OT: Chicago Tribune Columnist Isn't a Fan of the Lovie Smith Hire
Interesting take from Steve Rosenbloom of the Chicago Tribune on the Lovie Smith hire at Illinois. He's not a fan. He said Lovie is no stranger to having "criminals" on his team: "Yeah, Smith can do the criminal thing, even if he has some catching up to do when it comes to the master, Urban Meyer."
He also calls Meyer and Harbaugh the Big Ten's "rock stars," while referring to D'Antoni and MSU as "the best garage band in the Big Ten."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/rosenblog/ct-lovie-smith-illinois-…
'Burnt Couch' would be an awesome name for a garage band.
the right combination of musicians. I haven't found them yet.
But the name is a strong one as band names go, because it combines words that should never be combined, thereby creating instant revulsion (and therefore also interest amongst youth rebelling against prior social mores), it includes one word which is impolite in all circumstances, and because it is syllabically efficient.
"Rabid Cunt." It has a nice ring to it. Now if I can just find the right drummer and bassist . . . .
My garage band name: Bi-Furious
Always wanted to name a band "A Punch to the Babymaker"
The alt-country (or whatever) band Jehova Waitresses.
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I'd say Dantonio is pretty good at the criminal thing too . . . like, letting kids that pulled guns play 3 months later, picking a kid up from jail to drive him to the game so he could play etc.
I have no words. Smith is a good coach, is well known in Chicago, took the Bears to a Super Bowl, is far and away the best coach Illinois could have hired and represents a pretty bold move by the Illini and what comes of this is concern trolling......... My head, it shakes.
That trust resulted in one playoff berth the rest of his Bears career, his only career playoff berth since 2006.
The Rivera thing reminds me that Smith fires a lot of assistants. So many, in fact, that you’d think his motto was “I confess, it’s their fault.’’ The more power Smith collected, the less success there seemed to be."
He fired Ron Rivera who built that super bowl defense. Like the article says. He loved to fire assistants and never replaced them with an upgrade.
Sure it's the best Illinois could do but that's not saying much considering what a tire fire that program has been.
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To be fair to Lovie, the Bears fired him after winning 10 games to bring in Marc Trestman. So it's not like Lovie's bosses were really the sharpest tools in the shed.
I think Lovie's a good (not great) coach. I think he's definitely a major upgrade for Illinois. That's about all I've got.
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I'm not saying Smith is a home run, not by a longshot, but I would expect a bit more of a "On the other hand" type of article, over random concern trolling.
He laments Smith's NFL record, which I guess you're able to do. But there's not much more.
And the argument below is silly. Who could they hire at Illinois that would be expected to recruit the number of kids Harbaugh and Meyer can? Who at Illinois ever has?
Smith should be able to close some deals. He has some charisma amid the condescension. He can win some living rooms. He will talk some parents into sending him their kids. Some. But not like the number of parents who want to send their kids to Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State.
Especially at the end with the rockstar and garage band paragraph. It's like he expected Illinois to go out and get someone even bigger and better than Meyer or Harbaugh. It's effing Illinois, dude. As it is, this could be their Dantoni hire with maybe not quite the ceiling.
Rosenbloom has made a career being a cynical crank. The Trib columnist I really like, David Haugh (who was an all-conference safety at Ball State so he knows the game), had a piece Sunday explaining how this is a solid hire for Illinois. He echoed what a lot of Mgousers said in the Lovie to Illinois thread (big splash for struggling program, etc.).
Sharp for their program, too. Cool.
It's a great hire for Illinois. It's probably the biggest name/splash they could possibly get to go there. Plus they're only paying him 2 mil per year.
That said, he has a .500 head coaching record in the NFL and hasn't coached in the college ranks in 21 years. His offenses have almost always stunk.
They'll be a perennial 7-9 win team, especially given they're in the easier division.
I'd rank him below Harbaugh, Urban, Ferentz, and DAntonio, and above Fitz, Franklin, Wilson, and the rest.
It's $2M the first couple, but it does go up from there. I will do my best to avoid the "NO POLITICS" rule, but Illinois has gone without a budget for about 10 months and the state hasn't paid any universities any money. The optics of hiring the new highest-paid-state-employee to about $5M/year when some universities in the state are in danger of losing their accredidation may have played a factor.
After watching the debates, I think the whole world has gone mad. Who does this writer think Illinois could possibly get? Nick Saban? I'm surprised Smith took it. Being a good coach with NFL ties and a minority will bring in better recruits. BIG10 coaching continues to improve and raise the bar.
I'm too lazy but no threads about the MMA bouts? Man good thing I don't bet on these matches.
Lovie will have to prove himself. Yeah, he coached the pros but college is a completely different animal and he's been out of college for a LONG time. He's going to need a really competent college staff. Let's see how it plays out for him.
The bottom half of our conference is stuck in a MAC rut, but when one of them actually steps up to do something about it here comes some asshole who's trying way to hard to to be objective.
Mediocre to bad NFL coaches like Nick Saban and Pete Carroll (he is good now but wasn't when USC hired him) can do amazing things in college.
Nick Saban won a National Championship before going to the NFL and then returned to traditional powerhouse Alabama (Illinois is not a traditional powerhouse).
Pete Carroll also went to USC, a traditional powerhouse (which Illinois is not).
When Pete Carroll was hired, USC won the Rose Bowl 6 years prior. Seems like an eternity, but Illinois hasn't won the Rose Bowl since 1964. Illinois has been to 18 bowl games in their program's history. They've been to 5 Rose Bowls total. Pete Carroll took USC to 5 Rose Bowls in 9 years. USC has been to 33 Rose Bowls total.
Given the resources Saban at Alabama and Pete at USC were given compared to what Lovie will be getting at Illinois, your argument is fairly flawed.
USC and Alabama were both mediocre when Carroll and Saban were hired. They were the difference. If Saban leaves Alabama you will see them drop off and you've already seen it at USC. "Tradition" means nothing. It meant nothing for Michigan the past 8 years. It means nothing for schools like Texas and Miami now. Illinois has plenty of resources to compete and you see other schools with less competing at the highest level because they have the right coach.
From 2001-2006 (Shula/Franchione) Alabama went 43-32. 57.3%
Illinois in this time (Turner/Zook) went 23-47. 32%
USC from 1993-2000 (Robinson/Hackett) went 56-39-1 58.3%
Illinois would kill to be mediocre at this point.
USC is still feeling effects of their sanctions.
Lovie is good for Illinois, but he isn't going to exactly turn recruits heads when Harbaugh can recruit better on the NFL platform and Urban can recruit better on the winning/getting you to the NFL platform.
Lovie also has a pretty horrible history with coordinators/assistants. In Chicago he had in 9 years 4 difference OCs and 3 different DCs. None of them left for a promotional job. He fired Ron Rivera after they lost the Super Bowl.
USC and Alabama were bad when Carroll and Saban got there. I don't care what kind of arbitrary timeline you come up with to try to save your argument. Alabama was 6-7 then went 6-6 Saban's first year and 12-2 his 2nd year. USC was 6-7, then went 6-6 and 11-2 under Carroll. Tradition and "resources" get you 0 wins in college football (see Texas, Miami, Tennessee, etc.). Tons of traditional powers have had bad stretches in recent history. The right coach at a school like Illinois can compete for Big Ten Championships and the turnaround can be fast.
By the way, USC's facilites were absolute garbage up until recently. Their stadium is also a dump and only averaged about 75,000 last season. Not sure what you mean by "resources".
I wouldn't exactly call Seattle's performance under Carroll mediocre to bad.
The initial comment seems to have been with regards to his first NFL go-around, rather than what he's done with Seattle
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Lovie stopped running Tampa-2 towards the end of his Bears career. He stopped running it after Tommy Harris got hurt and they realized that the entire defense was dependant on a truly dominating 3-tech.
Towards the end they became very versitle bringing safeties into the box having their linebackers allign in the gaps. I would be very surprised if he went back to Cover-2 as a base in college.
Also, politics between the owner, GM, players, fans, other coaches...
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This is great for the conference as a whole. For too long, the teams in the bottom half of the B1G been too content to hire the MAC flavor of the week as coach, and the success rates haven't been too high.
That said, I don't know how Lovie's coaching game translates to college. He's famous for running the Tampa 2, which is a nonstarter in college. College safeties and MLBs don't have the speed and range to run the Tampa 2, and the spread offense/four verticals package that is so common in college absolutely destroys the Tampa 2 (which only has 3 players, at most, playing deep coverage). Lovie diversified his defenses a little bit over the last few years in Tampa, but it's still interesting that the scheme he is most famous for coaching is basically unusable in college.
In addition, I'm skeptical of pro coaches coming back to the college ranks. While (most) NFL coaches are obviously very talented, they also tend to be more conservative strategically, with obvious exceptions (Harbaugh). This works great at a school with a huge talent advantage (Pete Carroll at USC, Saban at Alabama), but at a school without that advantage (Wannstedt at Pitt, Chan Gailey at GT) it leads to a lot of OK-but-not-great teams.
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Is it me or is the NFL just a revolving door of coaches. Mediocre coaches continually get jobs in this league after years of proven ineptitude. I always see the same names jump from team to team, regardless of success. I don't think Lovie Smith is a great coach, but for Illinois it is a slam dunk hire. I mean, who else wants to go to Champiagn Illinois to do anything???