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It’s a new era in Champaign.
Lovie Smith is out after 5 seasons as Illinois head coach. Bret Bielema is in, returning to the Big Ten for the first time since coaching at Wisconsin from 2006-12.
Bielema has his work cut out for him after Smith’s rough 2-6 final season with the Illini, and wasting no time he got busy on the recruiting trail. The new class features 18 rising freshmen and 8 transfers.
There are plenty of questions surrounding Bielema’s Fighting Illini in 2021. With questions, come concerns. Here are 5 of them:
1. How will Bielema adjust back to college football?
After being fired from Arkansas in 2017, Bielema spent the last 3 years in the NFL, working for the New England Patriots in 2018-19 and the New York Giants in 2020.
But the NFL is a different game from the college game, and Bielema hasn’t coached at the collegiate level since Baker Mayfield won the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma. It’s a different landscape than 4 years ago — and Bielema knows he has to roll with the changes.
“We will use tempo, we’ll use the clock, we’ll use hurry-up, we’ll also play slow ball,” Bielema said, according to IlliniInquirer.com. “… But I think the evolution of college football when I was in the Big Ten, and especially when I went to the SEC, changed when certain traditional powerhouse teams converted and became more modern with what the college rules allow you to do.”
How Bielema adjusts to the changed game will certainly be something to watch this season.
2. How will Isaiah Williams and Marquez Beason handle the transition to WR?
Isaiah Williams came to Champaign as a highly touted quarterback prospect. Marquez Beason was 247Sports’ 99th-ranked recruit in 2019 as a cornerback.
This year, they’re both moving to a new position: wide receiver.
It won’t be the first time Williams will line up outside — he had 3 catches for 9 yards in the 2019 Redbox Bowl — but it’ll still be an adjustment for the St. Louis native. For Beason, his first 2 seasons have been riddled with injuries, which is what makes his move to the other side of the ball even more interesting.
Bielema has gotten creative to fill the position after losing last year’s leading receiver, Josh Imatorbhebhe, to the NFL. Even after getting Casey Washington back out of the transfer portal, Bielema landed Notre Dame transfer Jafar Armstrong and has freshman recruit Patrick Bryant coming in, as well.
3. Can Brandon Peters get back on track?
Brandon Peters is entering his 6th season in college football.
That’s not a typo.
The Illini quarterback, who transferred from Michigan prior to the 2019 season, went 39-for-80 for 429 yards and 3 touchdowns in 2020. The year before, he threw for 1,884 touchdowns and 18 touchdowns.
That’s quite a step backward, and he needs to make up for it with three steps forward this season if Illinois wants to be competitive. Bielema said Peters has looked good in practice and spring games, but that needs to translate to the regular season.
With Rutgers transfer Artur Sitkowski coming into the quarterback room, the pressure should be on Peters to perform this season.
4. Can the defense crack down?
The Illini defense allowed 34.9 points per game last season, the second-highest total in the Big Ten.
When the offense only scores 20.1 points per game, that’s a recipe for disaster.
But Bielema worked with NFL defenses the last 3 seasons, notably a 3-4 defense in New York, and spent much of the offseason with the defensive staff building a new scheme for the Illini. Illinois also lost its top cornerback, Nate Hobbs, to the NFL, meaning returning second-team All-Big Ten edge rusher Owen Carney is set to anchor the new defense.
It’ll take time to implement, but the defense will certainly be one of the biggest areas the Illini need to address in 2021.
5. Will it work?
The final concern for this year’s Illinois team is simple: Will all of this work?
This is athletic director Josh Whitman’s second big swing at a football coach hire after hiring Smith in 2016, 2 months after he was fired from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
But unlike Smith, Bielema has proven he can win at the collegiate level, going 64-24 at Wisconsin. But the situation at Illinois is more similar to the one Bielema inherited at Arkansas, where he went 3-9 in his first season before turning in 3 straight winning seasons.
Still, it sounds like he’s ready to start building.
“I see it as a land of opportunity,” Bielema said at his introductory press conference in December. “One of the messages I gave to the team was we aren’t just talking about success five years from now, we are talking about success as fast as we can. The part that we have to understand as coaches is that we need to get it right the first time.”
It might not happen overnight — that’s just the nature of college sports — but Bielema sounds like he has a vision for the program.
Now, it’s all about turning that vision into reality.
Nick Schultz is a columnist and breaking news writer for Saturday Tradition. A 2020 graduate of Loyola Chicago, he covered the Ramblers' 2018 Final Four run from beginning to end and has worked at NBC Sports Chicago. Follow Nick on Twitter @NickSchultz_7.