After a long hiatus, I am back in the fold.
To catch up,
The Lovie Smith hire caught me completely by surprise, but as everyone else I was extremely excited. We all hoped for more in the first season; however, the reality is we have awful program depth, which is the direct result of having four (full time) head coaches in five seasons. I still am very optimistic about the future of the football program under Lovie for a few reasons. One, our recruiting department is larger (it also includes an experienced NFL scout) that have already found some under the radar kids that have blown up since Illinois got involved (see Alex Palczewski). This tells me that we are targeting athletic kids (not basing things on star ratings) that we want to develop once we get them on campus, and a place like Illinois, this is the exact approach that will make us successful (see Iowa, Wisconsin, Washington). Two, Lovie if he was nothing else in Chicago was a consistent winner. He did not always exceed expectations, but he won a lot of football games and we as fans need to understand that getting us to that 6-9 win range on a consistent basis is exactly what we should be aiming for. Lovie is the type of coach that will get us to that range each and every year. Once we reach that, then we can start talking about more.
I have my concerns, will the Lovie star power run out? Does Lovie have the energy to recruit 24-7/365? Does he want back in the NFL? Will it take him too long to get a wrap around what it will take to recruit? Time will tell; however, I believe that the answers to all of these questions is no.
It is December 14th and all the head coaching positions are filled...how disappointing!! This year is much more quiet than recent years past and I plan on doing a write up on all the hirings in the near future. Barring any surprises or NFL defects, there doesn't appear to be any other jobs that will come open.
Ron Turner helped Lovie get the job, if Lovie said no, Ron Turner is great friends with P.J. Fleck, was he Whitman's second phone call? We will never know, but I clamored for Fleck as our next head coach and there were a lot of critics. I think he proved this year just what he is capable of. I'll just leave this at that.
I'm glad to be back and with 17 scholarships available for 2017, this is going to be a really fun, but extremely agonizing month and a half.
To catch up,
The Lovie Smith hire caught me completely by surprise, but as everyone else I was extremely excited. We all hoped for more in the first season; however, the reality is we have awful program depth, which is the direct result of having four (full time) head coaches in five seasons. I still am very optimistic about the future of the football program under Lovie for a few reasons. One, our recruiting department is larger (it also includes an experienced NFL scout) that have already found some under the radar kids that have blown up since Illinois got involved (see Alex Palczewski). This tells me that we are targeting athletic kids (not basing things on star ratings) that we want to develop once we get them on campus, and a place like Illinois, this is the exact approach that will make us successful (see Iowa, Wisconsin, Washington). Two, Lovie if he was nothing else in Chicago was a consistent winner. He did not always exceed expectations, but he won a lot of football games and we as fans need to understand that getting us to that 6-9 win range on a consistent basis is exactly what we should be aiming for. Lovie is the type of coach that will get us to that range each and every year. Once we reach that, then we can start talking about more.
I have my concerns, will the Lovie star power run out? Does Lovie have the energy to recruit 24-7/365? Does he want back in the NFL? Will it take him too long to get a wrap around what it will take to recruit? Time will tell; however, I believe that the answers to all of these questions is no.
It is December 14th and all the head coaching positions are filled...how disappointing!! This year is much more quiet than recent years past and I plan on doing a write up on all the hirings in the near future. Barring any surprises or NFL defects, there doesn't appear to be any other jobs that will come open.
Ron Turner helped Lovie get the job, if Lovie said no, Ron Turner is great friends with P.J. Fleck, was he Whitman's second phone call? We will never know, but I clamored for Fleck as our next head coach and there were a lot of critics. I think he proved this year just what he is capable of. I'll just leave this at that.
I'm glad to be back and with 17 scholarships available for 2017, this is going to be a really fun, but extremely agonizing month and a half.
