Nothing about the last six months in Champaign was normal.

Coaches don’t get fired a week before the season. Athletic directors don’t get fired in the middle of the school year. Two-year contracts aren’t agreed upon at Power Five programs. Athletic departments don’t pay search firms $140,000 to work for two months and settle on a guy that already spent four years in the athletic department office.

But this is the bizarre hand Josh Whitman was dealt. It’s his job to put the pieces in place to add stability to an unstable program.

Ironic as it sounds, however, that means Whitman will have to make a major decision on Bill Cubit’s future before he has a full season in the books.

Based on what he said the morning before his introductory press conference, he might not realize that yet.

“I can tell you that my standard approach is I try to avoid putting myself in situations where I have to make knee-jerk decision,” Whitman said on WSCR-AM 670. “I’ve not met Coach Cubit. I haven’t met Coach Groce. I look forward to sitting down with them over the course of the weekend and having a chance to visit, just talk with them. I will support them to the fullest.

“I understand that there might be some decisions down the road, but those are folks who deserve my entire support and will get that. I just look forward to having the chance to talk with them and help them so that we can put ourself in the position to be as successful as possible.”

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On the surface, that’s all well and good. It would be foolish for Whitman to have his mind made up upon his arrival.

But within eight or nine months — yes, that’s in the middle of the football season — he needs to pull the trigger on Cubit’s future. Either add a few more years on to his deal or cut him loose and find the next face of the program.

I get it. That sounds like the exact knee-jerk reaction Whitman is attempting to avoid.

You know what else Illinois needs to avoid? More uncertainty heading into the recruiting period. Given the circumstances, Cubit did all he could to salvage some late adds and address some needs.

Still, there’s a stat that was alarming about Illinois’ 2016 class that can’t be repeated in 2017. The program didn’t land A SINGLE ONE of the top 25 recruits in the state of Illinois. They were the only B1G program that failed to do so.

In Illinois’ current fragile state, that can’t happen again.

Every extra day Whitman drags his feet on Cubit’s future, he risks another coach telling a recruit that nobody knows will be the coach at Illinois in 2017.

Recruiting is the main reason lame-duck contracts don’t happen in today’s world of college athletics. Two years is the closest thing to lame that you’ll see.

RELATED: Way too early 2016 look: Illinois

By making that offer to Cubit, the university basically put off making the tough decision so that whoever was hired as AD could make it. It wouldn’t have made much sense for the university to make Whitman’s first major hire for him and then ask him to deal with the consequences. It would’ve made more sense if it had fired Mike Thomas back when Tim Beckman was let go amidst the player mistreatment scandal.

Instead, Illinois dragged its feet on Thomas’ firing and Whitman’s hiring. As a result, he can’t afford to wait until the end of 2016 to make his first major move. Too many recruits and assistant coaches will have found other more stable homes by then.

Whitman was praised at Division III Washington University for making 15 staff changes in his first 18 months as AD. That, plus his background playing for Illinois and working in the athletic department, landed him this new opportunity.

At his introductory press conference on Thursday, interim chancellor Barbara Wilson beamed while talking about this being a homecoming for Whitman, to which he responded by saying he hopes this is the last job he ever has.

He can start by doing the exact opposite of what got Illinois into its current predicament.