As Illinois Fighting Illini Football Coach Lovie Smith sells the program to recruits, his NFL pedigree will be a persistent theme. (We covered this in depth for RedEye on Thursday) Smith has been out of the college game for 21 years, but he takes over a program that had a really good reputation as a NFL vocational development school up until the last couple of years. Illini football excelled in winning draft night up until 2014, as the program was then shut out in 2015 and 2016.
With the NFL Draft in town this past weekend we attended the NFL Network Media Luncheon and asked some of the NFLN’s finest pundits, including Steve Mariucci and Curtis Conway about Lovie Smith taking over Illini football.
“Lovie’s a great guy, he’s going to be respected by the players and the alumni and by parents of kids that he’s recruiting,” Mariucci said.
“Now I loved coaching in college, but there’s going to be some, I don’t want to call it baby-sitting, but there’s some oversight involved where you’re making sure kids are going to class, or they’re home sick or they’ve got girlfriend problems.”
“Then you’re going to have the agents going after them when they’re juniors. There’s a different set of circumstances that keep you awake at night, but if he embraces all of that then he’s going to do great.”
Curtis Conway was a legend with the Chicago Bears, in an era that preceded Lovie’s arrival in Chicago. Conway offered this:
“Lovie is the type of guy that I would want my kid to play for. He steps in the living room I think he can sell who he is.”
“All the guys that I talked to that played for Lovie, loved him. So I think he would do well with the players, but also you’ve got to surround yourself with the right staff in these regions that will go out and get the players, that’s the key to success. So not just Lovie but the staff around him”
“Contrary to public opinion about an NFL coach coming to college, I look forward to the challenge of recruiting. We have a lot to sell. Who wouldn’t want a degree from the University of Illinois and have a chance to play in an environment like this? I think we can sell this.”
It won’t be easy, at least not initially. Smith likely won’t be beating the Big Ten’s powerhouses on the recruiting trail. However, he does have a brand name going for him. Perhaps more important, he has a track record of NFL accomplishments he can market to recruits. Only two Big Ten coaches have ever led a team to the Super Bowl: Smith and Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh.
“It’s part of who we are,” Smith said. “We have an NFL background. I do know what NFL players look like. I know the process it takes to get there. All of the experiences we have, yes, we’ll use those. I think people want to hear about that.”