BERT to the ILLINI
December 19th, 2020 at 9:11 AM ^
That’s a great hire for Illinois. If he can recruit Chicago as a base he could do well there.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:25 AM ^
I’m not so sure about that. If you’re an Illinois fan, are you really excited about a guy who failed at Arkansas and hasn’t coached college in four years?
Then again, it is Illinois. They could’ve done a lot worse.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:33 AM ^
I probably would be cautiously excited. He is a guy that has won BigTen championships and Illinois hasn't done much in a long time. The SEC West is a much harder division to get Arkansas up to par with the likes of Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M, and etc. The BigTen West is more sporadic with only Wisconsin truly being consistently a threat to win the conference championship.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:53 AM ^
@Cam, Have you been around an Illini football fan lately? They'd be excited by anyone with a pulse. To understand why, the years of futility plus thinking back to the Tim Beckman disaster where they were turned down by their first and second choices, ended up with egg on their face and a train-wreck of a coach (think Gerg as the head coach). Bielema is a good get for the woebegone Illini.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:38 AM ^
Saying he failed is weird. Drop 2020 and his record at Arkansas looks very similar to me to wunderkind Matt Campbell's record at Iowa State. Is Arkansas not hard to win at? They seem to be taking to football down there in the SEC.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:50 AM ^
This is an absurd statement. Arkansas has won a national championship. They're a 8-9 win program in the SEC on average with the occasional better season. They are not anything like Iowa State.
December 19th, 2020 at 11:01 AM ^
“They're a 8-9 win program in the SEC on average with the occasional better season.”
They’ve won more than eight games five times, and eight games three times, in the last twenty seasons, so... on average... no.
December 19th, 2020 at 11:23 AM ^
20 years is pretty arbitrary. Here's what they did under Nutt and Petrino before Bert and Morris ran it into the ground.
December 19th, 2020 at 1:23 PM ^
I wonder whats Michigan's 20 year record
December 19th, 2020 at 12:27 PM ^
In the 20 year stretch from 1998 to 2017, Arkansas won 9 or more games 6 times. Bielema had no seasons with more than 9 wins in his 5 year stint. In that same time period, Arkansas had 10 seasons where they won more than 8 games. Bielema had 1 of them. Both Houston Nutt (61% winning percentage) and Bobby Petrino (66.7% winning percentage) the other two multi year coaches in that period had winning percentages appreciably higher than Bielema’s 46.8% winning percentage.
December 19th, 2020 at 11:10 AM ^
Bert went 29-34 (.460) at Arkansas, and that's even flattering as he feasted on cupcakes out of conference. He went 11-29 (.275) in the SEC, and was fired after five years. How does that not constitute failure?
December 19th, 2020 at 12:44 PM ^
Well, if Illinois wants to compete in the SEC west, Bielema is a poor choice. But this is the B1G west, not the SEC.
His first year was a transition year. His last year was pretty bad (had to play top 25 teams Bama, LSU, Auburn, and Mississippi State, and lost close tossup games to Mizzou and A&M). His middle 3 years were above .500. I’m confident that the exact same team, dropped in the B1G West, wins more than it loses and goes to a bowl.
If Bret is only capable of producing teams at the level of those Arkansas teams, in the B1G west he’s still going to win 7-9 games and go to a bowl every year. Might even compete for a division title every three or four seasons. That’s if he’s Arkansas bad. That’s a huuuuuge upgrade for Illinois. Even if he is worse and only produces an identical record to his time in AR, he gets Illinois to a bowl in 3 out of 5 years.
Sure, he could perform substantially worse. But nobody Illinois can hope to get had anything close to Bret’s track record or potential.
December 19th, 2020 at 1:26 PM ^
He might be the best guy they could find. I just don't know how you could say he didn't fail at Arkansas. A .275 conference winning percentage is brutal.
December 19th, 2020 at 11:10 AM ^
This is a GREAT hire for Illinois and I would be pretty damn excited if I were an Illini fan.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:59 AM ^
If he can recruit Chicago as a base he could do well there.
This has been said about every Illinois coach forever.
They really love retread coaches: Ron Zook, Lovie Smith, now Bert. But this guy is still my favorite:
December 19th, 2020 at 11:23 AM ^
True but Bielema is also a better coach than each of those guys and Zook is an imbecile.
December 19th, 2020 at 11:34 AM ^
Bert's only success was at Wisconsin where Alvarez still has a weird amount of influence. He left to do his own thing at Arkansas and fell on his face.
Alvarez is what Dave Brandon wanted to be: an overcontrolling, meddling AD who inserts himself into the running of the program. He's just more competent at it.
December 19th, 2020 at 12:16 PM ^
Well, Alvarez was also a pretty successful head coach. Think that’s a big difference.
December 19th, 2020 at 1:25 PM ^
Arkansas was a bad decision for him. Something was strange about his UW exit.
December 20th, 2020 at 8:46 AM ^
Ed Orgeron ripped off Beckman's slogan. Oregeron said "OSBuBaMe means Our Success equals Burrow plus Bag Men." Seems to send a bad message, especially since Burrow is gone now.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:12 AM ^
Well, it should be interesting at least no matter how much success he has!
December 19th, 2020 at 9:12 AM ^
Congrats to Bert? Hopefully, he'll be more successful in making UI a decent football operation than Lovie was... Good hire for UI, one of the better candidates they could hope for, if they were to ask my opinion.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:13 AM ^
Looks like a good hire for Illinois. But then I also thought Lovie was a good hire for them
December 19th, 2020 at 9:39 AM ^
Really? I was pretty sure he'd fail, career NFL coaches rarely do well if they move down to CFB - Herm Edwards is the closest to an exception that I can think of, and he hasn't been lighting the world on fire as of yet. I'm sure there's other exceptions I'm not remembering.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:42 AM ^
Well, Pete Carroll, but he’s the exception.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:08 AM ^
I have to disagree with the description of Carroll as a career NFL coach before USC. He was a head coach for parts of three seasons before getting fired from the Patriots. He did have a longer year as a position coach in the NFL before moving down.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:36 AM ^
Ding ding ding!
December 19th, 2020 at 9:13 AM ^
seems like a good hire.
and with a hat trick of posts about it, hot news!
December 19th, 2020 at 9:14 AM ^
BERT is a much better fit in the B1G.
He had Wisconsin humming with 40 wins in 4 years and 3 B1G titles. This is a nice hire for an Illinois program that is down in the dumps. Bert will speak out and make a nice heel over there in Champaign.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:21 AM ^
I also think it's a good hire but Wisconsin was already established as a solid program when he became head coach there. Bert was an assistant under Alvarez. Illinois is pretty much a dumpster fire.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:14 AM ^
Here's photographic proof. Already doing things that will piss off many on this board.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:16 AM ^
Haha!!! Maskless and shaking hands! You're just egging on people to stir things up!
December 19th, 2020 at 9:19 AM ^
Oh sorry, you cant see it due to the photo being cropped, but he's doing an upside down W out of frame for his former employer
December 19th, 2020 at 9:22 AM ^
Uncrop the photo! I really need to know how to make an upside down W with one hand...
December 19th, 2020 at 9:24 AM ^
Like Tupac but upside down! I heard in an interview with a former Wisconsin player once that the "west-side" technique is an acceptable, although edgier variation.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:21 AM ^
One of life’s great mysteries is how the hell did he ever have Erin Andrews.
Frames would approve of this hire.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:48 AM ^
His wife's hot too, head scratcher for sure!
December 19th, 2020 at 9:55 AM ^
Not really that hard to figure out.
December 19th, 2020 at 10:36 AM ^
That's why I came here. Pics please.
December 19th, 2020 at 11:04 AM ^
Ok, you degenerate....
/jk
December 19th, 2020 at 11:20 AM ^
Why is the appreciation of a beautiful woman considered being a degenerate?
This informative Tom Brady skit should help clear things up.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PxuUkYiaUc8&list=PLS_gQd8UB-hJ1doj9DLp2N-vdol8TJEsL&index=20
December 19th, 2020 at 11:32 AM ^
:D
Oh, I am a degenerate, but that's because I pretend she's my sister when I look at her.
December 19th, 2020 at 12:42 PM ^
Lol +1!
December 19th, 2020 at 1:26 PM ^
Ya that gave me a full belly laugh.
December 19th, 2020 at 11:16 AM ^
Oh no way! Is that true?!? I can't believe I have never heard this. I have always held Miss Andrews in high regard. This changes things.
December 19th, 2020 at 9:24 AM ^
Bert could use a Manzaire....
December 19th, 2020 at 10:12 AM ^
Has the poor guy put on even more weight since Arkansas?
December 19th, 2020 at 10:16 AM ^
Doesn't appear that he's missed many meals. Maybe too much wild boar hunting (and eating).
This is going to be a "user name checks out" comment, but WTF is the deal with his hairline? I've never seen anything like it. Did he purchase a hair plug package and change his mind when they finished up front?
December 19th, 2020 at 1:20 PM ^
He and Charlie Weis wouldn't be allowed to board the same plane.