Bret Bielema Takes Reins of Illinois Football

#276      
altgeld88
Given where we are now, the short-term goal is for fans to show up at Memorial Stadium, or to flick on the TV, and expect that we'll be competitive weekly. It used to be that way long ago. We're very far from that presently. Rome wasn't built in a day and P5 football programs aren't turned around overnight. Lovie repaired some damage that Beckman did. Let's hope BB continues and brings more energy, creativity and competitiveness to the enterprise than his predecessor.

The decision's made. We'll sit back and see what happens.
 
#277      
ChiefGritty
Retro62 said:
Les Miles never was a stable presence, he was just able to get kids at LSU...which isn’t as hard. Not saying he couldn’t coach, but I think Kansas is a tougher place to build a football team.
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There are a lot of similarities between Les Miles at LSU and Mack Brown at Texas. Older guys whose knowledge was centered in an older era of football and who weren't naturals at being the CEO of an operation of the size and complexity of the modern college football superpower. They reached an expiration date on those projects.

The Mack Brown project at UNC was from day 1 much more thoughtfully planned and structured than the Les Miles project at Kansas. Some of that just reflects the relative strength and resources of the programs of course, but it's also pretty clear that Miles took the first P5 job that offered on a lark and doesn't really think of his LSU tenure as anything to transition away from.

The quality of the staff will tell which way Bielema goes on that. I'm not entirely sure whether we want a classic Wisconsin/Arkansas Bielema staff or not though, it will be interesting to see.
 
#278      
GrayGhost77
I honestly think Bret was as good a hire as JW could make. Lowest risk move but still high ceiling. Probably the best fit of anyone we could realistically get. Almost certainly will be an upgrade from a recruiting, schematic, motivation, and staff perspective. Will be nothing if not entertaining, but honestly the dude is from the state and knows the B1G. This makes sense and JW knows it.
 
#279      
IllinoisOKC
illini80 said:
I haven’t heard anything other than on the WDWS sports show BB said he plans to interview the current Illini coaches first. I doubt many if any get hired, but I thought it was a classy way to start the process. Maybe Lou stays?
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Thats how it should be. Dk if anyone stays but I would think hed keep atleast one hold over but thats just a pure guess of mine. He should have more then enough connections to bring in a really good staff, im just purely impatient and want to know asap lol
 
#280      
Fanview
Say what you will about Bielema, but this early relationship building is what I like to see

Link to tweet
Tweet.png
 
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#281      
Deleted member 747671
IllinoisOKC said:
Thats how it should be. Dk if anyone stays but I would think hed keep atleast one hold over but thats just a pure guess of mine. He should have more tgen enough connections to bring in a really good staff, im just purely impatient and want to know asap lol
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I think ligs has a chance to stay. In the btn interview, he mentioned the extra coach on staff compared to last time he coached and said he’d get or keep a full time special teams coach. Outside that, I’d guess Patterson would have the best chance of staying.
 
#282      
DocMorgan
CogDog said:
Well, I was hoping our recruits would become successful football players, but if they end up becoming salesman after their Illini careers are over then I guess I’ll be happy for them in that regard.
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Ha! That should say road graders!
 
#286      
ChocolateThunder
illinoistradition said:
I’m curious. How would we be able to justify paying him (or anyone for that matter) significantly below what Lovie was making? You can certainly criticize how much they paid Lovie, but at this point, any coach could come in and wonder why they aren’t getting paid just as much. And they are STILL paying Bielema less.
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Agreed:
After a series of new hires and raises, 14 coaches in the conference are making about $67.8 million per year. That equates to an average salary of about $4.84 million.
9 football coaches in the Big 10 will have a higher salary
saturdaytradition.com

USA Today coaches salary database: How much every B1G head coach is scheduled to make in 2020

Here's a look at how much every B1G head coach will earn this year.
saturdaytradition.com saturdaytradition.com
Hi salary seems in line with what is currently being paid to coach Big 10 football.
 
#291      
SescIllini
My concern with Monken and LL was their lack of experience with power 5 conferences and need to dig a program from the basement.

BB is the pick you make if your at the pivot point of going forward or backwards. From day one he is a proven coach at a high level. I feel better with recruiting, asst. Coach, and schemes with BB. Illini also needs to build an identity and culture.
This I feel will be the biggest challenge.
 
#292      
DocMorgan
#295      
dbeverly26
Can’t say I know enough about football to give the hire an up or down based on anything that matters, but spending the morning grinding my teeth at Wisconsin fans patting us on the head and saying we don’t have enough tradition to deserve anything other than one of their rejects hasn’t done much for my mood.
 
#300      
Lexis20
altgeld88 said:
You know, Winston Churchill was also a dissolute a$$hole when he was a younger man. And there was that epic debacle at Gallipoli in WWI when he was head of the British Navy at barely 40 yrs old.

;)
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Took me 10 pages to get to the best quote of the day...the other 10 pages were opinions that I would assume were mostly by people that don't remember what a solid coach BB was at Wisky..guy was a winner, his teams were well coached, his teams were tough as nails. We haven't been that type of team for a long time IMO. Count me as excited. Have to recruit obviously, but Zook did that. BB a better coach. We will see how his recruiting goes. Under Lovie we had year after year of sub-optimal results. I am looking forward to a well coached team, a coach with a connection to the community (Lovie was living in Tampa mostly I believe), and football games that are sold out.
 
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