Bill Cubit is probably not the long term answer for Illini football; but they can certainly do worse. They just did much worse in fact. As former Illini and current Tampa Bay Buccaneers Defensive Tackle Akeem Spence Tweeted yesterday in the wake of Tim Beckman‘s dismissal- “Illinois just got better.”
Bill Cubit looks, sounds and acts like he knows what he’s doing. At least in publicly. You could never say the same for Beckman. He always came off as a guy who was in way over his head. And to see where we’re potentially going with Illini football, we need to first reflect on where we’ve been, especially as it pertains to Bill Cubit.
First off, this is the state of Illini football right now.
https://twitter.com/ManuclearBomb/status/637333166714286080
And this is what Illinois Athletic Director Mike Thomas has done to Illini athletics:
Visual depiction of the #Illini sports program. pic.twitter.com/QxTelxf3O3
— FiredMikeThomas (@FireMikeThomas) August 28, 2015
Mike Thomas needs to be dismissed just as badly as Beckman did. No matter what Thomas cannot make the next football head coaching hire. He screwed up his first one at Illinois so badly that he cannot be trusted to make this decision again. Beckman released a statement Friday night that certainly implied he could sue the University to get the severance package he believes that he is due. In other words, Thomas and Beckman truly deserve each other.
On Friday, we re-published our list of Beckman’s ten funniest verbal gaffes that he committed during his Illinois regime. They kind of relate to the list below. In some ways there’s a bit of overlap.
Five oddest things Tim Beckman did while leading Illinois
1. Desperately trying to turn Illinois-Northwestern into Ohio State-Michigan
A few of the many ways that Beckman tried to foster a genuinely fierce rivalry with Northwestern:
-He put up a sign of the Northwestern logo with a line through it in the Illini team room
-Refusal to eat purple Life Savers, using purple pens, making injured players wear purple and referring to them as “pussies” (at least that’s the story Simon Cvijanovic is sticking to)
-Referring to Northwestern as the “that school up north” a la Woody Hayes referencing Michigan back in the day.
-His slogan fiascos: stealing “W.I.N.” Taking a shot at NU’s marketing slogan and their recruiting class on 2014 signing day, despite the fact that NU landed a higher rated class than his.
Sadly, the rest of the world does not care about the Illinois-Northwestern rivalry as much as Beckman did. The NU-Illinois rivalry is not, never has been and never will be in the same stratosphere of significance as OSU-Michigan, but you have to admire Beckman’s zeal on this one.
2. Asking Journalists to become his PR Department
His signing day 2015 presser made him a national punchline when he implored the media to be his cheerleaders.
3. Chewing tobacco, and other sideline antics
We saw multiple inexcusable sideline interference penalties, both by Beckman and his staff, during his tenure. You had the disaster at Northwestern in 2012, the chewing tobacco incident at Wisconsin and just…let’s move on.
4. Trying so hard to be a coaching stereotype
Beckman tried to copy Pat Fitzgerald a bit during his pressers, and to embody all the football coach stereotypes we all know and love, like the YELLING! LOUD NOISES!
Because after all, FOOTBALL RAR!!! IT’S A SERIOUS, INTENSE PHYSICAL GAME! Fitzgerald has certainly become more polished during his tenure. He’s refined with his media skills; Beckman never did.
5. Fuzzy math, inverted logic
Beckman said last spring that he would lead Illini football to an 8-4 record this year. Whoops.
On one hand you got to give him credit for actually saying something specific in a press conference. Most coaches only say “we take ’em one at a time,” “we’re just focused on week one” and other assorted mindless, worthless verbal garbage. Beckman was many things during his time in Champaign-Urbana; but boring was not one of them.
Of course, Beckman will always be remembered for his “you take X plays and Y points out of that game and we’re right there” statements.
These comments made him a national laughingstock. People outside the Champaign bubble saw Tim Beckman and the Illinois program as a complete joke. The only time Beckman and Illini football made national headlines was when he said something that made him look like any of the following characters:
Lloyd Christmas, Matt Foley, Phil Davison, the villain from “Jurassic World,” Tommy Boy, Baby Huey or some combination of all the above. During the Beckman era I’ve heard him analogized to every single one of these guys at least once by a member of the national media.
We didn’t even get to Beckman’s desperate, failed attempt to poach Penn State players in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. We wanted to keep this list at five. We bet there’s a few more embarrassing moments that we’ve missed. In short, the last time Illini football hit this nadir was the Gary Moeller era. Before Moeller found success at Michigan, he was 6-24-3 from 1977-1979.
So yeah, Bill Cubit is a big upgrade from all of this mess.
Beckman wasn’t all that bad though. If it weren’t for him, none of us up here in the north would know what Zaxby’s fried chicken is (due to their sponsorship of the bowl Beckman guided Illinois too. So hey thanks!
Related: Five early candidates to replace Tim Beckman
Related: 10 funniest verbal gaffes of Tim Beckman
Bill Cubit pros: Cubit has head coaching experience, and the passing game has flourished since he’s arrived. Nathan Scheelhaase was horrid his junior in 2012, and Cubitism turned him around 180 degrees. Scheelhaase led the Big Ten in passing in 2013. Cubit had a 51-47 record as Western Michigan Head Coach. It would be a lot to ask him to go above .500 this season, but if he did that would make him the first Illini football coach to accomplish the feat since John Mackovic, who left the school in 1991.
Bill Cubit cons: The running game he’s coordinated has been pretty bad and we’ve seen time and time again how Bill Cubit won’t commit to running the football in situations when he really should. Maybe that’s out of need; which is also highly problematic. Considering how the defense has serious issues all around, Illini football needs a true running game to chew up clock and keep Tim Banks’ embattled unit off the field.
Also, Cubit is a coordinator and not a head man for a reason. He was never able to elevate WMU to say, NIU levels. Can he return Illini football to 1980s consistency? That’s a very tall order.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 the Zone.
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