The Illinois football program has built up into a contender over the last four or five years.
What happened to set everything in motion? The Illini hired Bret Bielema. I will be the first to say, I didn’t think this was a great hire at first. It kind of felt like this was just hiring a retread head coach, and it is all we could do.
I was dead wrong.
Bielema has been an incredible hire. He has brought all of the good parts of his coaching and personality with him and left all of the baggage in the past.