What a difference the right Athletic Director makes! One day on the job and this? Boom?
The Athletic Director who was too young and inexperienced has pulled off the most stunning hire of the college football year, heck maybe even the decade. Is this hire any less significant than Michigan hiring Harbaugh last year?
And all this happened on Whitman's first day. (Has Whitman even officially started?) Everything is unpredictable. The story of how this came about may take years to tell and analyze, even though it has happened like a lightning strike in a freak thunderstorm.
It changes so many things so quickly that I struggle to wrap my head around it. Illinois will now be relevant in Chicago; Lovie (who else has a one name coach?) will be on every college football analyst's lips and will be a lead story in every college football preseason publication. Football attendance will spike. Heck, the attendance at the spring game may be greater than The average of Tim Beckman's non conference games his final season.
Most importantly it brings new hope to Illini faithful (I use this term loosely because the number swelled dramatically on an otherwise uneventful Saturday afternoon in March) which most thought was nearly extinct.
This is where I draw the Stoner White parallel with the amazing impact of a single incomplete pass in September of 1980. After three years of three yards and a cloud of dust Gary Moeller, Mike White had Dave Wilson drop back and throw a bomb on his first offensive play from scrimmage, Memorial Stadium erupted, ushering in the most glorious decade of modern Illini football. Saturday March 5, 2016 may be an equally significant moment in Illini sports history.
The Athletic Director who was too young and inexperienced has pulled off the most stunning hire of the college football year, heck maybe even the decade. Is this hire any less significant than Michigan hiring Harbaugh last year?
And all this happened on Whitman's first day. (Has Whitman even officially started?) Everything is unpredictable. The story of how this came about may take years to tell and analyze, even though it has happened like a lightning strike in a freak thunderstorm.
It changes so many things so quickly that I struggle to wrap my head around it. Illinois will now be relevant in Chicago; Lovie (who else has a one name coach?) will be on every college football analyst's lips and will be a lead story in every college football preseason publication. Football attendance will spike. Heck, the attendance at the spring game may be greater than The average of Tim Beckman's non conference games his final season.
Most importantly it brings new hope to Illini faithful (I use this term loosely because the number swelled dramatically on an otherwise uneventful Saturday afternoon in March) which most thought was nearly extinct.
This is where I draw the Stoner White parallel with the amazing impact of a single incomplete pass in September of 1980. After three years of three yards and a cloud of dust Gary Moeller, Mike White had Dave Wilson drop back and throw a bomb on his first offensive play from scrimmage, Memorial Stadium erupted, ushering in the most glorious decade of modern Illini football. Saturday March 5, 2016 may be an equally significant moment in Illini sports history.
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