From 'A Last Resort' To The Only Resort: Illini AD Josh Whitman Trying To Lead Charge On Spring Football

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- In a matter of days, Josh Whitman was forced to go from publicly protesting a spring football season to being its biggest fan.

Welcome to life in the Big Ten Conference in August 2020.

The athletics director at the University of Illinois met with statewide and local reporters on Aug. 6 and stated his reasons to have a distaste for moving the upcoming football season from the fall to a spring semester of the academic calendar.

“I think there is some appeal. I think it has some attractive qualities to it,” Whitman said on Aug. 6 about a spring season. “My personal biggest reservation is this idea of playing two football seasons in this 10 to 11-month period of time. There are some practical challenges to (a spring season) that make it a bit of a last resort for now.”

Last Wednesday (Aug. 12, just six days after proclaiming while the idea of spring football had merit but was “a last resort”), 24 hours after the Big Ten presidents and leadership voted to execute that fall sports postponement, Whitman has now turned his attention to everything that makes a spring football season a very doable endeavor.

“Certainly now we intend to evaluate that [a spring football season] and believe it is a very real possibility for the return of competition for our fall sports,” Whitman said on Aug. 12.

“Certainly now we intend to evaluate that [a spring football season] and believe it is a very real possibility for the return of competition for our fall sports,” Illinois Athletics Director Josh Whitman on Aug. 12.

Illinois Chancellor Robert Jones failed to appear in his scheduled Zoom media conference with Whitman and head football coach Lovie Smith on Aug. 12 due to what the university called "travel plans"

Despite a petition from a prominent returning football for a decision reversal, parents representing more than one league member expressing hostility in letters to the league office and a lack of basic public relations on the details to a monumental decision to cancel the fall 2020 sports season, Whitman had little choice but to express public confidence in commissioner Kevin Warren and find a way for football to played in the spring months and fall season of 2021.

Whitman stressed on Aug. 12, a day after the Big Ten Conference announced the fall postponement, complaining about how, why and when the league got that this decision wasn’t productive.

“There are people that spend a lot of time complaining about where we are, and there are people that try to find solutions,” he said. “We need to be in that latter group.”

The good news for Whitman and Illini athletics is the head football coach has publicly been as flexible on the scenario of spring football and inclined to be on the same philosophical page as he boss every step of this summer.

“Everyone wants to play football as soon as possible,” Smith said “I think we can come up with a plan for a spring (season). For me, it’s more coming up with a plan for spring and fall. Not one of us has done that. Hopefully we can come up with a good plan that players can feel good about.”

The words of Whitman and Smith may not have been more accurately portrayed than what is in the seven-page plan presented by Purdue head coach Jeff Brohm. On the same day Urban Meyer, who has been a head coach and won a New Year’s Day bowl game at three programs in the Power Five Conference format (Utah, Florida and Ohio State), suggested on Big Ten Network and Fox Sports that a spring season was impossible to conceive, Brohm (who owns a 1-0 career record against Meyer) begs to defer. A Western Division rival coach located just 90 minutes from the University of Illinois presented the modern-day counter argument to Meyer.

“It’s a disappointing day,” Brohm said to local reporters on Aug. 11 after the Big Ten cancelled the fall 2020 sports season. “It’s something that we wished never would’ve happened. Unfortunately, it did. So, the only thing I can do and our coaches can do is make this into a positive and to me, I would like to find a way to let them play in the spring. The reason I’ve been so outspoken about trying to make it work is I think these (seniors) deserve the opportunity to play.”

Whitman’s current position now isn’t hard to understand. In terms of spring football, the talking points have clearly changed based on circumstances. In a big picture perspective, it actually hasn’t flipped much. When looking at a possible $70 million deficit, at least, for his athletics budget if they don’t play football at all, Whitman’s goal is actually the same as the summer: Survive.

“The contact tracing question in the context of athletics, and in particular football, was a question that we knew was out there,” Whitman said. “Ultimately, we hoped to be able to develop a solution and just hadn’t yet.”