end. And the Broyles Award thing is very compelling evidence that Browning was seen as the "real" guy. And then Browning's position was set in stone starting in 2005, with Petersen as the glorified QB coach.

I want to be very clear that there is only one way a serious rational person would interpret all of this, which is to completely ignore it because that was practically the stone age in football terms and it does not matter. Petersen could have been the waterboy, it's completely meaningless for the purposes of Illinois football in 2021.

But alas, I'm a sick maniac and I did some digging, and this appears to be the truth.

Still, I want to make it clear, if your opinion of Petersen was driven by the idea of him having been a longtime Big Ten playcaller under Glen Mason, you aren't wrong because that isn't true, you're wrong because that was a zillion years ago.
 
#599      

Deleted member 654622

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Deleted member 654622
ProfessorQC said:
Some news on the Defensive side of the staff is coming soon...

One interesting piece I’m being told is that it looks like C Pat will be staying on and moving to the defensive side of the ball 🔙🤞🏽
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What? Someone correct me here but I thought C Pat's expertise was his offense at Trinity so it made sense to have him on O at Illinois. I want to see him stay but we have had plenty of sheety position coaches the last 5 years. That needs to stop
 
#600      

Ander1345

A
Ander1345
ChiefGritty said:
Lemme give you three data points, because I think connecting them is genuinely unclear.

February 7, 2000:
Following offensive coordinator Steve Loney’s resignation Thursday, the Pioneer Press reported that head coach Glen Mason is expected to give quarterbacks coach Tony Petersen the duties of running the offense.
The Pioneer Press also reported that Petersen, not Loney, had been the one calling the offensive plays for the Gophers throughout the 1999 season.

2003 Broyles Award Finalist (top 5 assistant coaches of the year, in virtually all cases playcalling real-coordinator OC's and DC's): Minnesota co-OC Mitch Browning

From Minny's website: Gophers all time coaching staffs. Browning and Petersen were co-OC's from 2000-04. Then in 2005, Browning became "Offensive Coordinator/Tackles & Tight Ends" and then "Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator" in 2006, whereas Petersen was just "Passing Game Coordinator/Quarterbacks".

It SEEMS from googling around at various articles from the period that Petersen was the "real" playcalling OC at least until around 2001, and that Browning had taken over by 2003. I can't find ironclad proof, but the media is going to Petersen for quotes about the offense at the beginning of that period and Browning by the end. And the Broyles Award thing is very compelling evidence that Browning was seen as the "real" guy. And then Browning's position was set in stone starting in 2005, with Petersen as the glorified QB coach.

I want to be very clear that there is only one way a serious rational person would interpret all of this, which is to completely ignore it because that was practically the stone age in football terms and it does not matter. Petersen could have been the waterboy, it's completely meaningless for the purposes of Illinois football in 2021.

But alas, I'm a sick maniac and I did some digging, and this appears to be the truth.

Still, I want to make it clear, if your opinion of Petersen was driven by the idea of him having been a longtime Big Ten playcaller under Glen Mason, you aren't wrong because that isn't true, you're wrong because that was a zillion years ago.
Click to expand...

The trend in coaching may be going young, but that doesn't invalidate experience.
 
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