Obviously the timing of this is not ideal for Illinois, but probably not as big of an issue as some would think. It's not much of a secret that Beckman was just never really accepted by a huge portion of the fan base and that simply was never going to change no matter what Beckman was ever able to accomplish. So this gives Illinois an opportunity to move on and save about $750,000 in a buyout that they don't have to pay. In the short-run, they are lucky that Bill Cubit was on staff to take over on an interim basis. With his past experience as a head coach, he is not going to be overwhelmed. Remember, he was the head coach of the Western Michigan team that came into Iowa City the last game of the 2007 season and beat us, which ultimately kept us out of a bowl game.
One thing Beckman was able to do was recruit pretty well, and for the fist time since arriving in Champaign, he finally had a pretty solid roster in place with depth, especially on offense. The defense has been the issue the past few years and even that should be improved by quite a bit this year. If Wes Lunt stays healthy, they have a very good shot at getting to 7 wins. If Wes Lunt gets hurt, then they most likely have no shot. It sounds like Cubit is pretty popular on the team so lets see how or if the players rally around him.
As far as what happens after this year, who knows. The political turmoil on that campus remains high. The Chancellor resigned earlier this month and the Provost resigned this past week, both under some controversy. So you have a huge leadership vacuum on campus. What is Mike Thomas' future as AD? Sounds like the boosters are still behind him, so at least for the time being, it appears he will be around. Regardless of what Cubit does this year, I really think they need to start all over in Champaign. Thomas, or whom ever the AD will be, will have heavy, heavy pressure to hire an African-American as the next head coach. Illinois is one of a very small handful of FBS level Universities that have never had an African-American as it's head coach for either football or men's basketball. That fact has not gone un-noticed by some politically left thinking members on the Board of Trustees and with a couple south-side Chicago politicians that have some influence on the State's purse strings. Both the hiring of Beckman and Groce were almost derailed for this very reason. So expect to hear the name Dino Babers from Bowling Green to be mentioned for the head job.
Illinois is not nearly the sleeping giant that some think it is. The current governance structure at the University will always retard it's ability to be a consistently successful athletic program, and the main population base in the Chicago metro area frankly does not really identify themselves with the state of Illinois let alone the University. So there is not the natural recruiting base or natural recruiting advantages that many think exist.
