Fact: Illinois was a college football wasteland for a decade who had just failed on their previous “home run hire.”
Fact: Bret Bielema was a college football coach who hadn’t coached in college for several years and was not in high demand from reputable programs.
Argue with a wall if you want.
I’m not really sure that the fact Bielema wasn’t in high demand is somehow indicative that Whitman didn’t do a great job in hiring him.
Wisconsin used to have Bielema who did nothing but great things there. They fucked up and lost him and even though they got one of the hottest up-and-coming coaches a couple years ago, I’m not so sure they wouldn’t trade us straight up at this very moment to get him back.
College football is really bad at the whole “new is better” thing when it comes to coaches. Kudos to Whitman for not worrying about new is better or whatever the flashy coach of the month was at that time, but going out and hiring a guy that had already won (and won pretty big) in the Big Ten and then also got to spend a few years under Bill Belichick in the meantime.