Four talking points for AD Josh Whitman at yearly roundtable
Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman is hosting his annual media roundtable on Tuesday to provide journalist that cover Illinois Fighting Illini athletics an opportunity to listen to Whitman speak about the issues most pressing towards Illinois sports before asking further questions.
This year, Whitman will have the ability to discuss – with a better understanding than last year – the major changes facing college athletics, including the implementation and expansion of name, image and likeness opportunities for student-athletes, the transfer portal and the future structure of college football and its relationship with the NCAA.
Whitman will also likely reflect on the financial standing of the athletic department and, which will provide further insight to how Illinois has moved forward with the passing of COVID-19 restrictions in the last year.
Orange and Blue News’ Alec Busse highlights things that he is looking forward to hearing Whitman discuss at his media roundtable.
Name, image, likeness
The one-year anniversary of the implementation of name, image and likeness is July 1, and while still has produced countless questions about the future of college sports and what the future looks like for student-athletes at Illinois looks like.
It will be interesting to hear what Whitman’s perspective is on NIL collectives – funds that are supported by wealthy boosters to athletic departments to funnel funds towards student-athletes, recruits, and transfers. Of course, NIL can’t be used as an inducement during recruitments, per NCAA legislation.
But it will be interesting to hear what Whitman has to say about how Illini athletes are doing in name, image, and likeness. Of course, Kofi Cockburn did quite well this past year for the men’s basketball program while averaging more than 20 points and 10 rebounds per game last year while leading the Illini to a share of the Big Ten regular season championship. But how are the rest of the Illini’s student-athletes doing when it comes to NIL? Are women athletes getting a quality opportunity in the Champaign community with local businesses and what other opportunities are they exploring? Are athletes who compete in nonrevenue and Olympic sports able to capitalize on various opportunities?
A couple of baseball players – outfielders Cam McDonald and Danny Doligale and infielders Brandon Comia, Kellen Sarver and Brody Harding – had a NIL deal that allowed them to sell personally branded apparel, mostly t-shirts to fans of Dan Hartleb’s baseball program. A few wrestlers had a NIL deal with a Mexican restaurant just a few blocks off campus that required them to promote the restaurant before the IHSA wrestling championships were held in Champaign.
How Illinois athletics and Whitman plan to help set Illini athletics ahead of their competition in NIL will be an intriguing thing to hear. Whitman is obviously more knowledgeable than most are when it comes to the NIL world. Hearing his plan for the future of NIL and Illinois athletics – and how Illini Guardians, Illinois’ collective – can help student-athletes financially could be fascinating.
The transfer portal
There are people who love the transfer portal and there are people who think restrictions need to be placed on the transfer portal. Whitman, who has previously shared that he is a proponent of some restrictions, will likely go further into detail about the transfer portal and how he thinks a happy medium can be found for both schools and athletes when it comes to transferring opportunities.
One idea that has been tossed around in various circles is the idea of creating certain windows within the calendar year that athletes would be allowed to transfer. Currently, athletes are able to enter the transfer portal whenever they want to. This has made it difficult for college coaches to manage a roster and it has made it difficult for athletes to meet the necessary graduation requirements in some cases.
To prevent this, there’s a possibility that athletes could be restricted from entering the transfer portal during their season or at other times during the calendar year, of course, exceptions could be made in the case of waivers being passed. This would keep athletes on rosters for the duration of a season, and because athletes can’t compete for more than one school during a given season this doesn’t prevent players from being able to play at their next destination.
Whitman is often well versed in his thoughts and his deep thoughts can often lead to compelling ideas that help move the conversation forward in regards to the transfer portal.
The future of college football
The future of college football is in a precarious space in several different areas. First, what is going to happen to the College Football Playoff when the current four-team model contract expires in 2026. There was a movement to towards a 12-team model last summer, but that ultimately didn’t lead to any changes due to stubbornness from conference commissioners and the chancellors and presidents away from the SEC, Big 12 and Notre Dame.
Finding where Illinois stands on what the future of the College Football Playoff is, could be telling about how Whitman feels about other issues related to football. If he’s in favor of expanding to 12 teams – which he probably should be because it gives his program the best chance to make the playoff – it could point to him being more aligned with the idea of football breaking away from the NCAA in hopes of a new, independent governing body for the sport.
Ohio State, another Big Ten school, Athletic Director Gene Smith has previously expressed that he is in favor of change saying, “we’ve got to do something different, that’s for doggone sure. Because the model that we’ve had for whatever the case has been (in terms of years) it’s not going to work. We have 358 Division I school. God Bless it. We’re different than a lot of them. That recognition has to be accounted for. And I love the basketball tournament. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great. But those schools who have committed the 85 scholarships and more, in the FBS in football underneath the CFP umbrella are different. And that difference needs to be recognized.”
Illinois, of course, hasn’t been on the same level as Ohio State in football for some time, but they are both in the same conference, which could lead to a similar line of thinking regarding the future structure of the way college football looks on a national level.
On a regional level, the Big Ten could be the next conference to ditch divisions in the coming years. The Pac-12 announced this summer that they are no longer going to use divisions to determine their championship game, and instead are going to take the two teams with the best winning percentage. This is the model the Big 12 currently follows.
Since the Big Ten moved to the East and West divisions, the East has won every conference championship game since 2014. Developing a conference schedule that sets the conference up best for the next media rights contract is imperative for the Big Ten. It’s likely that doesn’t include divisions. That would likely make it much more difficult for Illinois to compete for Big Ten championships – a crown they haven’t won since 2001.
Illinois’ facilities
Most of the issues on this list have been more nationally focused, and that’s because the changing dynamic of college sports on a national level is really at an all-time moment. But Whitman will also talk in depth about his own athletic department, including the facilities that his teams play in.
Since Whitman was hired in 2016, Illinois has been able to drastically improve the facilities for many of their sports on campus. The football program moved into the Henry Dale and Betty Smith Football Center in Aug. 2019; a building that cost nearly $80-milliion dollars to build.
The men’s and women’s basketball teams will move into a renovated Ubben basketball facility in the fall after a $40-million-dollar renovation is completed. The women’s soccer, men’s and women’s track and field and the cross-country teams opened in April of 2021 at a cost of nearly $14-million dollars. Both the baseball and softball programs are both preparing to move into a brand-new indoor training center that cost a couple of million dollars as well.
But not all sports have received a new facility, and this is something that Whitman is likely angling towards wanting to achieve. His women’s volleyball, and men’s and women’s gymnastics programs all share Huff Hall, a building that was constructed in 1925. While it does create an intense home advantage for Chris Tamas’ volleyball program it’s old and the athletes that compete there do deserve a better home.
In fact, the sports that call Huff Hall home were likely going to move to a new arena that was proposed in downtown Champaign when the athletic department was exploring the addition of a men’s hockey program. But the pandemic, among other details, stopped that venture and that leaves these sports in a precarious situation.
Wrestling moved their competitions away from Huff Hall last season, but their small training room on the second floor of Huff Hall does leave a lot to be desired. Whitman would like to develop some sort of plan for these sports – as well as the women’s swim team which currently uses the Activities and Recreations Center pool.
At his 2021 roundtable regarding the standing of these sports Whitman said, “We still have a number of sports that haven’t been directly addressed. Wrestling would be one of them. Gymnastics and swimming is another one. The future of Huff Hall is something we have to work through at some time.”
Is Whitman preparing to lay out a plan for those sports in the now or in the future? Another plan he’d like to invest in before 2024 is an upgrade to the East side and horseshoe of Memorial Stadium. When Illinois upgraded the West side and constructed seating for students in the North end zone in 2007-08, they left the East side largely untouched.
“I mentioned the East and South of Memorial Stadium is a priority for us, in my perfect world,” Whitman said last summer. “I wanted to unveil a fully renovated Memorial Stadium in time for the 100th anniversary of its dedication in 2024. At this point, I don’t know how likely that is, but all our facilities that haven’t been directly touched in recent years is something that will be on the table.”
A year later, it will be interesting to see if Whitman has started the idea of exploring a renovation to Memorial Stadium and if he has what kind of improvements is he hoping to develop?