COLUMN: My Assessment in 2016 of a Lovie Smith Illini Hiring Could Only Be Described One Way: Wrong

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Hypocrisy is something that is unbearable. I have no time for it and try with every fiber of my being to not ever engage in it.

I admit this little tidbit about myself in order to admit this. I loved everything about the Lovie Smith hire five years ago. Couldn’t have been convinced it was going to be a huge hit for a program needing something good to happen. In my lifetime, and for all time, there are two human beings that have taken to the Chicago Bears to a little thing we humans like to call the Super Bowl, one is Mike Ditka and the other was just named the head coach at the University of Illinois.

I remember the exact moment I found out this news.

For whatever reason, March 7, 2016 is remembered in my brain as a day that was nothing more than a typical March day in Auburn, Alabama.

I was just getting my footing as the Auburn beat writer for the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser and Gannett News Services and this particular day included a day involving coverage of Auburn spring football practice, which, at the time, served as the second-most important athletics endeavor at that university surpassing men’s basketball and baseball.

I was sitting, monitoring Twitter on my laptop, in the Auburn athletics administration building players meeting room nearly by myself waiting for Tigers head coach Gus Malzahn (who ironically was also terminated Sunday as well) to address the media and tell us his version of events of a practice session none of us watched in person but for 10 minutes, five of which included organized stretching.

Suddenly my Twitter timeline exploded with the strangest news. Next thing I was staring at a photo of new Illinois athletics director Josh Whitman and Lovie Smith standing together with the now infamous “#WeWillWin” sign. Smith, the same guy who took the Chicago Bears, my favorite NFL team, to the Super Bowl in 2006, was wearing Illini orange and blue.

“Holy (expletive)!” I remember loudly yelling out. “Illinois just hired Lovie Smith as its next head coach!”

One of the other Auburn reporters turned and asked “the NFL coach?” and I excitedly answered “Yes. The guy who took the Bears to the Super Bowl is now the Illini’s head coach.”

Malzahn gave his summary of whatever he wanted to tell us about a practice nobody saw or would remember months from then. I submitted my blog post, my practice notebook and then my feature piece from today’s events and packed up my stuff in the beat writer room and couldn’t wait to share my excitement about this Lovie Smith news. As I got up to leave, one of the older Auburn reporters put his hand on my shoulder and said “You know this isn’t going to end well at Illinois right? Coaches in their upper 50s that haven’t had anything to do with college football for two decades don’t just instantly have success again like it's like riding a bicycle.”

In hindsight, I should’ve listened. I didn’t. No, I was in love with this move and nobody was going to talk me out of this feeling. Tim Beckman was a clown that didn’t win games and embarrassed himself and the university on a consistent enough basis that national laughingstock wasn’t too strong a description for Illini football. If nothing else, the Illini football program just guaranteed that it’ll never be the subject of foolishness again under Lovie Smith. Chalk that up as a win.

I called my dad, the same man who put a stuffed orange and blue basketball in my crib when I was a baby growing up in East Central Illinois. My dad was shocked and I think a little confused. “Lovie Smith? Not the guy who coached the Bears?” is what I heard from his voice.

“Yeah dad, the guy who coached the Bears is the new coach at Illinois. And it’s March so it’s not like the candidate pool was deep,” I said.

“Unbelievable. That Josh Whitman really knows what he’s doing. This is great,” my dad said happily.

After I hung up with my dad, I remembered Smith was fired in 2012 after going 10-6 in his final season in Chicago Bears and that franchise hadn’t done anything noteworthy since getting rid of him. Plus, the last two coaches to have consistent winning seasons at Illinois came directly from the NFL as Mike White was an assistant coach with the San Francisco 49ers and to this day, my favorite Illini coach John Mackovic was the Kansas City Chiefs head coach for four years before arriving in Champaign.

I spent my evening reconnecting with folks and close friends in Illinois that care deeply about the Illini program. We were all pumped. And then Smith’s Illini teams started playing games. Over time, we weren't so pumped.

So, in the effort of not being hypocritical, I fully admit now I couldn’t have been more wrong about being convinced this would work. It didn’t work. Not at all. It wasn’t going to turn around soon and everybody including, I believe, Smith knew this.

Smith refused to embrace what is and will always be the lifeblood of success in college football. On that March 2016 day, I was convinced every prospect in an Illinois home would be overjoyed at the prospect of the former Chicago Bears coach selling them on the Illini football program. By 2019, Lovie Smith was standing at a podium on signing day admitting that his program went 0 for 19 on scholarship offers on in-state prospects and failed to sign a single in-state player.

Smith was stubborn to adapt his Cover-2 defense to the RPO concepts of modern college offenses and were constantly near the bottom of the Big Ten Conference in several defensive statistical categories. Illinois needed to rely on the magic of “Lovie Ball” to get turnovers to even have a puncher’s chance in conference games.

In the end, the Lovie Smith era in Champaign lasted just 1,742 days and I, for one, thought it would be a much longer period of history and be remembered a lot fonder. In short, Smith didn't do what was on that sign in the photo that excited me on social media. Illinois didn't win.

Based on his media conference Sunday afternoon, regardless of what I, my dad or my lifelong friends thought or said on that day back in March 2016, the guy who made the decision thought the outcome would be much different too.

“It’s a day that none of us associated with the football program at the University of Illinois had hoped would come but I believe it is a day that is necessary if we are to realize what I believe, which is the full championship potential of the football program,” Whitman said Sunday. “At the end of the day, we weren’t able to win enough games. We just weren’t able to get over the hump despite the best efforts of the people who spent all day, everyday tolling at it in that building.”

But it’s December 2020 and Illinois is right back here again, relying on Whitman getting the fan base excited again over a new leader but hoping to not be fooled by the mirage of a name.