Agree. I always considered Illinois to be a sleeping giant and just thought it was funny how they kept misfiring. Let's hope we haven't effectively flipped the script.
Bert has done a good job and deserves credit. However, it is still Central Illinois!
They have done quite well in the transfer portal they will be tough next year for sure
and he probably won't leave, having already failed at Arkansas. So we are stuck with him
Who cares? They are not some juggernaut when it comes to talent, even with portal additions.
I still think he'd be the chosen son for Iowa when Ferentz eventually calls it. I know this has come up in the recent past and a poster said he's got a prohibitive buyout clause, but I maintain my generally uninformed position that contracts are made to be broken, and here are 479 examples in college sports/coaching alone.
Agreed. In fact, this year we had less talent than almost every team in the big ten. I say this with a completely straight face, I believe Northwestern was significantly more talented than Illinois. (The one differentiator being QB play, where I think Illinois had a significant advantage.) Illinois will have a lot of continuity going into next year, and that is importsnt. But we will still be lacking talent compared to most of our conference peers.
Why would he go to Iowa? More corn?Open-records report | What it'd cost Big Ten football coaches to buy out their contracts
Dan Lanning, rumored to be a target for NFL teams, would owe Oregon $20M, no matter when he leaves ... Bret Bielema's $7.5M rate next year would be cut inwww.news-gazette.com
“Illinois’ fourth-year coach is contractually forbidden from accepting another Big Ten head coaching job, per the language of an extension he signed on April 23, 2023.”
Caveat: if Josh Whitman is not the AD, then the buyout is cut in half and the Big Ten Clause is cut.
Although there isn’t a contractually agreed buyout, my guess is that there is some crazy magic number that Illinois would be willing to accept as a buyout to let him go to Iowa. But it’s probably so high that Iowa would never consider paying it.
Cause he's an Iowa grad and even has a Hawkeye tattoo on his leg?
Illinois is poised to make a playoff run. Ugly tattoo or not.Cause he's an Iowa grad and even has a Hawkeye tattoo on his leg?
Sure, the "Tiger Hawk" tattoo seemed like a great idea at the time. That was 1990, when Bielema, then a walk-on defensive lineman for the Hawkeyes under legendary coach Hayden Fry, sprang for the ink after receiving a scholarship as a sophomore. To celebrate, he got the iconic Iowa logo tattooed on his left calf with the words "Believe" and "Achieve" on opposite ends of a giant "I."
Bielema soon had the pedigree of a Hawkeye for life. He became a senior captain in 1992, returned to Iowa City shortly afterward to become a graduate assistant, and served as a linebacker coach under Fry and his successor, Kirk Ferentz, for six seasons.
Wouldn’t you love that.
His players love him. He gets results.
