'Trust your gut': Why Kevin Kane is Banking on Bret Bielema Turning Him Into a Future Head Coach
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- At just 37 years old, Kevin Kane’s college football coaching resume was already way ahead of a normal track for somebody his age.
Kane was a successful defensive coordinator and play-caller for Southern Methodist University - a Division I program in a major market that has decades of history and produces high quality talent for a Group of Six Conference school.
So, when Kane sat down with his wife Theresa to look her along with his three children (sons Jack and Colin, and one daughter, Nora) in the eyes, he presented a short, single message about a career move he wanted to make.
“Trust your gut, that was the biggest thing for me,” Kane said Tuesday. “I looked at my wife and just said ‘trust me’ and she was all in.”
Kane has now left a defensive coordinator position where under Sonny Dykes, an offensive-minded head coach at SMU, he and his defensive staff were left alone to build that side of the football. In agreeing to become the outside linebacker coach/associate head coach at Illinois, Kane has given up a coordinator title, defensive play-caller duties to work on a defensive staff at a Power Five Conference school that now has four former defensive coordinators in the same building.
To many, Kane’s career decision would seem like a lateral move at best and at worst, a step down from what he’d built at SMU, which was turning the Mustangs defense into one of the most aggressive units outside the Power Five Conference world. In 2019, SMU was number one in the nation ranking in sacks per game (3.92) and third in the country in tackles for loss (8.5 per game). Kane’s answer to why he wanted to leave all that success and prominent title at such a young age in this business is very simple. He’s betting on new Illinois head coach Bret Bielema being able to get him to the mountain top title of this profession: head coach.
“I felt this was a great opportunity to grow and learn. You know, I have aspirations to be a head coach one day, sure,” Kane said. “I thought this was the right thing to do. The family atmosphere of what we’re going to have here and working for Coach B was a huge factor.”
The Bret Bielema coaching tree has already produced head coaching opportunities for two highly acclaimed defensive minds. Chris Ash, Bielema’s defensive coordinator at Wisconsin, was handed the Rutgers head coaching job in 2016 at 43 years old. Charlie Partridge, Bielema’s defensive line coach at Wisconsin and Arkansas, was named the head coach at Florida Atlantic in 2014 when Patridge was just 41 years old. Bielema himself was 36 years old (one year younger than Kane) when he was named the head coach at Wisconsin to take over for Barry Alvarez in 2006.
“I’m at a point in my life where Coach Bielema can help guide me in what I want to get done,” Kane said. “I also just think this (Illinois program) is a sleeping giant as well.”
The hiring of Kane in 2020 for this rebuild of an Illinois program that hasn’t seen a winning season since 2011 is the last and latest staff addition representing the buy-in of successful defensive coaching assistants into Bielema’s vision of Illini football.
“I first hired Kevin as a defensive graduate assistant and now I’ve seen his career grow, develop and flourish in the coaching profession as an assistant coach as well as a coordinator,” Bielema said in a university statement. “He brings a wealth of knowledge to our staff at Illinois. Kevin is originally from the Kansas City area and will be a great addition to our recruiting staff and in developing the young men in our program.”
The ties to Kansas City and the Midwest part of the country made the selling job to Theresa Kane an easier process. Kane’s wife is a product of Chicago and their three children were all born in Dekalb during a seven-year process as an assistant coach (2011-14 and 2016-17) under four different head coaches with the Huskies.
“My kids are young and at a point in their life where they want to see grandma, they want to see their cousins and everything that goes with that,” Kane said. “That was a big deal to moving back to Illinois for sure.”