With Illini basketball back on top, the gridiron is next mountain to climb

CHAMPAIGN – Where did it all go so haywire?

That’s a debate for generations, but the day Mike Thomas came to town, Illini athletics took a hard turn toward disaster.

Hindenburg.

Titanic.

The light at the end of the tunnel was a train.

When Thomas took over as Illinois athletics director following the retirement of Ron Guenther, he talked big and bought tiny results. Thomas wiped out the three biggest names in Illini sports, firing football coach Ron Zook, basketball coach Bruce Weber and women’s basketball coach Jolette Law. Give him points for trying, but Thomas’ attempt at remaking the Illini failed miserably.

For sure, Ron Guenther faced annual criticism for his conservative approach, but the results were more than solid.

In basketball, the Illini were considered one of the elite powers, the best team to never win a national championship. His string of basketball hires eventually led to an appearance in the NCAA championship game, a high-water mark for this proud program. In football, sustaining success has always been a challenge, dating back to the days of the Galloping Ghost, but Illinois still managed berths in the Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl with Guenther running the mother ship.

Then Thomas took an axe to it all, firing Zooker despite a second consecutive 7-6 season capped by a bowl win, and whacking Bruce Weber following a rough finish that kept the Illini from an NCAA Tournament berth.

When Thomas hired Tim Beckman, John Groce and Matt Bollant, there was hope, but only for a moment. Beckman left under charges of player mistreatment. Eventually, Thomas was shown the door with a golden parachute. Hired as Thomas’ replacement, Josh Whitman brought a background as an alum and a scholar-athlete, after playing on those teams under former football coach Ron Turner as the Illini performed another rebuild.

Whitman’s game is strong in public relations, working social media with #WeWillWin and #JoinTheFight, and he’s halfway to putting the Illini back on track.

Success has returned to State Farm Center. That basketball program lost for much of a decade has returned to power, winning the Big Ten Tournament in 2021 and taking a share of the Big Ten regular-season championship last winter. With Underwood working the transfer portal and the Illini Guardians filling the bag with money, Illini basketball just keeps filling the holes with players who have a bigger profile.

Basketball appears on solid footing, although those same variables – the transfer portal and NIL – make long-term success more of a challenge.

For a proud alum who hasn’t yet tasted that success in his cherished sport, Whitman wants that kind of over-the-hump moment in football that he’s achieved in basketball. When everyone first thought Lovie would be Whitman’s signature hire, it turned out to be Underwood. But as football coach Bret Bielema headed toward his second campaign on the job, it sure looked like the Illini have a guy who knows how to run a Power 5 program.

A strong second act would generate momentum for Bielema and Whitman.

Bielema nearly pulled off the shocker last season, but the Illini were one win short of bowl eligibility. The Rutgers loss still stings, especially after knocking off Penn State in a marathon in Happy Valley, a moment that caught the eye of everyone around the Big Ten.

Lovie bashing has become a thing since Whitman made the move. In truth, Lovie was allowed to stay too long here, but it’s more than time to look forward. In this second year, Bielema has a pair of coordinators with a proven track record. The defense was surprisingly stout a year ago, and bigger things are expected from that side of the ball. The offense will change under Barry Lunney Jr., considered a fast riser in the coaching world who decided to hook up with an old friend and former boss from Arkansas.

Yet as Bielema is laying that foundation, his recruiting hasn’t wowed anybody, despite hiring coaches with plenty of names in their phone books. It would be a great thing to learn the Illini coaches are high-level evaluators and throwing all that money in the recruiting department has paid dividends.

We’re about to find out.

Like Bielema, Whitman could use a breakout year in Memorial Stadium, where it’s hard to sell a ticket and folks are losing patience after a decade in mediocrity, to put it mildly. Money makes the world go round, and the Illini really need to sell some football tickets to pay the bills in a department among the worst nationally in debt. Luckily, the Big Ten schools are going to pocket crazy money with the upcoming football TV rights deal. Within the conference, the Illini still remain as a have-not, when it comes to opening the wallet.

Underwood and his basketball program can only do so much. The needle is moved so much more with football, and the Illini have suffered long enough since that remarkable trip to Pasadena following the magical season in 2007, when the Illini upset No. 1 Ohio State in the Horseshoe. Since Zook’s firing, the Illini failed to finish with a winning record in each of the last 10 seasons.

It seems like a lifetime since that glorious, beautiful day in Pasasdena. Fixing football is important, especially to an AD who was a football player.

After that slow start, Underwood caught fire and kept folks happy. Now Whitman seeks that kind of success in football. It’s been so long since the Illini were competitive with the Big Ten’s best. Illini fans have to go back to the days of Zook.

Heading toward that season opener later this month, Whitman wants what Guenther once had – two successful programs generating the kind of positive energy that stuffs the cash register.

Whitman bleeds orange and blue, and he’s pulling for Bielema to be the kind of hire Underwood turned out to be. If so, life would be so much better for a guy who long ago promised, #WeWillWin.

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