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Brett Bielema at Illinois
- Thread starter wcbsas
- Start date
Arrowhead lineman Joey Okla became 'a hidden gem' for new Illinois coach Bret Bielema's return to recruiting in Wisconsin
The Journal Sentinel's Supreme 17 series will feature a look at a different top high school football player from the Milwaukee area each day.
www.jsonline.com
BB's presence at Illinois concerns me ... nevertheless his propensity for developing offensive linemen is outstanding and if he begins to infiltrate Wisconsin ... that will present troubles for the Badgers ... double edge sword I guess.
So they going with the NU school of thought
What does that make Iowa State then?
Mostly harmless.
BB will not go away from a play, for the sake of “balance”. He will run that play, over and over, until we stop it.
#jetsweep
I was led to believe by many that 4-5 years was the normal and expected timeline
Living in IL for 45+ years, what I have seen and heard:
Attitude towards Bielema is: Show me! As with other schools they want 3* AND 4* players, Ws and bowl games. Most of my Illini buddies seem to prefer wide open spread as opposed to smash-mouth football, but winning cures everything as we know, so Brett will have to match talent-on-hand with opponents and hope the Illini defense can keep the scores from getting out of hand.
Recruiting is about the same story every year. ND takes a lot of great Catholic high school talent and still has an historic pull. NW offers a high-value degree, top coaching & great facilities for HS scholars. Michigan still has pull, but less these days and other B1G and even MAC schools all pluck some of the remaining top talent Brett has to stop the bleeding.
Illinois FB recruiting is tough, Lovie Smith had trouble keeping talent from leaving Illinois even with his NFL connections, Bielema has a very tough road ahead.
After Illinois loses its first game to DONU, I hope they do well the rest of the way.
Having Ohio and Nebraska roots, I find the football enthusiasm here in Illinois to be sadly lacking, They need Brett Bielema to make them competitive
…my first post. GBR
Attitude towards Bielema is: Show me! As with other schools they want 3* AND 4* players, Ws and bowl games. Most of my Illini buddies seem to prefer wide open spread as opposed to smash-mouth football, but winning cures everything as we know, so Brett will have to match talent-on-hand with opponents and hope the Illini defense can keep the scores from getting out of hand.
Recruiting is about the same story every year. ND takes a lot of great Catholic high school talent and still has an historic pull. NW offers a high-value degree, top coaching & great facilities for HS scholars. Michigan still has pull, but less these days and other B1G and even MAC schools all pluck some of the remaining top talent Brett has to stop the bleeding.
Illinois FB recruiting is tough, Lovie Smith had trouble keeping talent from leaving Illinois even with his NFL connections, Bielema has a very tough road ahead.
After Illinois loses its first game to DONU, I hope they do well the rest of the way.
Having Ohio and Nebraska roots, I find the football enthusiasm here in Illinois to be sadly lacking, They need Brett Bielema to make them competitive
…my first post. GBR
I think he is a pretty solid coach. His teams are usually tough and I think, if they give him 3-4 years, he’ll build a winner at Illinois. He definitely has a recruiting base, and go outward from there. 13 million people in Illinois. Has to be some supreme talent there. Aside from the Illinois AD, I’ve always felt like they were somewhat of a sleeping giant, like, if the U ever really committed to it, they could blossom somewhat. There are some dudes in that state, but Illinois does nothing to fire up the masses.
Bret Bielema, older and wiser, returns to the Big Ten and hopes to turn Illinois into a consistent winner
New Illinois coach Bret Bielema during the Big Ten meetings: “I’ve learned things through success. But I’ve also learned things through failure.”www.jsonline.com
I always thought BB was full of himself when he was at UW ... kind of proved that to me when he left for Arkansas. His 3 years in the NFL including 2 under Belichick scare me. If he builds a Wisconsin-esque run-first program at Illinois he could be a handful in 3 to 5 years!
Yeah but nobody else but us seems to need it.I was led to believe by many that 4-5 years was the normal and expected timeline
Welcome to the board! That was a quality first post.
Going by your user name, you would probably enjoy spending some time in the Outdoors forum here. I've never caught a muskie, so if you can help make that happen, I'd appreciate it.
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BOOM.....Nawthwestahn!!
BOOM.....Nahtahfakahndame
BOOM....AHNAHBAAAAHHH
This is a conference of great tradition. One I grea up watching in Dayton, OH. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ @muskiehusker IS SPOT ON!!
You and I are firmly in agreement ... I think that is a total rebuild situation maybe even worse than Nebraska because they simply have no history of success whatsoever. If you look at a list of the top 10 players all-time from Illinois the only player from our lifetime is Simeon Rice. They have Red Grange, Dick Butkus, Ray Nitschke and George Halas.
In the 2000's they've had exactly 3 seasons with a winning record two 7-6 seasons by Ron Zook and a 10-2 season in 2000 by Ron Turner. Lovie Smith did not have one winning season in his 5 years there ... which is a bit of a surprise to me.
The recruiting position is solid, much better than NU ... the challenge though is you have ND, tOSU and Indiana to your East, Wisconsin and Northwestern to your North, Iowa and Missouri to your West and the entire SEC to your South.
I can and do think Illinois can be successful and I'm hopeful its improvement signals a weakening of Iowa, NW and Wisconsin!
IMO Illinois is what Nebraska could become. Illinois used to have a culture and then they lost that and they lost all connection to it. Their winning culture is a ghost hanging framed in the hallways.
I fear that if Scott doesn't get the job done re-installing the culture in decades to come we will be talking about what our new "Bielema" might be able to do.
I fear that if Scott doesn't get the job done re-installing the culture in decades to come we will be talking about what our new "Bielema" might be able to do.
We all fear that!
