Last time that happened was probably the Rose Bowl berth, maybe Wes Lunt transferring. And after the entire scandal last year, firing Beckman, the two-year deal for Cubit, we needed some good news.
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On November 28, 2015, Illinois football named interim coach Bill Cubit the official coach on a 2-year deal. Here's how the interim-AD spoke about it.
#illini AD Paul Kowalczyk on 2-year deal: "It's not ideal but for now, I don't think it'll put a dagger in the heart of the program."— Jeremy Werner (@JWernerScout) November 28, 2015
That's when the block I no longer stood for Illinois. It became Interim. Or not Ideal.
In December, USA Today graded the college football hires. Syracuse got a B+ for Dino Babers. Illinois got a F for Bill Cubit.
As you can imagine when your coach is on a two-year deal (that most people read between the lines as a one-year deal, since you never have a lame duck coach) recruits started decommitting. It was far from ideal.
Then Illinois hired Josh Whitman to be the AD. He saw that the Cubit deal was not only "not ideal," it was in fact a dagger in the heart of the program.
He started talking to Lovie Smith two weeks ago. His first day on the job he fired Cubit and two days later introduced Smith as our new head coach.
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The highlight of Lovie Smith's coaching career is a consistently successful stint running the Chicago Bears. Their defense was always strong and sometimes to be feared. He got Rex Grossman to the Super Bowl. The year he was fired he went 10-6. In the three seasons since, the Bears have never had a winning record.
In Tampa Bay, he went from 2-14 to 6-10. I was surprised he was fired with that kind of improvement.
As a DC, he took the Rams defense from worst in the league in 2000 to appearing in the Super Bowl in 2001. (Went from giving up 29 a game to 17)
He's known for high ethical standards and for having his players love him. Two things that Illinois could really use right now.
Illinois, in particular the Chicago area is home to a large amount of talented high school football players that go virtually anywhere but Illinois. How many of them watched Lovie take the Bears to the Super Bowl? How many black high school students in Illinois would be more interested in talking to Lovie Smith than Bill Cubit?
No one expects him to arrive and for us to suddenly beat Ohio State. But if he can produce a consistent defense, Illinois will be in a lot more games.
USA Today gave Cubit a F.
I give Smith an A+.
Poor Lovie Smith. When he's done with Illinois, he'll be lucky if he can coach linebackers somewhere.
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