Tim Beckman no longer a volunteer coach at UNC
DaChief4ever
- Urbana
Olive Garden announces the hiring of Tim Beckman as consultant for it's new LASAGNA MY WAY entrée.
I would love for Lovie to kick UNC !!! with Beckman on the sidelines. Though no way UNC would have him at the game even if they had kept him.
If I ever become too bougie for greasy fast casual deliciousness, go ahead and kill me.
the national
- the Front Range
The part hard to ignore is that the team we field this year is a team assembled by Beckman and his staff. Considering all the adversity he faced and the how all of that led to recruiting limitations... he put together a pretty darn good roster. He has shortcomings as a Power 5 head coach but give him credit for putting together a B1G caliber roster in the face of quite a bit of adversity. It would be nice to let the ridicule be a thing of the past. Move on Illini fans and let us enjoy the ride we are currently on.
I would say this is the case with 1/2 of the teams in the B1G. I'll rephrase: Beck and staff assembled a B1G first string which was still an accomplishment in the face of much negativity (albeit often self imposed)
Deleted member 10676
D
Guest
Sounds like Fedora either didn't run this past the Chancellor or was told that if he did, he'd be the one catching all the flack if it went south.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...n-north-carolina-spt-0826-20160825-story.html
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...n-north-carolina-spt-0826-20160825-story.html
Deleted member 29907
D
Guest
Not bitter at all and have moved on. I just expect much more professionalism from someone who was paid as much as he was. I tend to think the opportunity to play sooner rather than later and the fact that the school still had some cred. was more likely the culprit for some of the current talent than TB. We may also disagree on the darn good roster unless you are comparing it to expectations of his abilities vs what darn good should really be for our school. Yes, we have some talent in spots - but its very thin in most. A darn good roster includes depth.
Roster is nowhere near where it should be. I guess my point was that considering the train wreck from the start it is pleasing to see Lovie has some talent to work with. Yes only 1 deep at too many spots but it could be a lot worse given the circumstances. The one thing Beckman did do was work his butt off. We may all find fault in many facets of his tenure but we can't fault him for lack of effort. Let's face it.... Thomas had to have a coach and when the first 4 guys turn you down..... At least Whitman was given some $$ to work with. Imagine where we'd be if the Admin had coughed up the money 5 years ago??
Most reports said Thomas had plenty of money to work with at least in his courtship of Sumlin. I don't know if he panicked or what after Sumlin turned him down but the Beckman hire will forever be a mystery.
I suppose he worked hard, but that isn't much of measuring stick considering the money he was paid. I should hope he worked hard.
He left a just as thin depth chart and less talented roster for Lovie than he inherited from Zook. Lovie would kill to have that talent from 2012.
Turning down Pat Narduzzi to hire Tim Beckman was perplexing at the time, and I think the scale of the blunder in retrospect is only going to grow.
Chalk it up to Thomas' aversion to hiring a coach without head coaching experience
No question
I have no solid info about this one way or another so I will take your word for it and it does explain help explain why Beckman was hired in first place.
Zook needed to go, but I wonder in retrospect if hiring Vic Koenning for 2012 wouldn't have made much more sense. i do know that 2012 D would have kept us in most games with Kenning though he wasn't a long term answer
I think nthomas just really wanted a Mac guy SMH.....in was getting so sick of that......
We are like top 5 in prep talent yet none of them wanted to be in Illinois SMH
FeelYourPaign
- So Cal
This whole thing is just so North Carolina
Do something questionable, then when it makes the newspaper, make a change a disavow all knowledge.
And worse yet, the Beckman thing was fun for us, but only lasted a week.
Do something questionable, then when it makes the newspaper, make a change a disavow all knowledge.
And worse yet, the Beckman thing was fun for us, but only lasted a week.
Correct. $3 million plus was on the table.
The money and where on the list Beckman was have nothing to do with each other. Coaches make what the market dictates they will make. There really aren't Power Five programs where their ability pay is more of a barrier than their ability to attract a coach who can command the big money.
Whitman offered $3.5 million per to Lovie on Day 1 of the job. You think he just found a pile of gold coins in a spare room of Bielfeldt? Don't be silly.
The option 5 thing is true. 1 was Butch Jones, 2 was Kevin Sumlin, 3 was Larry Fedora, 4 was Chris Petersen, and 5 was Beckman. But what difference does that make? Should Thomas not have done due diligence, seen how much money he had to play with and make great options like Sumlin and Petersen turn him down? He did the same thing with the basketball hire, and the hail mary for Brad Stevens was very nearly completed. One would think the Lovie miracle would make Illini fans realize the wisdom of chasing down longshots.
Thomas' mistake is not that Tim Beckman was his 5th choice, but that Pat Narduzzi and Paul Chryst were his 6th and 7th respectively, especially Narduzzi who he had worked closely with, had a great relationship with, and knew he was head coaching material. Now, it's easy to forget that this was well before Narduzzi was the hottest assistant on the market. He was a big piece in Dantonio's turnaround of MSU, but their defense hadn't yet become the talk of the nation.
But still, how you have a credible hire you know and like in hand, sit down for an interview with Tim Beckman and say "I'm pushing all my chips into the middle for THIS GUY", it's never going to make sense. Yes, he got glowing reviews from Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer, yes his turnaround of Toledo was very impressive, yes, things might have been quite different if he had been able to bring Matt Campbell and his whole staff along. But....how can you have a conversation with that guy and hand him a seven figure check and put your career in his hands? I'll never understand.
This is correct. This is why Narduzzi was told he didn't get the job, as well as what Thomas said publicly. Using that as a litmus test is truly bizarre.
I don't see where Narduzzi would have wanted the HC job at the time. He was a rising star at MSU, in a strong negotiating position salary wise with them, and in a program that was still trending up. Sure it would have been a BIG HC gig, but then what? Likely mediocre records, due to mediocre support from the university, playing games in front of anemic crowds getting second guessed by a jaded fan base. So, after a few years of abuse at Illinois he would have then had to move and take another DC job somewhere because without an extensive HC record, it's not likely that he'd jump right in to another HC job. Sure maybe a pay bump for a few years but not really career enhancing. He had a good gig going at MSU ... if making a move away from it, Illinois would not have been the place.
Lovie? Heck, he got offered a big payday and was given the $$ backing to do what needs to be done...pay assistants well, actually hire a back-office recruiting staff, and probably some promises to fast track facilities improvements.... and aggressive and supportive AD. Besides, if he leaves after a few years, he will just recycle back into the NFL as a DC or linebacker coach. It's not like he needs the money and he has had a good career. HE was between jobs and this gig probably piqued his interest as a challenge.
Beckman had what, the lowest staff budget in the BIG, and probably zero hope for a major facilities upgrade?
Lovie? Heck, he got offered a big payday and was given the $$ backing to do what needs to be done...pay assistants well, actually hire a back-office recruiting staff, and probably some promises to fast track facilities improvements.... and aggressive and supportive AD. Besides, if he leaves after a few years, he will just recycle back into the NFL as a DC or linebacker coach. It's not like he needs the money and he has had a good career. HE was between jobs and this gig probably piqued his interest as a challenge.
Beckman had what, the lowest staff budget in the BIG, and probably zero hope for a major facilities upgrade?
Who knows whether he should have, but he did.
He and Thomas were close from their days together at Cincy. He wanted the job and would have accepted if offered. When he turned down UConn in 2013 (a time when he was a MUCH hotter quantity than two years earlier) he developed this reputation, as assistants who turn down literally any head coaching job always do, that he would be happy being Dantonio's assistant for the rest of his life and he'd only leave to be Bama's head coach or commissioner of the NFL or emperor of the universe. That nonsense is never, ever, ever, ever true. Less than 12 months later he took the first Power Five job that was ever offered to him at Pitt.
And by the way, Illinois never has been and never will be the kind of toxic waste dump of a job our more defeatist fans like to prop it up as in order to assuage their anger at the staggering coaching and administrative incompetence which has caused so many struggles. Lovie and Co are going to wash that nonsense down the drain.
And for the record, Beckman did not have the lowest assistant budget in the conference, and he also had the second highest recruiting budget, ahead of Michigan and Ohio State.