Inside The Huskies

Former Husky Assistant Surprisingly Takes Big Ten Job

Bobby Hauck didn't stay retired from Montana very long.
Dan Raley|
Bobby Hauck and his Montana players and coaches react to a fourth-quarter interception against Washington in 2021.
Bobby Hauck and his Montana players and coaches react to a fourth-quarter interception against Washington in 2021. | Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images

Illinois gave up 63 points to Indiana, 42 to Washington and 34 to Ohio State this past season.

To fix this, the Illini on Monday hired Bobby Hauck as their new defensive coordinator, a somewhat surprising development.

Hauck was retired for all of five days since stepping down as the Montana head coach, with people assuming he was done.

He joins a defensive staff for the first time since coaching the Huskies' defensive backs in 1999-2002 for Rick Neuheisel.

In his Missoula farewell, Hauck was extremely frank about his reasons for leaving. He just didn't care for the way college football had changed.

"Dealing with what college football has become is not always enjoyable as a head coach," Hauck said. "I just haven't been enjoying it enough. I want to enjoy my career and my job. A lot of the head coach stuff in current day, Division I college football is not enjoyable."

Being more specific about the impetus for his career change, he offered the following litany:

"Dealing with agents and the transient nature of this and the lack of forward thinking by young people -- which it's never been a strong suit for centuries for young people, but now when they've got adults pushing them and pulling them in different directions -- I kind of got tired of all that, the dealing with agents and the transient nature of it. Straw that broke the camel's back, there was nothing like that. This has been residual."

Yet in all of that discourse, Hauck said he was done as a head coach. He never once said anything about leaving coaching for good.

The Huskies, however, won't see him any time soon in the Big Ten. The UW and Illinois don't meet again until 2028 in Champaign.

Hauck last served as a defensive coach for four years at the UW, in charge of the secondary, and left Seattle when Neuheisel got fired.

He was the head coach at Montana twice and at UNLV, plus he served as the special-teams coach for San Diego State.

Yet it's been 24 years since he made a living on the defensive side of the ball.

Of course, Hauck can count upsetting the then 20th-ranked Huskies to open the 2021 with Montnaa as one of his career highlights and the Grizzlies did it with defense that day.

The final score from Husky Stadium: Montana 13, Washington 7.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Published
Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

Home/Football