Who will Illini turn to after Lovie Smith?
Every time there's a coaching change, a list of likely candidates quickly follows.
After firing Lovie Smith Sunday, Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman will make his third hire in a major sport since becoming AD in 2016. If anything can be learned from his first two, the next Illini coach might not come from the typical list of names.
Whitman's first two hires, Smith and basketball coach Brad Underwood, could both be qualified as surprises. After pulling the plug on Smith and his 17-39 record in five years, and with the basketball team in the Top 10, it looks like Whitman is batting .500.
If the next choice comes from a more traditional list of candidates, Whitman could turn to the Mid-American Conference for Buffalo's Lance Leipold, Toledo's Jason Candle or Kent State's Sean Lewis, coaches with roots in Illinois like cousins Jeff Monken at Army and Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken. What about former coaches looking for a second chance such as Bret Bielema from Wisconsin and Arkansas. There are always impressive coordinators seeking a move to head coach.
Which is the best path? Illinois has tried and failed with many: Tim Beckman from the MAC, Ron Zook fired at Florida, or promoting a coordinator like Lou Tepper.
Whitman didn't offer many clues Sunday; no preference on an offensive or defensive coach, no specifics about the background he seeks.
"There are a lot of really qualified football coaches who would walk over broken glass for the chance to coach at the University of Illinois," Whitman said. "Our job is to identify them, recruit them and select among them."
Illinois owes Smith a $2.3 buyout, a relatively low number compared to other schools. Auburn fired Gus Malzahn Sunday despite his $21.3 million buyout.
The low buyout for Smith should help Whitman, either finding another unlikely candidate, or having the money for a younger coach to hire an experienced staff.
"We will move quickly, confidentially," Whitman said. "This is one of the premier vacancies in college football this year. Our potential is waiting and we have to find the right leader to tap into that."
Ideally, Illinois would find its Tom Allen like Indiana did, or going back a little longer, its Pat Fitzgerald, Barry Alvarez or Hayden Fry as Northwestern, Wisconsin and Iowa have, respectively.
They all built successful programs. At Illinois you have to go back to 1991 and John Mackovic to find a coach who left on his terms. The six coaches since? All fired.
There's been peaks since, a Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl, but no sustained success.
That's the goal in this search, Whitman said, plus improved recruiting, especially in state, where Smith didn't connect despite his background as Bears coach.
Just last week the Illinois High School Coaches Association held a virtual clinic that Smith and his staff declined to participate in. Fitzgerald did, along with ex-Illini coaches Tepper, Ron Turner and Zook.
Smith's rosters at Illinois became filled more and more with Georgia, Texas and Florida natives, along with transfers, while he repeatedly missed out on the best recruits in Illinois. Smith didn't sign a single Illinois high school player in last year's class.
Can someone like Todd Monken, born in Wheaton and from a family with a long history in Illinois high school football, help? Or an outside-the-box choice like Nate Scheelhaase, the former Illini quarterback who is only 30 but is thought of as a rising star as wide receivers coach in Matt Campbell's blossoming Iowa State program?
It's a sign of how far Illinois has fallen that Campbell himself, along with Cincinnati's Luke Fickell, wouldn't be interested. And the one clue Whitman did offer Sunday, that he's not interested in any coach with baggage, would seem to rule out coaches like Bielema and Liberty's Hugh Freeze.
If it is a name from those traditional lists, Leipold might be the fit. He's a Midwest native from Wisconsin who knew Whitman, then athletic director at University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, while Leipold was winning six national titles and going 109-6 in eight seasons at Division III Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Leipold's built a winner at Buffalo, 23-9 in the last three years, including 5-0 this year.
"We need to find somebody who can be a program builder," Whitman said. "Recruiting was an area of concern as I studied the program. We do have an opportunity to build stronger connections with the state high school coaches and that's something that will be important to us as we move forward."