I posted this Trib column in the other thread on this topic:
think it’s so cute the way some people are so excited about
Lovie Smith coaching Illinois.
I think it’s so cute that they believe it will make a difference, nearly as cute as the Twitter pictures of Smith standing next to Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman and holding a sign reading "#WEWILLWIN'' with the Illinois logo underneath.
Illinois is a basketball school. A bad basketball school. If it can’t win with a comparatively small program, how will it get a massive football program to compete?
I’ll hang up and listen for mediocre coaching and condescending answers.
NFL coaching record of 89-87, about as mediocre as it gets. After coaching the
Bears to the
Super Bowl in 2006, Smith has gone 60-68, which is worse, but when you’re coming off Tim Beckman’s clown act, I guess mediocrity and condescension is considered a step up in Champaign.
Same goes for availability, apparently. Smith lands in Champaign after being fired from his last two NFL jobs.
The Bears canned him for not making the playoffs enough, and Smith acted like he couldn’t believe it. This, mind you, from the coach who fired defensive coordinator
Ron Rivera after losing the Super Bowl and wagged the big verbal finger at Chicago to “trust me.’’
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.
I don’t see how that changes now. I also don’t see how that helps a program’s stability.
Speaking of instability, let’s get back to Smith’s recent employment history. He was fired by the
Bucs, who are the Illini of the NFL. I mean, just look:
The Bucs hired Smith as coach and then let Smith hire his boss, the new general manager. Compare and contrast with the morons at Illinois who gave Bill Cubit a contract before Cubit had an AD, and when the new AD was installed, his first act was to whack Cubit.
Smith thought he’d chosen a GM who would stay loyal to him because Smith values loyalty to a paranoid end.
Illinois hires Lovie Smith as next football coach
Shannon Ryan
A Twitter photo can say it all.
Illinois has selected former Bears coach Lovie Smith as its next football coach after athletic director Josh Whitman posted two photos on Monday morning with Smith at Memorial Stadium.
Smith agreed to a six-year deal with payments of $2 million annually for 2016...
A Twitter photo can say it all.
Illinois has selected former Bears coach
Lovie Smith as its next football coach after athletic director Josh Whitman posted two photos on Monday morning with Smith at Memorial Stadium.
Smith agreed to a six-year deal with payments of $2 million annually for 2016...
(Shannon Ryan)
But no. Smith’s hand-picked GM used one of those hands to stab him in the back and fire him. So, yeah, Smith picks GMs as well as he picks assistants.
Another lesson is just because Smith constantly seems paranoid doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
From there, you have to wonder about all the cheating required to win in college football. How will Smith handle that?
And what about the criminals you need to win? Turns out, that’s where Smith can compete. He always has had criminals on his teams, whether it was a SWAT team circling
Tank Johnson’s house or drafting Jameis Winston. Yeah, Smith can do the criminal thing, even if he has some catching up to do when it comes to the master,
Urban Meyer.
Speaking of Meyer, he’s a rock star. Same goes for Jim Harbaugh at
Michigan. Mark D’Antoni at
Michigan State stands as the best garage band in the Big Ten. Those are the biggest names Smith has to overcome.
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.
If nothing else, Smith has brought attention to Illinois football. But then, the only way Illinois football has gotten attention for years is by firing the coach.
And here we are again. And of course some people think this is the time the Illini get it right. Finally. At last. That’s just so cute.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...mith-illinois-rosenbloom-20160307-column.html
