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Parade_Rain

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Damn do you guys ever just have fun? Good game tonight.
It's a great game if you're a Hoosier. How can you lose by almost 30 after being up by 1 at half? Terrible half time coaching as usual.
 

FirstTimer

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Thomas was under qualified to be an AD? He hired Cronin, Butch Jones and Brian Kelly. He won a Robert Neyland Outstanding Athletic Director Award at both of his previous spots (Akron and Cincinnati).

To be fair Kelly/Jones were kind of "no duh" hires. Kelly was one of the most successful coaches in D-2 history at GVSt and had a strong track record at CMU..... and Jones was a very good coach at CMU. These were kind of obvious step up hires for coaches climbing the ranks that had already proven to be very good. It's even more puzzling that Thomas gets to Illinois and then goes out and hires marginally productive coaches from the MAC rather than chasing guys that had at least won, or were seen as hot names, or "ascending" coaches. When Kelly and Jones were hired/promoted the reaction was "Ok, makes sense, these guys are on their way up and this is logical as their next stop." The reaction to Beckman and Groce was more "Umm, what? Who? Why?"
 
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If I had to take a crack at why he was a failure, the coaches he hired must not have liked working for him. Otherwise, Butch Jones should have wanted to be Illinois' football coach. The way I also understand it is that he is the one who essentially ran Snacks off the campus, not Groce. I don't have an inside track on that one. It's just what I've read elsewhere on more than one occasion.

No one is going to choose Illinois over Tennessee.
 

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Again, this might not sit well, but they need to identify who sees Illinois as a stepping stone for both programs.

I said the same thing a while back in another thread...I'll try to find the post.

It was more geared toward and applicable to football though b/c I still think the Illinois basketball job is a Top 25 job in CBB with the right people. The football job is a maybe the 7th or 8th best job in the B1G.
 
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FirstTimer

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Said this in August of 2014:

Part of Beckman's issue is that he came from a school in Toledo where he had a great recruiting base...and he wasn't even that great at Toledo. He wasn't having to run up against the big boys for recruits. He was having to out muscle schools like Bowling Green and Miami of Ohio. He jumped to Illinois from Ohio at a really rough time to try and recruit Big10 level players from his strongest area. Urban Meyer and Brian Kelly run that state right now. James Franklin going to PSU really hurts as well. In a few years Chuck Martin will have Miami turned around and he'll keep kids in the state too. The state of Illinois isn't a tremendous state for recruiting anymore(depth wise) and it's tough to get kids from Chicago to qualify.

I was never enamored with the Beckman hire to begin with. But a school at the level of Illinois in today's CFB environment is really hamstrung. Unless you find an alum like NW did in Fitzgerald it's not a destination job. It's a stepping stone or reclamation project job. You either need to catch a coach like Zook, O'Leary, etc looking for a second chance or latch onto the next hot name from the MAC, WAC, FCS, etc and ride the success for a few years like Cincy did with Brian Kelly or hope a coach like Chris Peterson stays around for years for no real reason.


I don't want to overly defend Zook because I think he's nothing more than an average football coach but what did Illinois fans expect out of him? He took over an absolute turd of a program, had them in a Rose Bowl in three seasons had two more down seasons then his final two years were completely average and made Bowl Games. I understand at the end of his tenure it was en vogue to hate on him and to certain extents I see why, however did Illinois fans expect their team to be 10-2 and 9-3 each year and competing for the Rose Bowl? What were the expectations? If you took a 10 yr snap shot of Illinois football I would expect them to average out to a 7-8 win teams during "successful" periods. I think Zook could have provided that. I suppose Zook's issues were that the valley's were too low, but placing that entirely on Zook is off base a bit.
 

Parade_Rain

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Groce gotta go. I'm looking at guys like Bryce Drew at Valpo and he even has a former Illini on his staff. The guy has the background, he has the playing career, he has the coaching chops and he wins in his conference.
 

bamainatlanta

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Doesn't Illinois have terrible athletic facilities?
 

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Your next Illinois basketball coach:

Vinny-Del-Negro-serious-candidate-for-Wolves-job.jpg
 

Gustavus Adolphus

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Serious though, I've always wondered if you took a guy like Pop and put him on a mid-level D-1 school - say, Missouri - how would he do?
 

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Maverick is having a good game. He's already got 12.
 

Urblock

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The Illini go for their 3rd win in 3 days at 1:30 on espn. Busy week for Illini sports.
 

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