Illinois and Lovie Smith Proving Long Term Program Building Still Possible

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The attitude, communication and behavior inside the offices of Power 5 Conference athletics departments operate under a four-word principle.

Just. Add. New. Coach.

In the multi-millionaire businesses of intercollegiate football inside the 65 Power 5 Conference institutions, the evidence suggests not only that a coaching change will solve all problems but the solution will come quick, fast and now.

The guidebook step-by-step system seems to be as follows: fire coach, pay him millions of dollars to not work here anymore, hire new coach, expect wins and if the final step doesn’t happen, repeat steps one, two and three.

In the era of spending millions of dollars of dead money on buyouts, The University of Illinois took a different path.

Many members of this current Illinois football roster had already been through this coaching change process one too many times. Reggie Corbin, who is the 18th running back in Illinois history to rush for 2,000 career yards will end his college football career in a bowl game by playing for its third head football coach. Corbin was recruited by Tim Beckman, redshirted by Bill Cubit and has finished his four active seasons for Lovie Smith. Corbin’s first words following the 24-23 victory over then-No. 6 Wisconsin on Oct. 19 represented a hope for tolerance toward his third and final coach.

“I was more excited for my teammates, the fans and Coach (Lovie) Smith,” Corbin said on Oct. 21. “Hopefully, everybody will get off his back a little bit."

In a 192-day period from where Beckman was fired and Smith was hired (August 28, 2015 to March 7, 2016) Corbin was a student-athlete at Illinois under three head football coaches and two athletics directors. Instead of change, Illinois athletics director Josh Whitman has consistently showed continuity.

“I recognize we’re not satisfied, in any way, with how many victories we’ve been able to post over the last three years,” Whitman said in Nov. 2018 when announcing a then-controversial two-year contract extension for a head coach with a 9-27 overall record after three seasons. “But I also see the progress that we’ve made and have had the opportunity to study and look at this team and see the way that we have grown this program and the steps we’ve put in place. I recognize what the situation was when we arrived three years ago. I do think that stability is incredibly important to find the right leadership.”

Two major institutions (Florida State and Arkansas) have proven uninterrupted continuity isn’t nearly as valuable as instant success by terminating their head football coaches before the end of a second season. Florida State has agreed to pay out three different buyouts costing over $20 million after deciding to terminate him 21 games into his tenure with the Seminoles program. Florida State University president John Thrasher said in the school’s media release that FSU “had no choice” but to fire Taggart.

“You have to look at season-ticket sales, renewals, new tickets moving forward,” FSU athletics director David Coburn said on Nov. 4. “Obviously those are tied to booster contributions to the annual fund. You're looking at the implications for concessions, parking, you look at that vis-a-vis the cost of a buyout, cost of a new coaching staff, you have to make a decision."

Arkansas athletics director Hunter Yurachek confirmed Monday his school’s athletics department will pay newly fired head coach Chad Morris $10,004,167 over a four-year period while they’re still on the financial hook for the $7 million buyout of previous fired football coach Bret Bielema.

Following the 2017 regular season, 12 Football Bowl Subdivision schools which made coaching changes paid a total of $70 million, according to contracts requested and examined by USA Today Sports.

With all that financial dead money paid out, logic would suggest the trend of firing a head coach at a Power 5 Conference school guarantees instant success. However, little evidence suggests this assumption is true. In the last decade of coaching changes among Power 5 Conference schools, the practice of firing and hiring a head coach has only seen nine programs go from a losing record to a winning record in the first season (2009 Auburn, 2009 Tennessee, 2012 Ole Miss, 2012 North Carolina, 2013 Auburn, 2014 Michigan, 2017 Oregon, 2017 Purdue and 2017 Texas).

In 2018, Illinois’ administration, starting with Whitman, chancellor Robert Jones and the university board of trustees, didn’t believe any evidence pointed toward a change in coaching staffs being the solution but maybe part of a problem.

“We all understand the negative implications that a particular narrative could have on (recruiting) efforts,” Whitman said in 2018 while announcing the extension for Smith. “If we allow that story to continue unchecked that (Smith) is in trouble and Illinois doesn’t have stability, that damages our ability to go out and recruit high-level players and to recruit high-level coaches.”

On the morning of Oct. 13, 2019, Smith was halfway through his fourth season with a 11-31 overall record and 4-26 in Big Ten Conference play. The response by Smith’s boss this time? Defiant optimism.

“My plan is to stand behind them and give them everything I’ve got to get them going, and I hope all of our fans will do the same thing,’ Whitman said in October. “We’ve got half the season left to play, and we’ve still got an opportunity to write a pretty significant chapter for Illinois football here.”

A four-game winning streak that included miraculous come-from-behind wins over Wisconsin and Michigan State has Whitman in the role of prophet and have the Illini (6-4, 4-3 in Big Ten Conference) bowl eligible for the first time since 2014. Over a month after questions, rumor and innuendo about Smith’s job status swirled outside the program, the Illini head coach stood in the newly opened $80 million football facility Tuesday talking about this long-term plan with Whitman that allowed all parties to feel comfortable about Smith’s return to college football after a 21-year run in the National Football League.

“When I came here, I knew what type of people I’d be involved with,” Smith said. “It’s an honest group. We’re not there yet. We’ve won six games. We’re trending in the right direction, but that’s not what we came here for, to win six football games. We’re still building our program and we’re right on track. I’m so appreciative of the people, administration, the fans here who have been so patient who knew it took a little bit more.”

The Illinois executive leadership, Whitman and Smith can now feel in 2019 they can stand as a bellwether to what is considered concepts of the past. Illinois might be able to claim its institution went on a different old-school path. Athletics directors and various university leadership would map out long-term plans with coaches of major revenue-generating sports that required antiqued ideas of patience, maturity and the fortitude to withstand the likelihood of upcoming defeats. At Illinois, Smith says they still do all those things.

“When we came here initially, there’s a reason why there was a coaching change,” Smith said. “A lot needed to be done. We had a plan. Not just I, we had a plan with how we’d do it. Everybody has done what they said they’d do, starting with Josh. They’ve been through it together. We’re going to build it (and) keep going.”

Smith, a 61-year-old with 39 years of coaching experience dating back to being the defensive coordinator at Big Sandy High School in his home state of Texas, hasn’t seen much instant success at any of his coaching stops.

“I know there are programs that have made changes, but our game is harder than that,” Smith said. “To just snap your finger, flip a switch and you go from not winning a lot of games to competing for championships, it takes a little more than that.”

The athletics department’s loyalty and commitment to Smith is not lost on the Illini’s fourth-year head coach when he looks back at the doubt that crept into the minds of fans through his first 42 games as the program leader in Champaign.

“I just want to say, that’s what I expected,” Smith said. “Every loss, we’ve all been disappointed. But it’s not like after every loss, Josh has been saying, ‘Hey you better win next week or you’re going to be fired.`` No. We’re making progress. We’re on the road. We’re doing things the right way. If anyone has been in our program, there was a big plan.”

Whitman’s commitment plan is getting him individually awarded with a new contract and a raise from his bosses. On Thursday, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees approved a three-year contract extension for the Illinois athletics director that will reportedly raise his annual salary to as much as $850,000 in the final year of the deal.

“To me, today is a resounding endorsement of the important work that we have undertaken together during these last three-and-a-half years,” Whitman said Thursday in a university statement.

According to a report in the Champaign News-Gazette, Jones, who reportedly brought up the extension proposal, said Whitman has “brought about a sense of integrity to our athletic program”.

In an era of pricey athletics department divorces, everybody at Illinois is sticking together.