What’s Going On Needs A Dictionary

That word does not mean what you think it means

Saturday, Illinois fired Bill Cubit. I know you’re about to pause your reading of this blog momentarily to check the date, so let me save you some time: Yes, it really is March. This is the statement from AD Josh Whitman:

 

Statement from @IlliniAD on dismissal of Bill Cubit at #Illini football coach. pic.twitter.com/DlIMpq8Umi

— Illini Football (@IlliniFootball) March 5, 2016

I said a while back that Cubit’s two-year extension was essentially a two-year extension of the “interim” title. (I also made chicken puns and laughed at Purdue. Good times.) But, like, it’s March. This is the time of year when you want to be focused on spring practice, not a coaching search. There’s nothing stable about firing your coach in March. Brian Hamilton of SI praised the move in an article that’s a good example of why I don’t subscribe to SI anymore.

“On his first official day as Illinois athletic director, Josh Whitman fired the current football coach.”

…

“No matter how far and how fast viable coaching candidates ran from the mess in Champaign, the school needed to convince someone to take the job last winter and steady a listing ship. Instead, on Nov. 29, after a 5-7 season, the university armed Cubit with a two-year contract. This neatly defined how poorly equipped anyone was to offer any definitive direction at all.”

Hamilton really wrote down two and two and was unable to add them together and get four. (News that should come as a surprise to no one at this point: Hamilton used to write for the Trib.) Illinois didn’t have an actual AD over the winter. That’s why they extended Cubit. After this season, once things settled down, if Cubit wasn’t doing anything special, they could easily move on from him.

“What, realistically, was Bill Cubit going to accomplish with the Illini’s talent to convince his new boss that he should stay? Snare that much-coveted Quick Lane Bowl bid and declare it a sign of progress? No, the odds were far too high that Cubit’s regime was doomed practically before it began, and Whitman was smart to stake another horse.

Who that horse is…well, there’s the family-sized serving of insanity in all this: Josh Whitman now has to find a viable major-conference football coach in March.”

Oh, yeah, good point, Brian. Finding a coach in March is going to be tough. Who would have thought, right? I mean other than everybody. Look, the only upside I can see to firing Cubit now is that it gives whoever the next coach is going to be time to start installing his system and recruiting players he wants, although he’ll be starting behind the eight ball in both, considering the timing. That is more than cancelled out by the fact that it is going to be incredibly difficult find a good coach to come to your school in March, and unless Illinois completes the Hail Mary and lands P.J. Fleck or Lovie Smith, who Tom Fornelli is reporting as a candidate, they likely would have been able to find a better coach after the season than whoever they end up hiring now.

Jim Harbaugh’s newly-Bolivian colleague

Bret Bielema, who may or may not be a grown-up Butt-head, wanted to make a trip to Florida to take in Michigan’s open practice Friday at IMG Academy. StAEE coach Mitch Donatello was going to join him. Tennessee coach Butch Jones, who has some significantly bigger things to worry about, tweeted this:

 

 

Mind if I join you guys for lunch? @DantonioMark@BretBielema — Butch Jones (@UTCoachJones) March 2, 2016

The NCAA said they could make the trip because it’s a recruiting quiet period. That win wasn’t enough for Harbaugh. 

Suggestion to my Rocky Top colleague, rather than lunch in Florida you might spend your time and focus attending to your present team.

— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) March 3, 2016

Harbaugh has had plenty of great tweets since joining Twitter, this might be the best.

Mattingly gets rid of facial hair

Don Mattingly is bringing back the Marlins’ no-facial hair rule, because apparently, that was why the Marlins finished 20 games under .500 last year. Seriously, does he not have better things to worry about. This is stupid when the Yankees do it, and they’ve won 27 championships. The Marlins have made the playoffs twice in their 23-year history and have finished above .500 four other times. Now, both playoff berths resulted in championships, but those teams had talent and didn’t waste time coming up with pointless, arbitrary rules. And Mattingly, if you’re going to enforce this rule, get rid of those sideburns first.

Twitter: @KSchroeder2325

E-mail: schroeder.giig@gmail.com